Circuit Writer

This is my most recent post for the Xenia Institute, now featured at Dialogic Magazine.  I encourage you to take your comments to the original article at the Dialogic website.

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The announcement of Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement has led to a flurry of media activity around the beltway. The news has been greeted with praise from his colleagues on the court along with nearly everyone else in the political establishment, including his ideological opponents. But perhaps the more important question left to us is: what will happen next? Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog thinks that it will be a “pretty efficient” process that will ultimately lead to the irony of a more conservative court under a Democratic president. Jack Balkin agrees that Obama’s first priority in will likely be to avoid expending too much political capital in a midterm election year; however, he goes on to offer what he views as a potential second priority:

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens posing for photographs at the Supreme Court, September 29, 2009. UPI/Gary Fabiano/POOL Photo via Newscom Content © 2010 Newscom

Second, and equally important, President Obama will nominate someone who is likely to sustain the President’s policies while he is in office, first, on the issues he cares about most at the time and, secondarily, the issues necessary to keep his political coalition together … [These might include] support for the constitutionality of the recently passed health care bill, preservation of Roe v. Wade (as modified by Casey), and support for robust (but not necessarily unilateral) Presidential power in surveillance, detention, military commission, rendition, and other war on terror issues.

This will present an interesting scenario according to Michael Kinsley at The Atlantic. He wonders if the Republican’s desire to expend political capital isn’t also at question. Noting their care to avoid the term “conservative” in the discussions surrounding Stevens’ replacement, he raises questions as to where their priorities might lie in the upcoming nomination process: continue reading…

In a previous post I covered SB 1965, a legislative effort by Senator Steve Russell (R – Oklahoma City) to effectively opt Oklahoma out of the recently adopted hate crime provisions of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.  While I want to refrain from questioning the senator’s motivations, I have no problem questioning his intentions.  In a press release he spells out a clear opposition to the Shepard Act:

Oklahoma currently has tough, good laws that include hate crimes laws. Any murder or brutal assault is hateful. That is the problem with singling out something more with this federal law.  I believe this legislation far exceeds the powers of government over states as outlined in the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  I am also very concerned that this loosely defined and ill-conceived legislation could be used to target people’s belief, freedom to associate in groups, right to assemble on issues, as well as target people’s right to free speech.

The Oklahoma State Capitol building. (Photo by Daniel Mayer, used under Creative Commons 3.0)

What Russell fails to mention is that Oklahoma’s current statute does not include a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity as motivations for a hate crime.  In his rush to defend the privileges of the empowered, Senator Russell runs roughshod over the basic human rights of members of the LGBTQIA community.  As a commenter on my previous post pointed out, the failure to prosecute the perpetrators of hate crimes creates an continue reading…

Bayh has always been shall we say a frustrating sort. Never a profile in courage.

This marks perhaps the kindest response from the liberal blogosphere to Evan Bayh’s decision to leave the Senate.  Michael Tomasky’s thoughts from across the pond (The Guardian is published in the United Kingdom) at least gives Bayh the benefit of the doubt as to his future.  Perhaps because there is talk that his hasty exit might open the way to a Republican takeover of his seat on November, the conservative blogs have been somewhat kinder.  John Stossel offers a positive view of the move based on Bayh’s remarks that he could create more jobs in private industry.  This drew a strong response from Matthew Yglesias: continue reading…

This post is the third in a series of blogs of I’ve written following the actions of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) at their January meetings to approve revisions to the state’s K-12 social studies curriculum.  Known as TEKS, these standards will determine the learning goals for Texas students for the next decade and will also impact the publication of textbooks that will be used nationwide.  (I cover this more in the previous blogs, Hijacking History and Hijacking History, Part 2.)  This post will cover the final two days of the meeting where elected members of the SBOE went through the proposed curriculum revisions and voted on changes of their own.  Ultimately, the proceedings exhausted the time allotted for discussion and approval of the revisions, postponing the final vote to the May meeting of the SBOE.

The SBOE is composed of 15 members who are elected from districts based on equal population representation.  Elections to the board are conducted on a partisan basis, and the recent meetings demonstrated just how detrimental this can be to the educational process.  Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune has provided excellent coverage of these meetings, and his description of the approval process is no exception: continue reading…

(Photo by Chris Hondros/Newsmakers) Content © 2008 Getty Images All rights reserved

In a previous blog, “Hijacking History,” I took on the subject of the Texas state curriculum for K-12 education (known as TEKS) and the implications of the proposed revisions to the curriculum that was to be presented to the State Board of Education (SBOE).  This new curriculum will not only determine what will be taught in Texas’ many public schools, but will also likely determine what is seen in new history textbooks throughout the nation.  (I explain this in more depth in my previous post.) continue reading…

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Bobbie Tetley, my high school AP American History teacher who instilled in me a love of history, and even though I am on the eve of completing graduate school, she remains one of the most challenging, demanding, and respected voices not only of my educational career, but of my life.  Thank you, Mrs. Tetley.  – cwc

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This first came to my attention through an action alert from the United Farm Workers, an organization I’ve become connected to through my denomination’s participation in the National Farm Worker Ministry.  I received an email asking me to “Stop Texas from erasing Cesar Chavez and Hispanics from school books.”  It provided information about an upcoming session of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) that will be voting on new curriculum standards for social studies for the state of Texas.  UFW asked me to compose an email to Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas SBOE demanding that they not further marginalize the voices of Latina/os within the history curriculum. continue reading…

I’ll be the first to admit that as a person of faith and a leader in a faith community, I’m disturbed by Britt Hume’s comments concerning Tiger Woods on Fox News Sunday.  If you haven’t caught Hume’s comments, you can find the 35 second blurb on Thursday’s news and analysis segment, “Tiger Woods’ Come to Jesus.”  I want to tip my cap to Caitlin’s work at finding such a breadth of responses to this little faux pas, because it revealed to me some problems in our understanding of religion and faith traditions that make not only Hume’s thoughts problematic, but those of some of his defenders as well.  If we put aside the obvious softball pitchers like Bill O’Reilly, there are some intriguing defenders out there, even if their defenses aren’t nearly so intriguing.

Stuart Roy’s comments at The Hill really miss the point on this issue.  He begins with a long apologetic for Christianity based on the statistical “fact” that it’s still the recognized majority religion in the United States.  I feel like I would be repeating myself this week if I went into the problems of the moral tyranny of the majority, so I want to move on to his comments on Christianity vis-à-vis Buddhism:

Secondly, although there is a lot of discussion about this point, Buddhism isn’t a religion in the sense of belief in a higher being from whom to seek forgiveness. Instead, Buddhism says you get this from within. I’m no religious scholar, but that would put Hume’s analysis pretty much on point. In Christianity, you do seek forgiveness and redemption from a higher being, something not offered in Buddhism. You may disagree with whether or not it is necessary — if you aren’t a Christian — but his analysis was correct.

Roy is correct – he’s no religious scholar.  The assumption that forgiveness can only be granted by or through some higher power is the failing point of both Hume’s original slap at Buddhism and Roy’s misguided attempt at a defense.  If he were a religious scholar, he might realize that one of the greatest failures of Christian theology is its tendency to lock forgiveness into the relationship between an individual human being and some higher power.  When a person may somehow feel absolved of failing in their relationship to another human being (or group of them for that matter), there is no reason to seek the forgiveness of the wronged party and to engage in a process of dialogue and reconciliation.  Christianity has plagued the western landscape with this attitude that “Because I’ve made things right with God, I don’t have to worry about making things right with my neighbor.” I’m pretty sure that’s inconsistent with the red-lettered words in Mr. Roy’s unread Bible.  To make matters worse, as Christian doctrine continues to blind some of its most faithful adherents from engaging in just and caring relationships with other human beings, the sayings of the Dalai Lama strike me as highly ethical and relational.  Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate.

My second point of contention is more one of disappointment.  Rabbi Brad Hirschfield’s defense of religion in general as a response to Hume’s comments is well intentioned, but shortsighted.  His attack on the liberal media and blogosphere failed to recognize that some of us self-proclaimed “liberals” are also religious.

Let’s face it, many people fear faith and even more genuinely resent it being discussed in public. While there is no question about the damage which religious faith can do, there should also be no question as to the good things it accomplishes in terms of both creating personal meaning and also motivating humanitarian action. So it should be a wash. Instead though, because Hume suggested Jesus instead of rehab, both he and those who support him are attacked as Jesus Freaks and fanatics. That’s not right.

While there may have been a loud outcry from the non-religious, it wasn’t the only cry.  There are those of us within the religious community, and more specifically the Christian community, who treasure the diversity of our global religious pluralism and respect the voices of our neighbors and peers in the Buddhist faith.  Since Hirschfield seems to share this value with me, I’m having a difficult time understanding why he went out of his way to defend someone like Britt Hume who obviously does not.  He goes on to conclude his article:

I welcome Mr. Hume’s remarks even if I think his analyses of Buddhism is shallow, and his claim that it is only through Jesus that Tiger will find a better life, bordering on ridiculous. So why welcome his comments? Because I know that he meant well and because faith matters to people and it should not be banished from public conversation. Not if we are as committed to openness in the way so many of us claim to be. Now we will find out if we really are.

The sad fact is that there are a lot of people who mean well, but rather thoughtlessly and carelessly bring about more harm than good.  I’ll resist the temptation to expound a list of “well meaning” politicians who have caused egregious harm, including pointless death and destruction.  However, I will not stop short of saying that Hume’s thinking, well being though it may be, is provincial and narrow.  If he were truly interested in offering his support to Tiger Woods, Hume would be extending the invitation to dialogue, rather than wagging his finger and admonishing Woods to come to Jesus.

To make matters worse, Fox News appears to have circled the wagons around one of their own.  Not only do they fail to recognize that “fair and balanced” means you can’t casually cast aside a major world religion in an offhanded remark, but in refusing to acknowledge that Hume’s critics might have a point, they make it quite clear that the discourse is only “fair” when they are allowed to determine what is “balanced.”  While I’ve quietly thought the media circus around Tiger Woods is more scandalous than the “scandal” itself, the failure of discourse that has followed in the aftermath is perhaps the greater scandal we fail to even recognize.

Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.