Author: geoff

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that: “An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge’s unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to ‘non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.’ The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth. Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple’s divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion.”

What’s really bizarre is that Bradford normally hears only criminal cases. Apparently he chose to get involved in this domestic matter because he read a “confidential report” (yeah, right) from a counseling bureau. “‘There is a discrepancy between Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones’ lifestyle and the belief system adhered to by the parochial school. . . . Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon (the boy) as he ages,’ the bureau said in its report.” So we’re not just dealing with a constitutionally-challenged judge….

While the U.S.A. is getting its knickers in a twist over gay marriage, children’s TV depicting a kid with “two mommies”, and books by gay authors, DER SPIEGEL is reporting that “there is a very real possibility that Germany’s next government will be a coalition between a woman — who will likely become Germany’s first woman chancellor — and a gay man”. Right on!

A less sanguine, and probably realistic, assessment of the filibuster compromise….
(Via Majikthise.)

Professor Stephen Bainbridge (a law professor at UCLA) points out, correctly, that “The filibuster is a profoundly conservative tool. It slows change by allowing a resolute minority to delay – to stand athwart history shouting stop. It ensures that change is driven not ‘merely by temporary advantage or popularity’ but by a substantial majority.” That, certainly, is conservatism as I understood it – the conservatism of Burke (who would probably have felt that today’s neoconservatives have more in common with Jacobins than with true conservatism).

But Bainbridge’s key point is this: “BTW, any honest conservative must admit that the only reason we’re having this debate over filibusters is because of Orin Hatch’s changes to the Judiciary Committee rules and procedures on matters like blue slips, hearings, and so on, which deprived the Democrats of the tactics that the GOP used to bottle up a lot of Clinton nominees in committee.”

Of coure this merely provokes the hard right into accusing him of being a traitor and allying himself with “Demo-Rats”. Yet another example of what Andrew Sullivan has described as the tension between “Conservatives of doubt” and “Conservatives of faith”.

(Via Sully – to whom I offer best wishes – see Me and my virus.)