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Wheaton College Alumni Come Out To Support LGBT Students Condemned By Campus

By Zack Ford on May 3, 2011 at 8:50 pm

Universities affiliated with conservative Christianity can be toxic environments for LGBT students, but some, like Wheaton College in Illinois, actually require all community members to sign a “Community Covenant.” Such contracts explicitly prohibit and condemn homosexuality, among other things, and the penalty for violation of the contract can be expulsion.

This past week, though, LGBTQ students at Wheaton College were validated and recognized for perhaps the first time with the creation of OneWheaton, a newly-formed coalition of LGBTQ alumni. In an open letter to Wheaton students, hundreds of alumni — including some who graduated over 50 years ago — urge students to recognize they are not ”tragic” or “broken,” but that their identities should be celebrated and affirmed, not shamed. They also request awareness and compassion from the broader Wheaton community:

Remember that there are students who feel they need to hide. We remember how messages and conversations surrounding the “issue of homosexuality” often exacerbated our feelings of isolation, particularly when talk about “compassion” often felt like pity at best, or at worst intolerance cloaked in language of love. Speak against blatant and passive language and actions that dehumanize and marginalize your brothers and sisters. Ask questions. Encourage dialogue. Most of all, listen. Your friends need your support and love. As awkward as the process may be for you, it is guaranteed to be more deeply and constantly difficult for your friends.

Wheaton is not the only Christian university whose LGBT students are seeing new support. Alumni at Westmont College in Montecito, CA also reached out to LGBT students through an open letter in the campus newsletter in February. The response there was positive; faculty replied seeking forgiveness for how they may have added to the pain. In March, students and alumni at Harding University went a step further, creating what they called the “HU Queer Press,” an online website and print magazine featuring the stories of LGBT students. Shortly after going live, the university blocked the website on campus and the president, Dr. David Burks, condemned it as “offensive and degrading,” not even daring to say the word “queer” out loud.

These courageous efforts are important, because LGBT-unfriendly campus environments impede students’ success. A recent comprehensive study of American universities shows that LGBT students face significantly greater harassment and discrimination than heterosexual men and women, and it can be safely assumed that levels are higher at schools that explicitly condemn homosexuality. This chilly climate impacts student success, retention, and mental health, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

OneWheaton clarifies on its website: “Not affiliated with or condoned by Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Duh.”

Update

In the week since the OneWheaton site launched, the number of online signatures of support has quadrupled.

Alyssa

Closing Credits

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 3, 2011 at 8:38 pm

- Television ownership declined for the first time in twenty years, but not due mostly to the internet, but to poverty.

-The idea that the networks have a “genre slot” in their lineups makes me sad.

-As someone who is going to a lot of weddings this year, I am all for another movie about bridesmaiding.

-I would rather see Barry Levinson direct a movie about the Gottis than a conspiracy-theory flick about the Oklahoma City bombing.

Security

DOJ Not Planning On Pursuing A Lawsuit Against Utah This Year

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on May 3, 2011 at 8:05 pm

About a month ago, Utah’s governor signed off on a set of bills that include provisions similar to Arizona’s SB-1070 immigration law, in addition to language that would allow undocumented immigrants to live and work in the state of Utah and create a migrant worker partnership with Mexico. I recently reported that House Judiciary Chairman and immigration hardliner Lamar Smith (R-TX) was chiding the Department of Justice (DOJ) for going after Arizona’s immigration law but not pursuing a similar case against Utah.

Today, Smith got the chance to ask DOJ Secretary Eric Holder himself what his department is planning along those lines. Both Smith and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) appeared to be pretty irate about the supposed hypocrisy. Yet, after hearing Holder’s response, Smith ultimately was forced to concede “fair enough”:

SMITH: It seems to me that the Department should probably be consistent in its application of the law. [...] This does give the appearance of a pattern of selectively enforcing the law and I wanted to seek your comment as to whether that experience is accurate or not. [...]

HOLDER: That’s a law that doesn’t go into effect until 2013. It has always been the Department of Justice’s policy to try to work with states to see if there’s a way in which we can reach an agreement without us having to file suit. So we will look at the law and if it’s not changed to our satisfaction by 2013, we will take all the necessary steps.

SMITH: What were you referring to when you said “trying to work something out with Utah?” [...] That seems to be a clear violation of current immigration law.

HOLDER: Well it might be. The law as it exists in 2011 — that could be a violation that we would sue. By 2013 we might be in a different place.

SMITH: If they change the law, it would take something like that? Okay, fair enough.

Watch it:

The major difference between Arizona’s law — SB-1070 — and the set of laws passed by Utah is that SB-1070 was set to go into effect just a couple of months after it passed while Utah’s new immigration laws won’t be enforced for another two years. My guess is that Arizona also didn’t display any interest in “trying to work something out” with the federal government before the lawsuit against the state was filed.

Meanwhile, a lot could happen between now and 2013. The Supreme Court could strike down Arizona’s law, which would have serious implications for Utah’s approach. A new administration could decide to drop the case altogether. Or Congress could actually take it upon themselves to fix the nation’s broken immigration system. In fact, Smith’s fellow Republicans — Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Gov. Gary Herbert have suggested the Judiciary chairman do just that. One thing is for sure though — the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. aren’t going anywhere.

Politics

GOP Presidential Hopeful Rick Santorum Endorses Plan To End Medicare, Calls For Quicker Implementation

By Scott Keyes on May 3, 2011 at 7:30 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from the AFP Presidential Summit in Manchester, NH.

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Republican presidential aspirant Rick Santorum endorsed Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to end Medicare and extend tax breaks for the wealthy. The former Pennsylvania senator praised “what he wants to do with Medicare [and] Medicaid,” but also called for Ryan’s budget to be implemented “sooner than what he’s suggesting”:

KEYES: The Ryan budget plan. If you were president, would you sign that?

SANTORUM: Yeah, I support the Ryan budget plan. I think it’s the right direction on the major points. I can’t say I’ve read all of it, but on the major thrust of what he’s doing, I support what he wants to do with Medicare, Medicaid. The only thing I would do, frankly, as I’ve said publicly many times, I think we should implement a lot of these things sooner than what he’s suggesting.

Watch it:

Last month, House Republicans voted in near-lockstep for the Ryan budget. When Congress went on recess soon thereafter, the constituent backlash was immediate. Many Republican congressmen from across the country encountered constituents who were infuriated that their congressman voted to end Medicare, preserve tax breaks for the wealthy, and protect subsidies for oil companies.

As a result, some of the Republican presidential candidates have been hesitant to endorse Ryan’s unpopular budget plan, though a few tend to hedge their bets by calling the plan “courageous” and praising Ryan’s “leadership.”

Still, some candidates like Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain have embraced the Republican plan to end Medicare. It remains to be seen whether this appeal to the fringe right will pay dividends; right now, polling shows 73 percent of Republicans oppose cuts to Medicare.

Economy

Republicans Call NLRB ‘Thugs’ From ‘A Third-World Country’ For Standing Up For Workers

By Pat Garofalo on May 3, 2011 at 7:20 pm

Late last month, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it was filing a complaint against Boeing, alleging that the airline manufacturer decided to move a planned production line from Washington state to South Carolina as retribution against workers in Washington striking. As evidence, they pointed to public pronouncements from Boeing officials, including one who said, “the overriding factor [in moving to South Carolina] was not the business climate. And it was not the wages we’re paying today. It was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years.”

It is a violation of national labor law to retaliate against workers for striking, so the NLRB advanced its complaint. This has whipped the right wing into an uproar, and several Republican senators took to the floor today to deride the NLRB for “acting like thugs that you might see in a third world country”:

SEN. JIM DEMINT (R-SC): The administration, I believe, is acting like thugs that you might see in a third-world country, trying to bully and intimidate employers…This is crazy.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): This complaint is dangerous. This complaint is a dangerous road to go down. This complaint is politics at its worst…The Congress should speak, the administration should speak out and say ‘this is frivolous.’

Watch a compilation:

Ten other Republican Senators sent a letter today to the NLRB taking issue with its decision to protect workers from union-busting.

But let’s review what happened. As labor journalist Mike Elk explained, “in 2007, Boeing announced it would create a second production line to produce three 787 Dreamliner planes a month in the Pudget Sound, in addition to the production that was already occurring in Pudget Sound. Then in October 2009, it was announced that suddenly the company would move the second production line to a nonunion plant in South Carolina.” And the company’s officials made it clear that the move was made because workers in Washington had decided to strike, which, whether Republicans like it or not, is illegal.

As the Washington Post’s Steve Pearlstein wrote, “given the public statements of Boeing officials, there is nothing radical about the NLRB’s decision.” But Republicans have decided to attack anyway, revealing once more how they believe corporate America should be allowed to do whatever it wants, no matter the law.

Climate Progress

Triage: Record floods cause Army Corps to blow up levee, inundate 130,000 acres of farmland to save small town

By Joe Romm on May 3, 2011 at 7:05 pm

Flood

Flooding on the Mississippi in Missouri at the end of April. Image credit: USACE

File this under Annals of Adaptation:

The Army Corps exploded the Birds Point levee near Wyatt, Mo., after nightfall Monday, potentially sacrificing 130,000 acres of rich farmland and about 100 homes in Missouri to spare the town of Cairo, Ill., with its 2,800 residents, located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

But even as the Corps carried out its bid to save the city, floodwaters were rising downriver, including in Memphis, Tenn. And the breach in the Birds Point levee wasn’t expected to ease those flooding concerns.

Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, who made the decision to blast, said it was a heart-wrenching but necessary move.

As record-smashing deluges and floods become commonplace — along with Dust-Bowlification — so will a host of tragic triage decisions (discussed here).

Here is the video of the explosion, followed by meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters discussing the record flooding that led to it:

Read more

Justice

GOP Senators Leap To Do The Chamber’s Obstructionist Bidding on Judges

By Ian Millhiser on May 3, 2011 at 6:35 pm

Judicial Nominee Jack McConnell

Under the Roberts Court’s leadership, the federal judiciary has become corporate America’s personal genie. Just last week, for example, corporate America wished for consumer class action lawsuits to disappear, and the Supreme Court was more than happy to grant this wish.

Sadly, the Chamber of Commerce has grown so jealous of the sympathetic treatment it receives from the federal bench, it has launched a scorched earth campaign against district court nominee Jack McConnell, a top plaintiffs’ attorney who committed the unforgivable sin of trying to hold lead paint companies and the tobacco industry accountable to their consumers:

Senate Democrats are moving to force a vote on the judicial nomination of John McConnell Jr., a Rhode Island trial lawyer who has drawn heat from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for his work on tobacco and lead-paint litigation.

The move sets up a potential filibuster fight. With 53 members, the Democratic caucus is seven votes short of what it would need to break a filibuster, and some Republicans have named McConnell as one of the Obama judicial nominees they most oppose.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans have tripped over themselves to do the Chamber’s bidding and block McConnell — often with unintentionally hilarious results. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), for example, actually criticized McConnell because he once agreed to donate all of his earnings from a high-profile case to charity.

The Oscar for Most Blatant Capitulation to the Corporate Lobby in a Judicial Confirmation Vote, however, goes to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for his apparent belief that the United States Constitution changes meaning just because the Chamber wants to block a judge. Back when George W. Bush was nominating judges, Cornyn unequivocally announced that the “U.S. Constitution demands” an “up-or-down vote…when it comes to the confirmation of the President’s judicial nominees.” Filibustering judicial nominees, said Cornyn, is unconstitutional.

Now that corporate America wants to keep McConnell off the bench, however, Cornyn is singing a very different tune. Indeed, he recently indicated that “he will join a GOP effort to filibuster an Obama nominee to a federal bench in Rhode Island.”

Cornyn should consider actually reading Article V of the Constitution, which lays out the process by which the Constitution can be amended. He would be surprised to learn that the Constitution doesn’t actually change meaning just because he or the Chamber would like it to.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on May 3, 2011 at 6:31 pm

Practice makes you perfect:

— Jeffrey Simpson on the Canadian election.

— Conservatism, Canadian-style “a pledge to increase health care transfers to the provinces by 6% annually, the complication of the tax code with things like credits for going to the gym, and the continued funding of the arts.”

— Growth and state fiscal policy (PDF).

— Richard Lugar calls for an endgame in Afghanistan.

— Dalia Lithwick says we should declare victory and bring back the rule of law.

— Gideon Rachman also wants to declare victory.

Panda Bear, “Slow Motion”.

Politics

Palin And Rep. Lankford Defend Wasteful Oil Subsidies: They’re ‘A Drop In The Bucket,’ ‘Only’ 4 Billion Dollars

By Zaid Jilani on May 3, 2011 at 6:30 pm

While conservative lawmakers continue to demand more and more from Main Street Americans in the form of cuts to crucial services and public investment, they have continued to defend subsidies for the oil industry. In March, the House Republicans voted unanimously to defend subsidies for Big Oil.

Appearing on Fox News last week, former GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin downplayed the billions of dollars of subsidies the oil industry gets from taxpayers. Asked about the subsidies by Fox Host Bret Baier, Palin responded that we shouldn’t worry too much about them because they only cost four billion dollars:

BAIER: What about ending oil subsidies? Subsidies for oil companies. Where do you stand on that?

PALIN: Here’s where we need to go there nationally, what I did as Governor of Alaska, which is obviously an energy-producing state. As for the government subsidies that we’re hearing Obama flirting with right now, and wanting to decrease those or eliminate those, we’re only talking about four billion dollars. Compare that to the 14 trillion dollar debt that he our president has certainly contributed to.

Watch it:

And in a radio interview with News Radio 1000 KTOK last week, Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) echoed a similar talking point, saying that the four billion dollars in subsidies are not even a drop in the bucket:

HOST: Congressman, the President, speaking of him, is calling on Congress to eliminate all these tax provisions for oil and gas. [...] What are you thinking about this? [...] What will Congress do?

LANKFORD: [...] We’re spending too much money. Raising four billion in gas taxes doesn’t solve the price of gas and is not going to be able to solve our deficit. Four billion is not going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what we need to take on, and that’s our spending.

Watch it:

While it is true that four billion dollars is a small part of the federal budget deficit, it’s also simultaneously true that it is a great deal of money in real terms that is being wasted. And it’s 1,200 times the amount of money that House Republicans were demanding would be saved from cutting off money to NPR.

In recent days, a number of congressional Republicans have seemingly backed off their support for oil subsidies after being probed n the issue by angry constituents at town halls. These include Reps. Joe Walsh (IL), Tom McClintock (CA), and Dan Webster (FL). (HT: MoxNewsDotCom Youtube account)

Yglesias

American Federation of Teacher Celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week With Teacher Bashing

By Matthew Yglesias on May 3, 2011 at 5:59 pm

I was shocked to read this on the American Federation of Teachers’ official Twitter feed:

If you can’t read, you can’t Tweet. #thankateacher

Hasn’t anyone told them that holding teachers responsible for kids’ learning outcomes is teacher-bashing? That instead of talking about teacher efficacy we should be talking about poverty and segregation? No?

Of course not!

Because, look, it’s totally obvious that teachers aren’t the sole determinant of whether or not a given child knows how to read. Many parents teach kids the rudiments of reading before they start kindergarten. And throughout life questions about whether parents read to kids, encourage kids to read, have books around the house, etc. make a difference. So does the accessibility of a decent library or bookstore. So do a million other things. But when Teacher Appreciation Week comes around then of course teachers and their representatives want to emphasize the fact that one of the many things that makes a difference is the quality of teaching. Indeed, evidence suggests that quality of teaching is the most important non-demographic contributor to student learning. Acknowledging that isn’t a form of “bashing” or “blaming” teachers, it’s identical to celebrating their contributions. But once you accept that quality of teaching matters, then practices like Last In, First Out layoffs and compensation schemes based entirely on seniority and master’s degrees don’t make sense. Money to pay teachers is a finite resource and it’s important to try to allocate it to the best teachers for all the same reasons that good teachers are important in the first place.

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