The Mad Professah Lectures

There are now twenty states that do not have the death penalty! Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court declared that state's death penalty unconstitutional in State v. Gregory, saying:

The death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and raciallybiased manner. While this particular case provides an opportunity to specificallyaddress racial disproportionality, the underlying issues that underpin our holding are rooted in the arbitrary manner in which the death penalty is generally administered. As noted by appellant, the use of the death penalty is unequally applied—sometimes by where the crime took place, or the county of residence, or the available budgetary resources at any given point in time, or the race of the defendant. The death penalty, as administered in our state, fails to serve any legitimate penological goal; thus, it violates article I, section 14 of our state constitution.

An interesting analysis of partisanship in a report from the Brooking Institution. They split all voters into four categories: dismantlers, streamliners, rebuilders and expanders. They are each defined thusly:

The report then goes on to analyze how each of the major partisan groups: democrats, republicans and independents are made up of various groupings of these four types (or ideologies) and how this has changed over time. It's worth a read!

I was at the National Academy of Science this week and took the opportunity to have my picture taken with this famous statue of Albert Einstein.

MONFILS WINS CITI OPEN IN WASHINGTON OVER IVO KARLOVIC
I visited the Citi Open in Washington, DC for the second time this weekend. In 2013 I saw Juan Martin del Potro beat Joh Isner in the final. This time I saw Gael Monfils beat Sascha Zverev in the semifinals. Monfils then faced Ivo Karlovic in the final the next day, which was played in brutally hot conditions (90-plus degrees, 50-plus percent humidity, court temperatures exceeding 140 degrees). I elected to stay home and watched on TV while Gael faced a match point but managed to win the match 5-7 7-6(6) 6-4 to claim the biggest title of his career. Gael had previously lost 8 of his 9 previous finals and has now won only 6 of the 25 finals in his career. The win jumped Monfils to World #14 (and #9 in the Race to London).

CANADA'S ROGERS CUP WITHDRAWALS: SERENA(1), MURRAY(2), FEDERER(3), NADAL(4) 
The summer tennis  schedule this year is overly packed and something had to give. It looks like it is the Rogers Cup tournament in Canada. The men's tournament was hit by a raft of high-profile withdrawals: three of the Big Four: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray. The  women's draw was hit by the withdrawal of the World #1 player Serena Williams.

VENUS WILLIAMS RISES TO WORLD #6 RANKING AFTER LOSING STANFORD FINAL TO JOHANNA JONTA
36-year-old Venus Williams has reached the WTA ranking of #6 after a good run at the Bank of the West Classic on the campus of Stanford University. Even though she was the Top seed, Venus lost in the final 5-7 7-5 6-2 to Johanna Konta of Great Britain, who won her first WTA title, and is now ranked at #14.

I'm in Washington, D.C. For the summer and so I decided to check out the CitiOpen.

I have attended the final before but it was supposed to be 100 degrees (and 60% humidity) so instead I went no the semifinals and saw Gael Monfils put on a clinic against Next Gen phenomenon Sascha Zverev (the youngest player ranked in the Top 30).

Gael won 6-4 6-0. He broke on the very first game of the match and only faced 2 break points (in the same game), which he saved with good serving and excellent movement.

After losing the first set Sasha was very disconsolate and just started going for too much and lost easily.

Oh the irony is just so delicious. For several days there was much discussion about a private meeting between Pope Francis and religious fanatic Kim Davis where it was implied that the Pontiff was endorsing her message that religious-based views about marriage can serve as reason not to folloq  federal or state laws on marriage equality.

Today came word that not only did the Vatican firmly clarify that the meeting with Davis was NOT an endorsement of Davis' crazed crusade against marriage equality in Kentucky, but that the only person the Pope did have an official audience with was his openly gay former student Yayo Grassi.

The Washington Post reports:

“Mr. Yayo Grassi, a former Argentine student of Pope Francis, who had already met other times in the past with the Pope, asked to present his mother and several friends to the Pope during the Pope’s stay in Washington, DC,” the Rev. Thomas Rosica, an English-language spokesman for the Vatican, said in a statement. “As noted in the past, the Pope, as pastor, has maintained many personal relationships with people in a spirit of kindness, welcome and dialogue.”

which should be contrasted with how they describe the meeting with Davis:

On Friday, the Vatican said Davis was among “a number of guests” who were “invited by the Nuncio,” a church term for the ambassador, to greet the pope. “Very brief greetings,” Rosica told the Associated Press. “And in the pope’s characteristic kindness and warmth and hospitality, he shook people’s hands and gave them rosaries. We should understand it as that. In terms of why this person was invited, you have to ask those questions of the nunciature.” 

“The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family,” Rosica said. 

As an atheist I could care less what the Pope thinks or who he meets but this was a huge story in the media and LGBT blogosphere this week.

Social and popular media have been going buck wild about the story of Rachel Dolezal, the  apparently white woman who has been posing publicly as a Black woman for at least the last 10 years.

NPR's Code Switch blog has a useful roundup of online coverage:

In a bizarre turn of events, a prominent civil rights leader and Africana studies professor in Spokane, Wash., has been accused of pretending to be black for personal gain. 

Rachel Dolezal, 37, heads up the local chapter of the NAACP in Spokane and has apparently identified as black for several years. Dolezal's story came to light after she was accused of falsifying reports of multiple hate crimes. Local reporters contacted her parents, who made a startling claim backed up by a birth certificate and old pictures. They say their daughter's heritage is Swedish, German, Czech and a little bit Native American. But definitely not black. 

Predictably, this story has blown up all over the Internet as people try to make sense of it all: Why did she do it? Didn't anyone suspect? What's up with that hair?

As many experts have pointed out, people have been "passing" as a different race for hundreds of years. It's just that almost always this has meant that it was people who would generally be characterized as "Black" (or African-American) passing as something else, usually a racial identity which is less marginalized. What makes the Dolezal situation so unusual is that it is an example of someone voluntarily adopting a subaltern identity, presumably to garner some kind of advantage that they otherwise wouldn't have had access to if they maintained their original identity.

Some people are trying to compare the Dolezal story to the Caitlin Jenner story but that is clearly just stupid.

Dolezal engaged in such actions in order to be perceived as black, in a racialized American environment where that matters. Trans people transition in order to be the gender we feel inside and, while there may come a time when posers will appropriate trendy trans culture for profit, right now, there's no advantage to transitioning when you're not trans.

In some sense this Dolezal situation shows that there has been progress of race relations in America where it is possible for some people to actually believe that their social circumstances would improve if they were perceived as Black or African-American.

Hat/tip to Wonder Man

The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has set up an American Values Atlas website which allows you to see the geographic distribution of the various polling data they have collected about Americans.

One result that gladdens my heart is the news that the percentage of what PRRI called "religiously unaffiliated" (and who I would call "godless") is now 22% of Americans overall, and among younger people it is closer to 34%.

In fact, in numerous states (13) a plurality of respondents are godless! Some of those states are Oregon (37 percent), New Hampshire (35 percent), Washington State (33 percent), Vermont (32 percent) and Montana (29 percent).

That's all the geographic-based data on godlessness for today!

One of the good things about a new year is that new laws go into effect. On January 1, twenty states raised their minimum wage, with Washington state continuing to have the highest minimum wage in the country at $9.47 per hour. New York raised its minimum wage to $8.75 on December 31st. California's minimum wage is $9.00.

The Huffington Post reports:

Minimum wage workers in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia will all see their pay go up on Jan. 1. Minimum wage workers in Delaware and Minnesota are also expected to receive a pay hike in June and August 2015, respectively. 

For the first time a majority of states (29) have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum.

Big news from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals! The now fully staffed court has denied a sua ponte request to reconsider their important ruling in SmithKline Beecham. That case is the about juror discrimination where the 9th Circuit ruled that sexual orientation is not a valid characteristic for removing a potential juror, by declaring that sexual orientation is a suspect classification that requires heightened scrutiny. A majority of judges on the 26-member court agreed that an en banc hearing was not warranted, while the three most conservative members of the court signed on to a 10-page decision dissenting in the decision of the court. Neither of the parties in the underlying dispute had asked the court to review the question of what standard of review sexual orientation should receive, that was instigated by an anonymous member of the 9th Circuit. The fact that the decision is now final means that in order to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in the 9th Circuit's jurisdictional area, an exceedingly persuasive reason has to be given. As  Joe Jervis says, this will almost certainly lead to marriage equality in the states of the 9th Circuit which do not have it yet: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Nevada.

SCOTUS Blog also discusses the implications of the permanence of SmithKline:

 Of the twelve federal appeals courts to confront the issue, ten have taken the position that challenges to laws which allegedly discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation should be analyzed only by the least-demanding standard — that is, “rational basis” review.   Using that standard, at least some courts have upheld bans on same-sex marriage. 

[...] 

In the cases now awaiting Ninth Circuit review, state officials are attempting to defend same-sex marriage bans only in the Idaho case.  State officials in Oregon and Nevada have given up the defense of such bans, and Hawaii has moved on its own to allow such marriages.   Because the panel’s decision in the SmithKline decision is now binding in that circuit, in the wake of denial of en banc review, it sets the standard for judging the state bans throughout the geographic region included in the Ninth Circuit.

The other appellate court to decide sexual orientation should receive heightened scrutiny is the 2nd U.S. Circuit, which did so in their ruling which struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in Windsor v United States, a decision the Supreme Court upheld last year (but did not address the level of review question).

Washington Governor Jay Inslee has decided to appoint Mary Yu to the state Supreme Court, who would make history as the first openly LGBT, Latina and Asian member of that state's highest court.

From the Governor's office:

Uh-oh! Although the date passed on March 7, 2014  by which the parties involved could appeal the 9th Circuit's important ruling in SmithKlinBeacham v Abbott in which the federal appellate court ruled earlier this year that sexual orientation must receive heightened scrutiny when laws are being analyzed for equal protection purposes, now comes word that the ruling may not be final and that an en banc hearing on the case may be in the works.

"A sua sponte en banc call having been made, the parties are instructed to filewithin 21 days of the filing date of this order simultaneous briefs setting forth theirrespective positions on whether the case should be reheard en banc. See G.O.5.4c(3). An original and fifty copies shall be filed. See Ninth Cir. R. 35-4(b)."

The court published an order today (excerpted above) which gives interested parties 21 days to file briefs as to why or why not a panel of 11 judges should hear the case, and possibly reverse it. What happens now is that after 21 days the entire 9th Circuit (which has something like 26 judges) will vote as to whether an en banc hearing should occur. If a majority votes in favor, then there is a possibility that a randomly selected 11-judge panel or the U.S. Supreme Court could reverse the ruling.  The current 3-judge panel that issued the unanimous ruling has some of the most liberal members of the circuit on it (Berzon, Reinhardt and Schroeder).

SmithKline is incredibly important ruling and the question of whether marriage equality will come sooner or later to atleast two states in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction (namely Nevada and Oregon) depends on whether the idea that sexual orientation is indeed a suspect class, which is a key corolary of the SmithKline Beacham decision.

MadProfessah will be watching developments in this case very closely!

Hat/tip to Equality on Trial

Good news out of Arizona regarding LGBT equality! Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit seeking to gain the right to marriage for same-sex couples in Arizona.

In the lawsuit, Lambda Legal, joined by pro bono co-counsel from Perkins Coie LLP, argues that the Arizona constitutional amendment and state statutes barring same-sex couples from marriage violates the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  

The lead plaintiffs, Nelda Majors, 75, and Karen Bailey, 74, of Scottsdale, have been together for more than 55 years, and together have raised two children, Karen’s great grand-nieces Marissa and Sharla, as their own daughters since the girls came into their home as toddlers. Marissa is now 15 and Sharla 21. 

“Karen and I have been together since 1957,” Majors said.  “We’re a committed, loving family, have raised two amazing girls together, have seen each other through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. After five decades together, we want to celebrate and affirm our deep love for each other as other couples do, before our friends and family, through marriage. We’re also getting up there in years. I want to know that, should anything happen to me, there would be no question about Karen being allowed to be with me at the hospital, and vice versa. If we were married, there would be no question and we both would feel more secure.” 

“Arizona’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples serves no legitimate state interest, brands these loving couples and their children as second-class citizens, and encourages private bias and discrimination,” Pizer said. “And because the State does not even offer a lesser status such as civil union or domestic partnership, these loving couples live every day with the uncertainty that their families and relationships lack even basic protections.”

This is what the flag of the United States would look like if you only included the states where marriage equality is currently law. This ongoing online protest is a project of MakeItEqual.org.

Hat/tip to LGBT Think Progress.

Openly gay Washington state senator Ed Murray has been elected Mayor of Seattle. Murray, 58, is the first openly gay person to be elected to run Washington's largest city and the 22nd largest city in the United States.

Washington votes by mail so results are not final but the current tally has Murray ahead of the incumbent mayor, Mike McGinn, 56 to 43 percent.

SEATTLE MAYORMike McGinn 43 percentEd Murray 56 percent

Murray is well-known as one of the architects of marriage equality in the Evergreen state and is himself married to a man, Michael Shiosaki, who appeared in his husband's television ads.

Congratulations, Seattle!

One decade ago there were exactly zero states that had marriage equality, even though the Defense of Marriage Act had been federal law for seven years. In November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state constitution required equal marriage rights for same-sex couples under the law and issued an order to go in effect on May 17, 2004. Note that the second state, Connecticut did not have marriage equality until November 2008 (and for a brief 173 days starting in June 2008 Californians had access to same-sex marriage prior to the passage of Proposition 8). So, really in a little over 5 years marriage equality has increased from roughly 10 million to another order of magnitude.

With New Jersey becoming the 14th state to enact marriage equality this week there are now well over 100 million people who live in states with marriage equality, about 33% of the entire U.S. population.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) summaries the astonishingly rapid progress:

State	Date Effective	Population	Percent
Massachusetts	May 2004	6,547,629	2.12%
Connecticut	Nov. 2008	3,574,097	1.16%
Iowa	Apr. 2009	3,046,355	0.99%
Vermont	Jun. 2009	625,741	0.20%
New Hampshire	Jan. 2010	1,316,470	0.43%
Washington, D.C.	Mar. 2010	601,723	0.19%
New York	Jun. 2011	19,378,361	6.28%
Washington	Dec. 2012	6,724,540	2.18%
Maine	Dec. 2012	1,328,361	0.43%
Maryland	Jan. 2013	5,773,552	1.87%
Delaware	Jun. 2013	897,934	0.29%
California	Jun. 2013	37,253,956	12.07%
Minnesota	Aug. 2013	5,303,925	1.72%
Rhode Island	Aug. 2013	1,052,567	0.34%
New Jersey	Oct. 2013	8,791,894	2.84%
	Total	102,216,846	33.11%

Any predictions for when the United States will hit 50%? Remember Illinois, Hawaii, New Mexico and Oregon are widely expected to legalize civil marriage for same-sex couples sooner rather than later.

Good news from Oregon! The Beaver State is the only remaining state of the three Pacific states that does not have marriage equality. LGBT activists have announced that they intend to change that by passing a ballot measure in the 2014 statewide election to repeal Oregon's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and enact marriage equality.

Oregon United for Marriage is the lead organization which is responsible for gathering the necessary 116, 248 valid signatures to place the marriage equality measure on the ballot. The text of the initiative language is:

“Article XV, section 5(a). Policy regarding marriage. It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage. It is the policy of the State of Oregon to recognize and protect the right to marry, while also preserving and protecting the right of religious institutions and clergy to refuse to perform a marriage.

(1) Right to Marry: The state and its political subdivisions shall issue marriage licenses to all couples who otherwise meet the requirements of Oregon law regarding age, marital status, capacity to consent to marriage, and degree of kinship.

(2) Religious Protection: The existing right of religious institutions and clergy to refuse to perform a marriage shall be protected.

(3) Non-Discrimination: All legally valid marriages shall be treated equally under the law.”

That seems pretty clear, doesn't it? The official summary of the ballot language (which will most likely be known as Ballot Measure 8 if, as expected, it qualifies for the ballot) is:

Result of “Yes” Vote:  “Yes” vote amends constitution; recognizes the right of same-gender couples to marry; protects right of clergy and religious institutions to refuse to perform marriages.

Result of “No” Vote:  “No” vote retains existing constitutional ban on marriage of same-gender couples; retains constitutional provision that recognizes only marriage between one man and one woman.

Summary:  Oregon Constitution currently bans marriage between couples of the same gender by providing that only marriage between one man and one woman is valid or legally recognized.  Oregon statutes currently limit the right to marriage based on age, capacity to consent, marital status, and degree of kinship.  Measure amends Constitution to recognize the right of couples of the same gender to marry provided they meet statutory qualifications.  Measure requires state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the same basis as opposite-sex couples.  Measure provides that marriages between same-sex couples are subject to the same laws that govern marriages between opposite-sex couples.  Measure protects the existing right of religious institutions and clergy to refuse to perform a marriage.  Other provisions.

It appears as if the fight for marriage equality in Oregon is going well. In the first 10 days of collecting signatures, OUM gathered well over 30,000 signatures, more than 3 times its original goal of 10,000. Elections in Oregon are entirely vote by mail. If you are a registered voter in Oregon you can download a petition yourself at Oregon Says I Do and sign in a petition to help the Freedom to Marry to come to Oregon in 2014!

Hat/tip to HRC Blog

The final of the Citi Open tennis tournament in Washington, D.C. will feature 6-foot-10 John Isner versus -foot-7 Juan Martin del Potro. Amazingly, the combined height of these combatants is not the tallest final of the year, that honor was achieved in last week's final between Isner and 6-foot-8 Kevin Anderson won by the American in a 3rd set tiebreaker.

One extra cool thing about this final is that yours truly will be attending it in person!

Openly gay state senator Ed Murray is running to become the next mayor of the great city of Seattle, Washington. Watch his first ad, which features his husband and also includes him taking credit for writing "Washington's marriage equality law."

You know things are going our way when politicians are using winning battles for gay rights to help get them elected to higher office!

shrimp and grits (anson mill’s grits, vidalia onion, spinach, tasso ham, tomato, shellfish emulsion)

jumbo lump crab cake (english peas, apricots, pancetta, scallions, sweet pepper butter)

seared hudson valley foie gras  (lemon marmalade, candied pecans, parsnip butter, brioche, apricot ice cream)

shenandoah lamb loin (surry lamb sausage, ramp spaetzle, king trumpet mushroom, strawberry jam, vadouvan jus)

georgia pecan pie  (bourbon ice cream, praline lace crumble, caramel)

interior of Vidalia

My plan to sample the food at the best restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area continues with a stop at Vidalia. (I have previously been to Fiola, Blue Duck Tavern, Corduroy, Zaitinya, Proof and Rasika, among others.) At Vidalia, we had the five course tasting menu. In order, I had the foie gras, crab cake, shrimp and grits, lamb loin and the pecan pie for dessert. The chef and owner at Vidalia is Jeffrey Beuben, a James Beard award-winning chef (1999), who describes his restaurant as "regional American infused with a heaping serving of Southern influence."

The food was uniformly excellent with one standout for me: the shrimp and grits. I am most decidedly not a fan of grits (they seem too plain to me usually and the texture usually brings flashbacks of negative experiences with cream-of-wheat breakfasts!). However, I was convinced by the excellent waitron to try the shrimp and grits since it is one of their most popular dishes. From Yelp I had read good comments about the lump crab cakes so I ordered that as well. The shrimp and grits at Vidalia were an absolute revelation to me, one of the best things I have eaten while living and working in DC for nearly two years. The grits absolutely melted in your mouth and combined with the substantial heartiness of the shrimp and the delicious sauce (called "shellfish emulsion" on the menu) it was one of those rare dishes that make you laugh out loud it is so good. If you eat at Vidalia you must order them!

You'll notice I didn't place the crab cake on the standout list despite the Yelp plaudits (so much for crowdsourcing). The crab cake itself was fine, although with almost too much texture (i.e. a bit rough in the mouth) but this was almost certainly because it was chock-full of crab. If you're a fan of too much crab in a crab cake, this is the one for you. No, the biggest problem I had with the crab cake were the peas. They were simply not done well enough, and to me the hard peas combined with the rough crab put me off slightly, (I understand this was probably a deliberate choice by the chef--some people like very firm vegetables, so do I, but these were a little too close to the nearly raw side for me). I must say that the sauce combined with the apricots were amazing, and really the best part of the dish.

The second favorite thing I had was the lamb loin, which was a splurge for me because I only eat red meat rarely these days. However, it was cooked exactly right (medium rare) and had immense flavor. The mushrooms were really well balanced with the meat and the little green ramp spaetzle were simply delightful. Absolutely an excellent dish, but not a rare transcendent experience like the shrimp 'n' grits were for me.

The foie gras and pecan pie were simply mistakes (on my part). The best dessert on the menu is the lemon chess pie, and I knew my error as soon as saw my neighbor's dessert. I picked the pecan pie because I generally like it and wanted to see what the chef would do with it. Sadly, it was just average, which after a meal that was decidedly not seemed like a bad way to end things. The foie gras was me being adventurous and that dish has a LOT going on. The apricot ice cream was yummy and an interesting counterpoint to the warm, very viscous foie gras but it reminded me a bit too much of eating marrow. Some people like marrow, and if you do, you should definitely try the dish but I should have probably ordered one of the salads to start with instead.

One unexpected pleasure of the dining experience was that they had a lovely cherry soda, called Cheerwine, also suggested by the lovely waitron when I asked about a no-alcoholic beverage. It was delicious and a great choice for teetotalers like myself who don't want to just drink water or ice tea with dinner.

Overall, Vidalia was an excellent dining experience, in the top echelon of the meals I have had. It was not better than my first meal at Fiola (but since my second meal at Fiola was a disaster, it's seems unfair to assign the top spot to until I have visited Vidalia a second time as well, something I hope to do soon) but on average I would say it was better than Corduroy, but at a higher price point than that restaurant. Really, at this level of dining it is almost attempting to split hairs to distinguish between them.

You will have a memorable meal no matter which of these restaurants you choose, I certainly still dream about those shrimp and grits at Vidalia!