Tag Archives: freedom

On an Ohio Early Voting Ruling

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The 6th Circuit has ruled on Ohio’s Golden Week of voting, which allowed an extra week of early voting together with same-day voter registration.  Ohio had withdrawn that week in 2014 legislation, leaving 29 days before November’s formal voting day for voter registration and early voting.  The appellate court, in response to Democrats’ suit and win in trial court, overturned the trial court and allowed the removal of Golden Week to stand.  As a result, Ohioans will have those 29 days, instead of 36 days, in which to register to vote and then to vote.

Democrats had challenged the procedural changes, arguing they imposed disproportionate burdens on African-Americans, who made greater use of the golden-week voting….

How blatantly disingenuous of the Democrats.  That a particular group of Americans uses a week’s early privilege more than other groups of Americans in no way burdens the particular group when they lose that week, given the vast amount of time remaining in which all groups of Americans can exercise their right to register to vote and then to vote.

How insulting of the Democrats toward a particular group of Americans to assume that members of that group are too stupid or lazy to make use of the remaining amount of time to exercise their right to register to vote and then to vote.

How utterly racist of the Democrats to assume that blacks are simply too stupid to use the remaining amount of time to exercise their right to register to vote and then to vote and so need the protection of their Betters to take care of them.

California’s Disdain

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…for religion is made manifest by its SB 1146, Equity in Higher Education Act, currently under consideration before the California Senate.

As it currently stands, parochial schools—church schools, religious schools, schools run according to a clearly stated set of religious tenets—are exempt from discrimination laws where such discrimination is centered on religious beliefs.  Schools and their students are free to follow their conscience and to require employees, and students, to adhere to certain basic sets of behaviors.  As Archbishop Jose Gomez and Bishop Charles Blake put it in their piece,

Current California law exempts religious schools from nondiscrimination laws in cases where applying these laws “would not be consistent with the religious tenets of that organization.”
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For years now, this policy has worked well, enabling church-run colleges and universities to hire personnel and establish policies and expectations regarding religious practice and personal conduct that reflect their beliefs and values.

California State Senator Ricardo Lara’s (D) bill seeks to destroy this (Gomez and Blake are more polite about Lara’s motive and his bill’s overall impact.  I don’t agree, though, that Lara doesn’t understand what he’s doing).  His bill would only exempt seminaries or other schools that train clergy and ministers; it would rescind that religious freedom protection everywhere else.

Any other faith-based school that receives state monies or enrolls students who depend on the Cal Grants financial aid program would be forced to change their policies to accommodate practices that in some cases would be contrary to their beliefs and teachings.

Detailed provisions in the legislation include rules for bathroom use and sleeping arrangements in dormitories. The bill even has the government setting guidelines for what “religious practices” and “rules for moral conduct” will be acceptable on these campuses.

All in the guise of “protecting” individual choice.  Never mind, though, that Lara knows full well that those who wish to work or study at these schools are making their choice at that point.  Never mind, either, that Lara knows full well that his bill allows those who disagree with the school’s religious tenets can attend, or get hired, and then force the school to violate its own tenets to accommodate these.

Never mind, either, that Lara knows full well the damage his bill will do to those he claims to be trying to help, low-income and minority families—including millions served by our respective faith communities here in Los Angeles.  As Gomez and Blake note—and as Lara surely knows—60% of these religious schools’ students are minorities and nearly 90% need financial aid.  Aid that Lara’s bill would cut off unless these schools kowtow to his demands.

It shouldn’t take elders of the religious community to point this out.  Any lay person—me, for instance—can see this plainly.  Which means, in particular, that Lara, whose bill this is, sees it plainly.  And doesn’t care.

Keep in mind one other thing, too.  Rights granted by Government, or presumed granted by Government, can be withdrawn by Government, too, and at that Government’s whim.  Lara’s bill is a clear demonstration of that.

A Judicial Error Regarding the 2nd Amendment

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A Federal trial judge in Seattle has ruled that it’s OK for the Federal government, in the form of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to ban ammunition originally “designed” for AK-47 rifles.  The ammunition in question, Russian-manufacutered 7N6 armor-piercing rounds had been imported prior to BATF’s ban, to the tune of 100 million rounds, and as the importer, PW Arms Inc noted in its suit—the one in which the trial judge ruled for BATF—none of those rounds had been misused.  PW Arms noted in its suit

In fact, before ATF banned 7N6, this ammunition was used lawfully by sportsmen as rifle ammunition for target shooting.

In 2014, though, BATF decided it didn’t like this and instituted its ban.

The Seattle-based Federal judge screwed this one up badly.  As we all know, a ban on ammunition is a ban on the weapons that use them—which is a violation of our right to keep and bear those Arms.

This is another example, too, of the jeopardy in which our judiciary will be under a Clinton White House and Democratic Party Senate.

Another Judicial Misbehavior

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The Fifth Circuit, in a 9-6 ruling, has said that Texas’ Voter ID law violates the Federal Voting Rights Act and returned it to the trial court to…fix…it.

[The appellate court] instructed a lower court to come up with an “interim remedy” before the November election.

Therein lies a major part of the problem.  Regardless of what one might think of the particular law, any alteration to it is a political matter, to be done by the people and their elected representatives.  The courts have no authority whatsoever to write law or to rewrite an extant one; indeed, our Constitution explicitly bars the courts from such things.

There’s more.  Writing for the majority, Judge Catharina Haynes wrote this, having already acknowledged that there is no direct evidence of discriminatory intent.

In this day and age we rarely have legislators announcing an intent to discriminate based upon race, whether in public speeches or private correspondence. To require direct evidence of intent would essentially give legislatures free reign to racially discriminate so long as they do not overtly state discrimination as their purpose and so long as they proffer a seemingly neutral reason for their actions.  This approach would ignore the reality that neutral reasons can and do mask racial intent….

In other words, whenever legislators disagree with judges, judges must proceed from a presumption of dishonesty on the part of the legislators.  Direct evidence be damned.

[C]ourts may consider both circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available.

Because circumstantial evidence, especially in the absence of direct evidence, can be interpreted in any way convenient to the judge’s predisposition—or to a litigant’s narrative.  That’s why circumstantial evidence is so sketchy in the first place.

The dissent, written by Judge Edith Jones, makes the majority’s shameful behavior plain.

No one doubts our unwavering duty to enforce antidiscrimination law. But in this media-driven and hyperbolic era, the discharge of that duty requires the courage to distinguish between invidious motivation and shadows. The ill-conceived, misguided, and unsupported majority opinion shuns discernment. Because of definitive Supreme Court authority, no comparable federal court precedent in over forty years has found a state legislative act motivated by purposeful racial discrimination.

All of that represents a very serious bit of judicial misbehavior, and it puts a premium on getting this 2016 election right.  A Progressive-Democrat in the White House, together with a Democrat-owned [sic] Senate, will have damaging effects far beyond the Supreme Court damage I’ve been on about in other articles: they’ll have their impact on lower courts, too, and throughout our judicial system.

The ruling can be seen here.

Welcome to the Bigs

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…and to the way the People’s Republic of China treats its foes, Mr President,

Recall that the PRC was resoundingly crushed in a case brought by the Philippines concerning the PRC’s violations of Philippine waters in the South China Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague having ruled, sharply, in favor of the Philippines on all but the most trivial of the charges.

Recall, also, that newly elected Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had said—repeatedly—that he wanted bilateral talks with the PRC regarding the South China Sea and the items in dispute.

At a cabinet meeting in progress when word of the ruling arrived, one of Duterte’s Ministers said he’d had dinner the night before with the PRC’s ambassador, and that ambassador—before the ruling had been announced—had provided a list of things the PRC required Duterte to say and not say in any press release he might release about the then-forthcoming ruling.  Earlier that same day of the dinner, too, Duterte had met with that same ambassador to assure him that no embarrassing remarks would be forthcoming.  Duterte’s response to that list?

 Didn’t he trust what I told him?

Welcome, indeed, to the contempt with which the Center of Heaven views its foes.