Newsletter Week of 19 Jun 2020
- The Reference Library (book review column) • Analog July/August 2020 • read for free
- The Rule of Five episode 2.21 is now available for Patreon supporters
I've been getting a lot of stuff done this week, especially on the Great Kitchen Renovation (I had breakfast at the kitchen table this morning for the first time in, of, ten years at least). But while I was busy, so was the Supreme Court.
Monday's ruling that the Civil Rights Law of 1964 prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ folks was a welcome surprise. The 6-3 ruling in Bostok v Clayton County brings protection from job discrimination to queer people across the country. In Maryland, of course, we've had such protection since 2001 (for gay/lesbian/bisexual folk) and 2014 (for transgender folk)—but the extension of these protections nationwide is still cause for celebration.
The 6-3 decision was also a surprise: advocates hoped for 5-4. The Court's four sensible Justices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor) were joined by Justice Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts. Since advocates had carefully aimed their arguments toward Justice Gorsuch, Chief Justice Roberts came as a complete surprise. The opinion was written by Justice Gorsuch with an eye on posterity. In arguing for a plain reading of the law, he said:
“The limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.”
Not only does this decision release queer folk across the country from the fear of losing their jobs, Justivcer Gorsuch's language is also a strong rebuke to the doctrine of "orginialism," a favorite conservative argument that laws must be limited to the original intent of those who mad them." (Unless, of course, it's the Second Amendment, which applies to modern assault weapons as much as to the flintlock rifles that the Founders were thinking of.)
This case will reverberate far beyond the arena of job discrimination. Far more than Obergefell (which legalized queer marriage), this is historic. (Of course, without Obergefell we would never have gotten here).
- Scanned 8 more books
- Ripped 8 more DVDs to mp4
- Legion of Super-Heroes website: Indexing November 1997
- Added 1400 words to my memoir
- The Rule of Five episodes 2.21 posted
- More work on the next gay erotic short story
- Substantial progress on the Great Kitchen Rearrangement
This little guy followed Thomas home t'other day. We decided to keep him.
Maus by Art Spiegelman (grpahic novel)
The Womenfolk (long-neglected folk music group from the 1960s
I've just discovered a long-forgotten, badly-neglected folk group from the 1960s, and they're superb.
The Womanefolk were Jean Amos, Joyce James (later Gibb), Lani Ashmore (lnow Sorrenen), Babs Cooper, and Judy Fine (now J. Lalah Simcoe). Their career spanned the years 1963-1966, during which time they releasedfive albums, traveled 750,000 miles touring in the U.S. and Canada, and apeared on TV and radio shows in th U.S., Canada, and England.
Along with a repertoire of folk standards (Skip to My Lou, Good Old Mountain Dew) they also performed original music, including songs by Dylan, Shel Silverstein, and otherfolk composers of thenperioid. Their bieggrest hit was the classic "Little Boxes," written for them by Malvina Reynolds ("Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky..."
The Womenfolk have a five-part harmony that's tremendous. They are definitely worth a listen.