Are U.S. Immigration Laws Biased Against Unmarried Dads?
Federal law banned gender discrimination in the workplace in the 1970s, and for most purposes, it's illegal outside the workplace, too. But a case that came before the Supreme Court this week shows gender discrimination still exists in immigration law in terms of residency requirements for unmarried fathers versus mothers. The Sacramento Bee describes the case as follows: "The issue came before the court in the case of a deported drug dealer who was born in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1974 of a Mexican mother, but raised in San Diego by his American father. When Ruben Flores-Villar was about be ...
#ihadanabortion: Technology and the Abortion Wars
My colleague Donna Trussell wrote last week about a statement that has become a political slogan "trending" on Twitter. Donna despairs over a mini political movement that consists of (over)sharing the four words, "I had an abortion," run together with a hash tag in front of it. She thinks the rhetoric is effective but deplores the precarious state of our human rights that require women to defend their privacy by exposing personal medical decisions. I agree with Donna's disappointment over #ihadanabortion but for different reasons. As a child of the Woodstock generation, I remember a time ...
Fat People Kissing on TV, Andy Warhol and the Perils of Our Internet Age
Andy Warhol was exaggerating only slightly when he made his now infamous statement: "In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes." Of course Warhol made that pronouncement in 1968, long before the Internet era. And he was prophetic except for the fact the information age gives everyone 15 nanoseconds, not minutes, of fame. This week, one heretofore unknown Marie Claire blogger named Maura Kelly got her 15 nanoseconds when she wrote: ". . . yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other . . . because I'd be ...
My Opinion: NPR Shouldn't Have Hired Juan Williams in the First Place
What is most offensive to me is not that National Public Radio fired Juan Williams, but that it hired him in the first place. I have known Mr. Williams for more than two decades; we used to appear regularly as commentators on a Friday night news-of-the-week program produced by and aired on the Howard University-owned public TV station, now WHUT. Juan attended a going-away party at my house for another commentator on that program -- Tony Snow -- when Snow left to join the first Bush administration as a speech writer many years ago. I saw Juan on the street last summer and congratulated him on ...
Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill: The Bizarre and the Unsurprising
Virginia Thomas' entreaty to Anita Hill seems strange. But it does not strike me as surprising. Wouldn't anyone find it strange that lo' these two decades after Justice Clarence Thomas' infamously embarrassing confirmation hearings, Justice Thomas' wife seems not to have moved on with her life? Anita Hill certainly has gotten beyond her 15 minutes of tormented fame. What in the world would give Ginni Thomas the idea that she might succeed at getting a woman who is not apologetic in the least, to apologize? This especially when Anita Hill has nothing for which to apologize. On the other ...
Missouri Tea Party to Puppies: Drop Dead
This story is so bizarre it could be funny. But it's not. Members of the Missouri Tea Party are fighting a proposition on the November ballot that would protect puppies. You got it; the Tea Party is anti-puppy. Yes, we know the party is anti-tax, anti-abortion and anti- just about everything. But puppies? You gotta be kidding me! Here it is however, in the plain light of day: The measure, which can be read in full here, is called Proposition B or the "Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act." It aims to help eliminate the "3,000 puppy mills" in Missouri that constitute "30% of all puppy mills ...
Tyler Clementi's Suicide: Prosecution in the Age of Technology
Suicide is forever . . . prosecution is not. With these thoughts in mind, I try to calm myself in reaction to the horrid suicide of a future virtuoso, Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi. He jumped off the George Washington Bridge after a secretly made video of Clementi having gay sex was streamed online. A second encounter was transmitted live to the Internet. This whole situation is so rotten it reeks. Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and fellow Rutgers freshman Molly Wei, both 18, have been charged with invading Clementi's privacy. If they are in fact guilty of making the video, ...
Meryl Streep on the Battle for a National Women's History Museum
The scene: D.C.'s posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The event: A fundraiser for the National Women's History Museum, which exists in virtual form only, for now, but has been the dream of a number of ambitious, connected Washington, D.C. women for 14 years. Tuesday night, actress Meryl Streep, the museum's official spokesperson, wowed the audience with a sometimes winsome, sometimes angry, and other times hysterically funny speech about why it's taking so long for the women in Congress (all of whom support the museum) to convince the men in Congress to sign on. The museum's backers' sole desire ...
Barbara Boxer vs. Carly Fiorina: Senate Race, Roller-Derby Style
Of all the fascinating congressional races this political season, none is of greater interest to observers of women in politics than California's U.S. Senate race between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina. How often do we get to watch a dose of politics qua roller derby, with two women bumping, blocking and arm-whipping? Second, there is absolutely no fudging on the issues by this pair: They are as close to polar opposites as it gets in American politics. Third, with control of the U.S. Senate in play, whatever happens in this race could have significance far beyond ...
A Case for Opposing Koran Burning and the Mosque Near Ground Zero
Yes, Matilda, it is possible to oppose the so-called ground zero mosque AND Florida Pastor Terry Jones' promised burning of the Koran on this year's 9/11 anniversary. In fact, it is more philosophically consistent to simultaneously oppose the mosque and the Koran burning than it is, for example, for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to support the building of the mosque AND Jones' claimed right to torch the Islamic holy book. Jones, who leads a flea circus-sized congregation in Gainesville, Fla., has gained worldwide attention with his personal attempt to spit in the eye of radical Islam. The ...
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