Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Gay Marriage’s Ballot Test
posted on October 3, 2012As Jeffrey Toobin discusses at The New Yorker, in November, voters in four states—Minnesota, Maine, Maryland and Washington—will vote on same-sex marriage. “There is one unavoidable fact about American voters and same-sex marriage: every time the people have had chance to speak on the subject, they have voted it down,” Toobin writes. “Over the past decades, voters in twenty-eight states have passed constitutional provisions banning same-sex marriage.”
Could Romney Really Improve America’s Standing in the Islamic World?
posted on October 3, 2012Michael Crowley of TIME comes to the conclusion that the relationship between America and the Arab world is unchanging and unfriendly. Crowley asserts that President Obama’s efforts to decrease anti-Americanism in the Arab world have been failures, but he does not believe Mitt Romney’s policies will be more beneficial. “Romney mostly agrees with Obama on several flash points, including the Afghanistan surge, the continuing presence of Gitmo and the use of drones,” Crowley explains.
Liberty Is a Slow Fruit
posted on October 3, 2012As the sesesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation approaches, Lincoln scholar Louis P. Masur writes on its reception and history in The American Scholar. “In recent decades, a shift in scholarly focus to those outside traditional channels of power suggested that Lincoln did not free the slaves, but rather, the slaves, by running away, freed themselves. Lincoln the emancipator was reduced to Lincoln the procrastinator,” he writes. “It is lamentable that we have distanced ourselves from the proclamation and have allowed it to be diminished by criticisms of its timing, prose, and perceived efficacy.”
Benghazi Could Be a Debate Focus
posted on October 3, 2012At BuzzFeed, Michael Hastings and Ruby Cramer discuss whether the attack on the consulate in Benghazi could be an important topic in the first presidential debate, despite its focus on domestic issues. “According to the Commission on Presidential Debates, tomorrow’s moderator, PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, has the leeway to ask any questions he wants—including topics dominating the headlines, as Libya is now.”
Shariah or Not, Muslim Divorces Can Get Tricky
posted on October 3, 2012At Religion News Service, Omar Sacirbey writes about increasing complications for divorcing Muslims who were married under Shariah law. There has been a push in American courts to prohibit international law, particularly targeting Shariah, from being used to support decisions. According to New Jersey lawyer Abed Awad, who has experience in these types of cases, “Everybody misses the point.” He continues, “It’s about fairness. It’s not about Shariah. It’s about to what extent is there fairness at the dissolution.”
Dispatches From ‘Tumorland’: On Christopher Hitchens’ ‘Mortality’
posted on October 3, 2012At the LA Review of Books, Chris Lehmann reviews Christopher Hitchens’ final book Mortality. Lehmann sees the book as a reflection on Hitchens’ struggle with terminal illness and it is “made up largely of … carefully reported, drily ironic dispatches from the sick country.” Even while dying, Hitchens did not refrain “from going another round with his antagonists on the question of religious belief.” He wrote, “And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusion, until it’s hello darkness my old friend.”
A Lawyer Who Won’t Back Down
posted on October 3, 2012Tablet‘s Allison Hoffman writes about an unexpected “culture warrior,” Jay Lefkowitz, who is leading a group of pro-bono lawyers helping parents confront corrupt unions and school systems. Lefkowitz, a modern Orthodox Jew, is currently waging wars across the country, including in California and New York, where he supports charter schools and parental power. “You have to reinvigorate the public schools,” Lefkowitz said. “And you have to have a ground game, because ultimately what you’re talking about is changing the way local government operates.”
Russia Bans Controversial Anti-Islam Video
posted on October 2, 2012Thomas Grove reports for Reuters about Russia’s recent decision to ban the controversial film, “the Innocence of Muslims,” which mocks the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Russia, which has a population of 20 million Muslims, is already confronting an insurgency of Islamist separatists in the north of the country. In an attempt to prevent further insurgency, Russian Prosecutor Viktoria Maslova, who asked that the film be banned, told a Moscow court that the film “puts the Islamic religion in a bad light and aids the rise of religious intolerance in the Russian Federation.”
Baathism: An Obituary
posted on October 2, 2012At The New Republic, Paul Berman writes about the demise of Baathism, noting that most Arab Baath rulers, who came to power in the 1960s, have been deposed or are dead. Berman wonders what the countries, like Syria, Tunisia, and Iraq, who have been ruled by Baath leaders for the last 35 years, would be like today if the Baathists had never gained power. “The political and cultural landscape of the Middle East, post-Baath, will be pockmarked by blighted zones that might otherwise have been a prosperous Iraq and Syria, if only the Baathist doctrine had not destroyed those countries,” Berman writes.
Abortion at Sea
posted on October 2, 2012At The Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg profiles a Dutch abortion rights group, called Women on Waves, that charters yachts and offer abortions in international waters. Currently, the group is heading to Morocco, a country that prohibits legal access to abortion. Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of the group, explains, “[t]hese few women that we actually help onboard the ship, they are very important, but they are not the only women that we help. They open up the possibility to reach out to other women …That is how other women know about medical abortion.”