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By thomas-macaulay-millar • 13 years ago

Prop 8 Findings Of Fact

Crossposted from <a href=”www.yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/prop-8-findings-of-fact/”>Yes Means Yes Blog</a>

There is no shortage of discussion of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s Prop 8 decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger yesterday, and no shortage of analysis, so I won’t duplicate others’ efforts. What I will do is provide the key findings of fact, and explain why that’s important. Appellate courts — the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court — are supposed to say what the law is, and how it applies to particular facts. The District Court is supposed to figure out what the facts are, and do the actual applying. That’s only slightly oversimplified.

In the rush to read Judge Walker’s reasoning, most commentators have not focused on the facts. But if the Circuit or the Supremes want to change what Walker said about the law, all they do is say, “no, that’s not the law.” That’s what’s called a de novo review; they owe the lower court no deference. Facts are different. There was a trial. Usually the trier of fact is a jury, but sometimes as here, it’s a judge. The judge finds the facts. Those findings of fact are supposed to get a more deferrential review. The judge below actually heard the testimony and had the full record, so hers or in this case his in the view from the playing field. That’s not to say that appellate courts never find ways to change the factual record, but the facts have a staying power that ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 13 years ago

Opiedopiediddledot

I’ve been trying to write this for years. The title looks kind of silly. Maybe you laughed when you read it, but the name comes to me unbidden and my eyes well. My mother died ten years ago this week; her childhood killed her, and it followed her a long way to do it.
I just watched the trailer and read the Feministing post on Winter Bone, a movie that Courtney said might be this year’s Precious in the way it addresses rural poverty. I don’t know what ideas other affluent white folks have when they think about rural poverty, and it’s usually associated with the South, or sometimes the plains and inland West. ...

I’ve been trying to write this for years. The title looks kind of silly. Maybe you laughed when you read it, but the name comes to me unbidden and my eyes well. My mother ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 14 years ago

Sadly, This Deficiency Is The Norm

Cross-posted from Yes Means Yes Blog
Froth posted this to the Feministe weekly self-promotion thread. She says she’s writing because this is typical, and I agree. Here’s her experience with sex ed:

Nobody told me I had a clitoris.
Nobody told me I was capable of having orgasms.
For five years I was given “sex education”. It mostly consisted of periods and condoms. It didn’t talk about consent. It didn’t talk about the actual mechanics of sex, about arousal and lubrication and oscillation. It didn’t tell me a single thing about relationships and it didn’t tell me I had a clitoris.
I only know now because of the internet. Nobody entrusted with my care and education has ...

Cross-posted from Yes Means Yes Blog
Froth posted this to the Feministe weekly self-promotion thread. She says she’s writing because this is typical, and I agree. Here’s her experience with sex ed:

Nobody told ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 14 years ago

No Place To Tell This Tale

Crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog:

I read Asher Bauer’s powerful personal story a while ago, and I didn’t know what I could possibly say about it. I still don’t, but since the crux of the story is that he has no place to process the story, it seems somehow wrong not to write about it; that would make this just one more place this story (and by extension Bauer’s life) doesn’t fit.

I’ve written recently about a male victim of rape. That’s incredibly hard to deal with. Men report at even lower rates than women and get perhaps even less support. Certainly the media is no more, and perhaps even less, willing ...

Crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog:

I read Asher Bauer’s powerful personal story a while ago, and I didn’t know what I could possibly say about it. I still don’t, but since the crux of ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 14 years ago

Boundaries

Cross-posted from Yes Means Yes Blog
I said in the Shroedinger’s Rapist post that it was part of a larger idea and might be Part I of two. Here’s Part II.
It’s all about boundaries. The Shapely Prose post started with a discussion of women’s fear of rape, and moved from there to public spaces, interruption, intrusion and boundaries. My post focused on public transit as a particular case of public spaces, and staked out the position that bothering a woman whose activities and body language are not inviting interaction is a violation of her boundaries. I’m saddened to see pushback on that.
In comments, AJ wrote something that made me think ...

Cross-posted from Yes Means Yes Blog
I said in the Shroedinger’s Rapist post that it was part of a larger idea and might be Part I of two. Here’s Part II.
It’s all about ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 14 years ago

Too Drunk To Fuck*

Crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog.
There’s a running joke between my spouse and me: “one is not enough, and three is too many.” It’s a joke about threesomes, but not about the number of people. It’s a joke about one that got away.
Before I get to the story, I’ll say this: I feel like I can’t tell other adults much about reasonable alcohol use. I have a skewed perception of what that is. Both my parents had alcohol problems, and in my early teens I decided I didn’t drink, and that remains true. For lots of reasons, I don’t think I can drink in moderation, and the consequences of being ...

Crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog.
There’s a running joke between my spouse and me: “one is not enough, and three is too many.” It’s a joke about threesomes, but not about the number ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 14 years ago

Everyone’s Fault

Crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog.

The Polanski arrest has everyone talking, and Lauren has again revisited her personal story, which can’t be easy.

Lauren’s a friend, and I’ll say publicly what I’ve said privately before. If a girl or a woman gets raped, that’s the rapist’s fault. If she doesn’t know who she can tell or if she can tell or whose side people will be on or if she’ll be blamed or if she can get the support she needs … then that’s everyone’s fault. The whole system, the whole country, the whole culture failed Lauren. And Samantha Geimer. And every other girl and woman both who have survived ...

Crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog.

The Polanski arrest has everyone talking, and Lauren has again revisited her personal story, which can’t be easy.

Lauren’s a friend, and I’ll say publicly what I’ve said privately before. ...
By thomas-macaulay-millar • 14 years ago

The Snip

(About men, fertility and privileged experiences with medical care. This piece is crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog.)
“You’ll have to make the appointment for him,” she said. That was not going to happen.
My spouse heard this several times from several other married women. When they and their husbands were done having kids, they had concluded that the most sensible long-term contraception was vasectomy. That’s an easy conclusion to reach. It’s not really a big deal at all. Yet for some reason that they could not or would not articulate, these men all dragged their heels. They had to be pushed, prodded and handheld through a medical decision that they reasoned ...

(About men, fertility and privileged experiences with medical care. This piece is crossposted from Yes Means Yes Blog.)
“You’ll have to make the appointment for him,” she said. That was not going to happen.

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