But Planned Parenthood Has Different Ideas

KSDK:

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (AP) — A judge has ordered a 19-year-old man to write an apology to a the city of Saratoga Springs in New York for dressing in an offensive costume at a high school graduation.

Calvin Morett had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for dressing in a 6-foot penis costume at the graduation at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. A video of his visit last month has appeared on YouTube.

The judge has also ordered Morett to pay to have the apology published in a local newspaper, pay court fees and perform 24 hours of community service.

His timing was wrong.  If this were an STD prevention skit, everything would have been alright.  As it is, PP was probably looking for a six-foot long condom.

A Tornado Is Coming. Who Would You Rather Have Near? Some Boy Scouts, or a Bunch of Free Spirits?

WND:

Feds boot Boy Scouts for Rainbow Family

About 1,000 members of the honor society for the Boy Scouts of America have been booted from a long-planned national service project in Wyoming by federal officials in favor of a gathering by the “Rainbow Family,” an unorganized annual assembly of “free spirits” who commune with nature and each other.

The action has left local leaders infuriated.

Before you answer the question that serves as the title of this blog post, consider this:  If the free spirits see CPR being performed, they probably think that it’s an S&M ritual.

UPDATE 7/6: That “Rainbow Family,” the one so tolerant that they didn’t want the Boy Scouts and their discriminatory selves anywhere near them?  Turns out they’re not so tolerant themselves.  Ten National Forest Rangers were assaulted by a mob of 400 of the “Rainbow Family.”  More like Manson Family.

“Look Everyone. I Graduated From John School.”

San Francisco Chronicle:

John school takes a bite out of prostitution

Every two months, Valentina visits about 30 men enrolled in San Francisco’s “john school” to tell them a sex story they don’t want to hear.

The men are part of the city’s First Offender Prostitution Program because they’ve been arrested for soliciting a prostitute, usually in the Mission or Tenderloin. If they agree to pay a $1,000 fee and spend a Saturday afternoon listening to sex-trafficking experts, neighborhood activists and doctors who subject them to photographs of venereal diseases, the district attorney’s office will drop the misdemeanor charge.

(snip)

“The punch line is, these programs work,” said Michael Shively, a criminologist at Abt Associates, a Massachusetts-based research firm and the primary author of the two-year study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice. “Some men are probably responding to the appeal of their own self interests, which in the class emphasizes the personal risk they face if they continue to involve themselves in prostitution. And some men may be responding to the information conveyed about the harm they are causing the women they hire, and to the communities where the prostitution takes place.”

The programs work? Then that is a punch line. This means that, if this article is telling the truth, there are some adult men in San Francisco who didn’t know that sexual promiscuity spreads certain diseases. This is something that most people learn by the 7th grade.

The Awful Not-So-Awesome Threesome

According to an ex-aide, someone who was once the mayor of a NJ city with “wood” in its name, former New Jersey Governor and future Episcopal priest Jim “The Gay American” McGreevey let him be the number three in threesomes involving Mrs. McGreevey. Naturally, she denies it.

But if it’s true, she has a very good reason to deny deny deny. By admitting it, it means that she obviously knew that he was cheating on her, and worse, she enabled it. A man and a woman promise each other a monopoly on their romantic affections, sexual and otherwise, upon marriage. Not only did Mrs. McG not have a monopoly on her husband’s romantic affections during the marriage, she didn’t even have a monopoly on his romantic affections during actual romance.

And depending on what actually happened during these threesomes, we might know whether JM now plays pitcher or catcher.

To Have a Sociologist for a Spouse

LiveScience, on Eliot Spiter and the sociology of marital infidelity:

“Some sociologists have argued that ‘being faithful’ is the central, defining norm of marriage,” said Paul Amato, a professor of sociology at Penn State. “Although marriage implies multiple obligations, the obligation to be sexually faithful to one’s spouse seems to carry the most weight.”

No kidding.  So that’s how it works.  I would have never guessed.

Note the weasel word — “some” sociologists?  You mean there are some who don’t think so?  I would hate to have to be the spouse of a sociologist who thinks that sexual and romantic fidelity isn’t that important.

To Each According To His Prophylactic Needs

The good news is that the Mizzou campus student government, funded by per-semester fees paid by the students themselves, and not the University itself, will be funding the communal condom bowls that will soon exist in every dorm.

However, I still can’t countenance the idea that condoms are a civil right for and a collective responsibility among the University of Missouri’s undergraduate student body. Virtually all of Mizzou’s undergrads are at least 17 years of age, and are thus legal adults in this state when it comes to sexual relations and criminal responsibility. As such, those adults, like most adults in Columbia, Missouri, and elsewhere, should head to the drug store and plop down the six bucks and change for a box like the rest of us. If they don’t have the six bucks, or the ambition to go do a drug store, then they really have no business having sex. If they have no need for condoms, then they shouldn’t be made to pay for such needs of others.

As it is, Mizzou gives out condoms at several locations on the campus, that distribution paid for by the University itself.  But the bright idea behind distributing them in the dorms is that actually leaving the dorm and heading to the Student Health Center is too inconvenient and too embarrassing for some students — taking condoms in public view is supposedly embarrassing, but the sex that the condoms imply isn’t embarrassing.  I suppose that there are a few students left who think that there is some sort of prudish moral atmosphere at Mizzou (consistently rated one of the country’s biggest party schools) that will ridicule their sex lives.

England Has Officially Surrendered In The Culture Wars

He on the left is a Tory MP and Shadow Business Secretary Alan Duncan.  (S)he on the right is James Dunseath, nobody in particular.  They have announced their intentions to enter a “civil partnership.”

Tory Party leader, and potential Prime Minister David Cameron is going to attend the ceremony.  Maybe he’ll also give the bride away.

Cameron has already come out for homosexual civil partnerships, and now one of his party’s brood in Parliament is taking advantage of the new provisions.  If the Brits would have had this kind of attitude during the Blitz, the ones not turned into lampshades would be speaking German today.

Trash Pants

Someone e-mailed me pointing to this site, called Trash Pants. Trash Pants are a series of pants that appear somewhat baggy, and appear to sag, but the appearance of exposed boxer shorts are built in, and actually part of the pants themselves. The person who e-mailed me was the founder of the company, who thanked me for what she thought was reasonable commentary on this blogmeister’s part about the political paranoia about sagging pants, though she and I have disagreements about a few things.

However, here’s an interesting dilemma. What if you buy a pair of Trash Pants, and you wear them in public within the city limits of, e.g. Delcambre, Louisiana? You will appear to be violating the town’s ordinance, and you will surely be detained by one of the city’s Finest, but because that which appears to be the boxer shorts are actually part of the pants, you’re literally not. Does the cop cite you, or not?

I-Heart-NY

Why would this “free” New York product work any better than its “free” public schools?  Yet, the city’s denizens take that risk about three million times a month.  There will even be dispensing machines for these things in around 900 of the city’s establishments.  Too bad you couldn’t buy the cigarettes that you’ll want to smoke afterwards out of a dispensing machine anymore.

As for me, I’d rather play it safe with that which requires “tuition.”

Brooksville, Fla. Man Honors Racial Diversity

That’s the argument that Christopher Holder, 19, could use in court.

Virginia Beach Mall Patrons Make Stand Against Sagging

In this instance, the sagging is even more irritating if the man wearing droopy pants doesn’t appear to be wearing anything else.

Other than the obvious reasons, I have never understood why A&F’s advertising is essentially soft core porn.  Aren’t they in the business of selling clothing?  It seems contradictory to glorify the lack of clothing while you’re trying to sell clothing.

The Los Angeles Unified School District: Not a Peddler of Right-Wing Paranoia

This is a screenshot of part of the LAUSD’s REF-1557 Directive, on “Transgender and Gender Nonconformist Students.”  The Directive is meant to comply with what is now California State Law, as passed by SB 777, and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Some left-wingers said that the right was being paranoid and sensationalist when they made the contention that measures like SB 777 and similar ones in other states, ones meant to ensure non-discrimination against TG/TS/GNC (Transgender/Transsexual/Gender Non-Conformist) individuals, would allow people of one physical gender to use the other’s locker rooms and showers.

We’re only paranoid if they’re not really out to do it.  However, “it” may be more vague than it seems at first sight.

It says that schools “may” (not “shall”), e.g., let boys who claim to be girls use the girls’ locker room.  Does this mean the schools have the option not to let them?  Those of us who study the conceal-carry issue know that there is a world of difference between “may” and “shall.”

It then states “If there is a reason for increased privacy and safety…” then several alternatives are presented for post-athletic hygiene.  Who gets to decide if there is a reason?  The GNC student, or the school staff, or either one?

While a lot of this language is vague, I get the feeling that it’s worded this way to appear that the LAUSD is complying with California law, but at the same time it will allow school staff to prevent there actually being mixed physical genders in a given locker room.  In other words, it might be the safety valve against every pervert teenage boy at the school feigning GNC in order to gawk at naked girls.  I bet that all of the students who are (or will soon be claiming) TS/TG/GNC will be deemed a “privacy and safety” concern for those who are verily of their chosen gender in their relevant locker rooms, and thus will be made to shower in a broom closet.

Similar vague language is used in REF-1557’s section about GNC and restrooms.  However, that section adds the option of unisex restrooms, which, in practicality, is where such students will be sent to relieve themselves.

However, most of REF-1557 isn’t so vague.  We find in the Directive that GNC students will be allowed to conform to the dress code of their chosen gender, and teachers and other school staff must use the pronouns in reference to a GNC student commensurate with “his” or “her” chosen gender.

For the Older Children

WND article about Califaztlan’s new homosexual-friendly public schools:

For older children, such as those in fifth grade, there’s a book called “Coping With … Your Sexual Orientation” and it is “especially designed for the public school system.”

Yep, for those 10- and 11-year old veterans of the dating scene in gay bars.

When I was 10 years old, the only thing I was “coping with” was mastering the formula to calculate a baseball pitcher’s ERA, and trying to figure out why this fellow named “Oliver North” was in trouble.

Defeating the Purpose

The Local of Sweden:

Army castrates heraldic lion

Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup’s coat of arms.

The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Göteborgs-Posten reports.

What for?  It’s not the case for women that join the military, but that’s what certain kinds of civilian women that hang around military bases are looking for.

Will Cardinal Justin Rigali Save the Boy Scouts?

He just might.  Philadelphia’s effort to evict the Boy Scouts from city-owned property, based on their refusal to adopt total equality for those of an alternate orientation, might have a disparate impact on the Catholic Diocese of Philadelphia.

And who’s leading that?  A very familiar name to St. Louisans.

Nothing to Learn

The Blotter:

New Sexual Escapades in Capitol Page Program

A year after the Congressional page program was thrown into turmoil by the Mark Foley scandal, sexual escapades and a shoplifting spree by teenage Capitol aides have ignited new controversy.

Two Republican lawmakers have announced they will quit the panel that oversees the page program. The page program brings 15- and 16-year-old students to Washington to study and work as assistants in congressional offices.

Reps. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.,  said they were not properly informed about two recent incidents involving the young pages, including ones in which pages allegedly performed oral sex on each other.

(snip)

In a separate incident, two pages were reportedly caught shoplifting from the Pentagon City mall in suburban Virginia. CQ said the same PAGES had been nabbed shoplifting from a store in Washington, D.C.’s Union Station, as well. One of the shoplifters was charged with a felony, Brown-Waite and another source told the Post. Both have been dismissed from the program.

“You have learned nothing from the lessons of the Mark Foley scandal,” Brown-Waite scolded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a letter announcing her resignation. Pelosi oversees House Clerk Lorraine Miller, who operates the page program.

Of course Pelosi has “learned nothing from the … Foley scandal,” because there was nothing to learn.  The Foley “scandal” had nothing to do with “learning” or “reforming.”  It was a media-driven triviality, an October surprise that the MSM knew of months earlier, a MSM “ace in the hole” that the pulled out at just the right time in the 2006 campaign season, in order to discourage religious right votes from voting Republican.  In doing so, they contradicted themselves at many turns and peddled the same kind of “homophobic bigotry” they would oppose others doing, but the ends justified the means, I suppose.

This is why this story won’t be heard much beyond this ABC The Blotter post.

All Things Just Keep Getting Muddled

AP article about Democrats and their plans to expand national service programs has this tucked away in the middle:

Asked if he would try to legalize gay marriages, Obama said he would not do so at the federal level, but would ensure that same-sex couples are guaranteed the same rights and benefits as married couples.

I didn’t know that there were marriages under the auspices of the Federal government.  If I’m right, then BHO is engaging in empty semantics with the first part of his answer, but the second part indicates that he essentially recognizes them.

If anything has to be done with gay “marriage” and the Federal government, it will have to figure out a way to solve the filing status paradox.  The IRS does not recognize homosexual marriage, but they also mandate that your filing status on your Federal return and your State return (if your state has income taxes) are the same.  You can see how this creates a conundrum in Massachusetts –  If you’re a gay married couple there, you either have to tell the truth to the Feds and lie to the state, or vice versa, and you certainly couldn’t tell the truth to both.  If it hasn’t already, the IRS or Congress will have to allow for different filing statuses for individuals in certain states and circumstances.

Get the Cotton Out of Your Ears and Listen

AP profiles Pine Lawn and other cities passing anti-sagging ordinances.

From the tone of the article, it still seems that the NAACP/ACLU types are going to use disparate racial impact of the 14th as their weapon to argue their unconstitutionality.  That’s a risky strategy, because there are conservative judges who don’t buy the notion that disparate impact always amounts to illegal discrimination.  An argument that virtually every judge would buy is substantive due process of the 5th.

Also, the PR of arguing that “the laws are picking on blacks” won’t fly, but “it’s arbitrary and impossible to enforce” will.

In addition:

Two years ago, the Virginia Senate defeated a saggy pants ban passed by the House, but not before it became an international embarrassment, said David Hudson Jr., a legal scholar at the Nashville-based First Amendment Center.

He finds it bizarre that cities spend so much time regulating clothing.

“I’m not sure what it really serves,” Hudson said. “They should solve some real problems.”

I equate the “saggy pants” mania to the obsession with “English-only” among anti-immigration activists.  The city of Miami has an English-only ordinance — look how well it worked.  Also, I get the feeling that the politicians who want to pass these anti-sagging ordinances think that the saggers will turn into Ivy League Ph.Ds if they merely pull their pants up.  They’re both distractions from the real issue.

Who Didn’t See This Coming?

Sky News:

Shock rock singer Marilyn Manson has been accused of squandering his band’s profit on a child’s skeleton and masks made of human skin.

Keyboardist Stephen “Pogo” Bier filed a breach of contract lawsuit in August in which he accused Manson of taking cash belonging to the rest of the band to pay for the “sick and disturbing” purchases.

In related news, the sun rose in the east this morning.

It’s hard to tell which Manson is crazier:  Marilyn, or Charles.

They Used to Call Them “Whore Houses.” Now, the New PC B-School Speak is “Less Values-Oriented Hotel.”

WND:

Hotel chains are removing Bibles from guest rooms, replacing them with “intimacy kits” and adding “One Night Stand” packages as well as “romance concierge” personnel to their offerings, according to a new report in Newsweek.

Tens of thousands of Americans are protesting the trend, through an action e-mail alert sponsored by American Family Association.

The Newsweek report by Roya Wolverson suggested a new marketing campaign could be based on the apparent values-less programs that are appearing.

“Marriott spokesman John Wolf says the Bible question [whether to include them in guest rooms] is premature for the new [boutique hotel] venture, which he describes as ‘cutting-edge,’ ‘more urban’ and ‘less values-oriented.’ Now, there’s a marketing slogan no one’s tried yet: ‘Sleep with us. Leave the values at home!’” Wolverson wrote.

Wolverson reported the American Hotel and Lodging Association confirms since 2001 the number of luxury hotels with religious materials in their rooms has dropped by 18 percent, and the Nashville-based Gideons International, which has supplied Bibles for hotel and motel rooms for the last 99 years, isn’t commenting on the trend.

The reason the Gideons placed Bibles in hotel rooms is because business trips have always been a time of temptation.  The Bibles were placed in the drawers of the night stands of hotel rooms to remind the hotel’s guests that there is right and wrong, and a house full of people in the guest’s home town that depend on the guest’s knowing right from wrong.  Now, hotels seem to be content to enable the temptations.

And, of course, inexpensive motels have often been used as impromptu flop houses.  If they start doing the “intimacy kit” thing, they are essentially countenancing prostitution.

Education’s Mixed Messages

Teenage boys can’t wear skirts as part of a facetious cross-dressing annual stunt at a high school in North Hampton, Penn., where the boys and girls switch football-cheerleading roles.  But if those same young men were in Montgomery County, Maryland, and they were serious cross-dressers as a result of being purportedly transgendered, they could use the girls’ locker rooms.

No hugging, or any other public displays of affection in Mascoutah, Illinois (near St. Louis), nor in many other schools, but I’m sure many of these same schools also have free condom giveaways that condone a more serious display of affection, presumably outside of school grounds.

As an aside, there’s a Machiavellian part of me that thinks that psuedo-TG/TS boys and men barging in on girls’ and women’s locker rooms is sweet revenge for girls and women barging into boy’s and men’s locker rooms under the pretense of “sports journalism.”  Though quite honestly, I don’t even want men barging into men’s locker rooms for journalistic purposes — as if there’s nothing more important going on in the world, they just can’t wait until a professional or amateur athlete puts some clothes on to ask him about how well or badly he kicked/hit/threw/shot/hurled/caught/spiked a ball/puck/thigamagig.

“Any Twosome” Newsom Wins Another Term

As Mayor of San Francisco.  He had no serious opposition, in spite of his affairs, booze, and his futile effort to enact gay marriage in San Francisco.  Or maybe he won because of those things.  If anything would have sunk him, it was his refusal to jettison the high school auxiliary to “Homophobia, Inc.”

What people don’t remember, especially people who were taken aback at his attempt to flaunt state law to wed homosexuals, is that when Newsom won his first term as Mayor four years ago, he was actually the more conservative of two credible candidates running.  The other one was an out-and-outright Marxist with a Spanish surname, who complained that the city needed to do more about the “homeless,” even though if you listen to Michael Savage for more than ten seconds, you’ll know that SF panders to the “homeless” (really, violent transients) in the worst way, in the areas of city-funded welfare payments, to leniency from the city’s cops, and in other ways.  And all that wasn’t enough for that particular candidate who lost (but not by a big margin) four years ago.

I Now Pronounce You Husband and Robot

Breitbart:

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands, Oct. 11 (UPI) — The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.

David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners,” that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.

Great, now we have another front in the culture wars.  It’ll be just a few years before Human-Robot marriages become law in Massachusetts.

Asa Coon Stack of Stuff

(1)  He was a Marilyn Mansonite and a goth, which made him stand out like a sore thumb in the mostly-black school.

(2)  The school has metal detectors, but he was able to get guns inside the school anyway.  So much for metal detectors, and so much for gun-free zones.

Scratch Omnipotence

WaPo:

Baseball players sometimes cross themselves before getting into the batter’s box. Basketball players might look up for divine support before a free throw. Some soccer players kiss crucifixes around their necks after scoring a goal.

But perhaps no sport is more associated with prayer than football, as teams from the NFL to high schools often pray before games in the locker room, during games, on the sidelines and after games, huddled with opponents in the middle of the field.

After leading his team in prayers for 23 years, Marcus Borden, a football coach in East Brunswick, N.J., is involved in a legal battle that is pushing the courts to decide the boundaries of acceptable religious activity for coaches and other educators in public schools.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit heard arguments on whether Borden has the right to bow his head and kneel while his players pray around him. Borden says he is not leading his players in prayer but simply supporting them. School officials say the coach should not participate in the prayers.

I don’t know which deity the Rams are praying to, but omnipotence does not seem to be one of his/her/its virtues. They just might salvage their season if they find out to which God the New England Patriots pray.

Not Worthless, Not Yet

The bad news is that this pervert tried to solicit sex from what he thought was an 11-year old girl. The good news is that somebody still thinks that Miami Dolphins tickets are worth something.

This article about the pervert mentions that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was involved in the sting. I wonder if the pervert was an illegal alien, or if ICE agents are just looking for something to do now that they only get involved in immigration stuff every once in a blue moon.

Nobody Knows the Score

American Thinker:

Huck Finn must be spinning in his literary grave. Just recently a Colorado Springs, Co., elementary school banned tag during recess, joining other schools that have prohibited this childhood pastime. Upon hearing this, I thought about the movement to ban cops and robbers, musical chairs, steal the bacon, and the kill-joys’ most frequent target and this writer’s favorite childhood school game, dodge ball. Then there’s the more inane still, such as the decision by the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association to prohibit keeping score in kids’ tournament play.

There are many ways to describe this trend. One might say it’s a result of the left’s antipathy toward competition, the increasing litigiousness of the day, or the inordinate concern with self-esteem and hurt feelings. Then, if I am to speak only of my feelings, the word stupid comes to mind. Really, though, regardless of whether the motivations are good or ill or the reasoning sound or not, at the end of the day I find a conclusion inescapable. Slowly, incrementally, perversely, boyhood is being banned.

(snip)

Getting back to the People’s Republic of Massachusetts’ soccer league, it was so concerned about the poor little eggs’ feelings that it also decided no one should get trophies. This isn’t unusual, as the practice of awarding trophies to all or none is now often adopted, lest a tear run down a cherubic face. Moreover, frowning upon competition - which boys thrive on –isn’t limited to frivolous pursuits, as schools increasingly dispense with merit-based academic models in favor of schemes such as “Outcome Based Education” (it’s nothing like what it sounds).

The rest of this article is lenghty, but worth the time.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and if boyish competition is so wrong for 8-year olds that the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Ass’n is going to eliminate game scoring, why isn’t it wrong anymore when that 8-year old boy becomes a 14-year old teenager and dons the uniforms and jerseys of his secondary school, or becomes an 18-year old man and does the same for, e.g. the Boston College Eagles, or becomes a 21-year old man and does the same for, e.g. the New England Patriots or the Boston Red Sox, this time with the added benefit of a paycheck? Last I looked, they still keep score in high school, college, and the pros.

Come to think of it, speaking as a St. Louisan, I only wish the state of Massachusetts would have banned all scoring in every organized team athletic event about six years ago.

Only Now It’s a Problem?

St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press:

SAVANNAH, Mo. - A rap video recently posted on YouTube threatened violence and rape against police, destruction of a community and bragged about an ability to beat charges on the road to fame.

Andrew County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Stevenson released charges and a probable cause statement Tuesday laced with profanity uttered by two Savannah men suspected in the plot. In it, 20-year-old suspects Kenneth Darrell Black Jr. and Benjamin D. Stevens allegedly outline plans to kill Savannah Police Chief David Vincent and Andrew County Sheriff Gary Howard, along with a number of officers and deputies. The video also targets Associate Judge Michael Ordnung and describes a conspiracy to rape a female police officer.

The “Kop Killa” video threatens Savannah or Country Club Village “like a … Godzilla,” said one felony count of making a terroristic threat filed against Mr. Black and Mr. Stevens.

Both men face felony counts of conspiring to commit second-degree assault with a gun against law enforcement officers, conspiracy to commit rape, tampering with a judicial officer and the terroristic threats against both communities. They also face a misdemeanor offense of peace disturbance against multiple officers and deputies.

Other than the town in which it happened, which is in rural northwestern Missouri, and it has no minority magnets like a college or university, and even without their photos, I can tell that Messrs. Black and Stevens are white, simply because they were actually charged with producing and publishing a rap video that had insinuations of physical violence.

If they were black or Hispanic, and did this, (and, notwithstanding specific threats against named individual authorities and persons, this was standard fare in the rap and hip-hop genre for quite awhile), it would be considered free speech, and an understandable reaction to centuries of racism, discrimination and oppression, and if any cop or authority dared touch them for doing so, the entirety of the ACLU, or the NAACP (if they were black) or MALDEF (if they were Hispanic) would be lining up to defend them and to impugn the motives of the authorities.

Why Not?

EDGE Boston via Michael Savage:

One of four men accused of attacking gay victim Michael Sandy last year, and chasing him into traffic where he was struck by a car, claimed yesterday that he himself is gay.

Anthony Fortunato’s lawyer, Gerald J. Di Chiara, made the claim on behalf of his client in the Brooklyn Supreme Court as the trial commenced yesterday, offering the claim to the jury as part of his opening statement, the New York Times reported in a story posted online today.

Prosecutors have characterized the attack on Sandy as a hate crime, saying that Sandy was targeted because of his sexuality.

(snip)

Fortunato’s lawyer Di Chiara used essentially the same argument, though by including a claim that Fortunato is gay, he may be attempting to introduce a sympathetic element. Outside of court, Di Chiara offered the scenario of a young gay man unsure of how his friends would react to his sexuality and testing their level of anti-gay sentiment by luring someone else into contact with them.

Assuming that this isn’t a ploy on Mr. Fortunato’s part to try and get the hate crimes riders dropped, and therefore reducing the time he might have to spend in prison for this assault, by trying to convince a judge or a jury that it’s impossible for a gay to commit an anti-gay hate crime, I’m not buying it. After all, it is possible and feasible for people of one category to hate their own, and in theory, commit hate crimes against their own. Noel Ignatiev is proof of that.*

* - This should not be construed to mean that Mr. Ignatiev has actually ever committed an anti-white hate crime.

No Sagging In New Jersey State Capital

Trenton, People’s Republic of New Jersey is the latest city considering an anti-sagging ordinance. Only this proposed law would have a twist, compared to other similar laws in other cities — along with a fine, you would be directed to a city worker who would assess your present life situation based on whether you have a job and/or a high school diploma.

In other words, if you’re unemployed and undereducated in Trenton, and you wear your pants at waist level, then you can just lump it. If you need help, pull down your pants, and wait for a cop to pass you by.

AP:

The bare-your-britches fashion is believed to have started in prisons, where inmates aren’t given belts with their baggy uniform pants to prevent hangings and beatings. By the late 80s, the trend had made it to gangster rap videos, then went on to skateboarders in the suburbs and high school hallways.

That’s one of two credible theories I have heard for the origin of sagging. The other, also involving prisons, is that men who were looking to be “done” (or were forced into such a situation) wore their prison garb low to advertise their availability.

Shop owner Mack Murray said Trenton’s proposed ordinance unfairly targets blacks.

“Are they going to go after construction workers and plumbers, because their pants sag, too?” Murray asked. “They’re stereotyping us.”

The American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

“In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling,” said Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. “It’s going to target African-American male youths. There’s a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed.”

Now where would people get a silly idea like that? Actually, we all knew that the ACLU et al. would play the disparate racial impact card. I think they would do much better to use substantive due process, a purely Constitutional and civil liberties concern, to knock back these laws. It’s like anything else, would those who like to sag their britches all of a sudden become model citizens if they pulled them up?

Who knows? Maybe the real reason Trenton is doing is this that the Governor doesn’t like looking at droopy pants — if he sees them, he might run away, really really quickly.