The Republic of T.

Troy Davis is dead, killed — murdered, some would even say — by the state of Georgia for a crime he may well not have committed.

While many questions remain about the case against Davis, even after his death, there’s one I want to focus on here: Who will be the next Troy Davis? Because someone will be. Our system of justice guarantees it.

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Update: The Supreme Court won’t stop the execution. At this point, if you’re wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die for a crime you didn’t commit, with no more evidence than the state had against Troy Davis, I guess you’re toast.

I reiterate my earlier statement. Tonight, the state of Georgia will kill a man who is very likely innocent. Tonight I am ashamed to be a Georgian.

Update: Checking the news upon arriving at home, I read that the execution has been delayed by an appeal to the Supreme Court. As of 9:42 pm, there is no word yet from the Supreme Court.

Unless something changes between now and 7:00 pm, today I am ashamed to be a Georgian.

“The struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I’m in good spirits and I’m prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I’ve taken my last breath.”

~ Troy Davis

I suppose it’s no secret anymore. We went down to the courthouse this morning, and got a place in line.

At least 16 couples were waiting at 7:15 a.m. inside the city’s Moultrie courthouse, which houses the marriage bureau and is just blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

Sinjoyla Townsend, 41, and her partner of 12 years, Angelisa Young, 47, claimed the first spot in line just after 6 a.m.

“It’s like waking up Christmas morning,” Young said.

Washington will be the sixth place in the nation where gay marriages can take place. Because of a mandatory waiting period, however, couples won’t actually be able to marry in the District of Columbia until March 9. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont currently issue licenses to same-sex couples.

…Terrance Heath, 41, planned to be at the courthouse with his partner, Rick Imirowicz, 43. The two have been together for 10 years and have a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old, but Heath said Wednesday feels like “a step forward.”

“My husband has always been my husband to me, but having that legal recognition, that legal protection, makes it easier to deal with any number of situations,” said Heath, a writer and blogger. “If you tell people you’re married, you don’t really have to explain much beyond that.”

The two, who live in Maryland, plan to marry on March 9, the first day possible.

The gay marriage law was introduced in the 13-member D.C. Council in October and had near-unanimous support from the beginning. The bill passed and D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty signed it in December, but because Washington is a federal district, the law had to undergo a congressional review period that expired Tuesday.

We were number 12 in line.

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iii

Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer…

“Helter Skelter,” The Beatles

His name was Jason. I didn’t remember that right away, but I remembered him. As I closed the book on Rader and asked myself how people could sit right next to a murderer like him — or like any of the others whose deeds I’d been reading about — and not now it … I thought about Jason. I hadn’t done that in a long time.

He was, when I knew him, a fairly ordinary guy. I didn’t know him well, and we weren’t close friends. He was, for a while, part of my social circle in college. Most of the time, I’d see him in the dining hall, where some of us who had a break in classes at the same time of day would gather for lunch. Or I’d see him when (roughly) the same group got together for dinner in the dining hall.

I don’t remember how he came to be a part of the group, which was randomly assembled. He may have been someone’s roomate. Perhaps he had a class with someone in the group, or attended the same high school, or came from the same hometown.

He was a pretty regular guy from what I recall. He was average height or maybe a little shorter, kinda skinny, brown hair, blue eyes. He had a nice smile and a somewhat deep voice. Knowing me, I might even have thought he was somewhat cute back then, briefly, before moving on to some other crush on some other guy within a day or so.

Anyway, he was straight, so I likely dismissed the notion quickly. He dated one young woman in our group, for a while. They eventually broke up, but don’t remember any drama about it. He still hung out with the group.

Most of all, I don’t remember anything that stood out about him. He wasn’t, violent as far as I remember. I don’t remember anything about him that suggested he was likely to murder anyone.

Like I said, I couldn’t even remember his name. But I remembered him. And, more than that, I remembered his victim’s name.

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A few years ago, when we still had time for such things, my husband and I belonged to a book group. One of the last books the group read before it’s leader moved away (and, having become a first-time parent that year, I declined to be in charge of much else besides keeping myself in relatively clean clothes) sparked an exchange between me and my husband that came to mind as I watched the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

The book was Middlesex (a delightful read), and in one chapter the protagonist’s family of Greek immigrants shopped for a new home. They encountered a real estate agent who asked how many relatives lived with them, and subtly directed them toward certain neighborhoods and away from one — where "ethnics" like themselves would "not fit in."

It hit me like a slap in the face. It sounded familiar, but different. To me, this fictional family was white. But in the time and place they occupied on the page they weren’t "white enough."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. My husband, who was reading the same book, looked at me.

I looked up from the page, looked at him, and said with a note of wonder in my voice, "There are different shades of white."

"Yes," the son-of-Polish-immigrants I married said, dryly. "There are."

Or at least there were. From the moment Judge Sotomayor’s nomination was announced, it’s become more and more evident that all those varied shades of white have since blended into a much paler, but more uniform, shade.

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I don’t know about you but “sorry” doesn’t begin to cut it

Chris Brown has publicly apologised for attacking his ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

In a two-minute video on his website, the R&B star said “I thought it was time that you heard directly from me that I am sorry”.

He says he is seeking help and wants to live his life as a role model, saying: “I wish I had the chance to live those few moments again”.

Chris Brown pleaded guilty to assault after he was arrested the night before the Grammy awards in February.

Not when we’re talking about this.

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I was probably an annoying person to have around if you were watching the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. I was so frustrated listening to them that I couldn’t help … um … talking back to the television. There is, after all, only so much the mind can take before it explodes.

At least, that’s true of my mind. As for the minds of some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week was like a crash course of what I’ve often referred to as "self-evasion of the mind."

It was some time before I recognized “self evasion of the mind” as the act of contorting the mind so as not to have to see or acknowledge what is obvious to anyone who simply looks.

It’s a phrase I learned from an admired college professor, and I’ve since expanded my understand of it to include contorting the mind in order that one may continue to hold conflicting views or beliefs, or engage in behavior that is diametrically opposed to your stated beliefs.

Basically, it’s amounts to working very hard at not having a clue. Or, in the case of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working overtime at not having a clue.

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iv

You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression … If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Obama and other Democrats have not said as much to LGBT activists. In fact, their actions could be interpreted to say “Please, don’t make me do it now.” As my own exchange with Pelosi suggests, Democrats seem to be taking the “rising tide” approach. Fixing the economy can help same-sex households in the same way it can hep the rest of the country. Universal health care — if it includes the kind of public plan Obama ran on — helps same-sex couples and their families by divorcing health insurance from both employment status and marital status.

Health care reform could certainly remove obstacles to health insurance for gay couples.

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Well, for starters, it can result in a lawsuit against a judge where there was not one before.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Commission against Covington County Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan of Andalusia, said Olivia Turner, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama. The complaint said McKathan violated ethics rules and the U.S. Constitution by ordering the group to pray.

Four years ago, McKathan donned the Ten Commandments robe, he said, to publicly acknowledge his belief that the law is based on more than just words written in law books.

The ACLU complaint said McKathan dropped to his knees and prayed aloud during a court hearing in February. He told the 100 people in the courtroom that he was not afraid to call on the name of Jesus Christ, witnesses said, and ordered all to join hands and pray, according to the complaint filed soon after the hearing.

The hearing was for a case in which the pastor and several deacons of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Monroeville, Alabama, sued the church’s former secretary to gain possession of financial records.

Ordered to pray? Ordered to pray?

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I wrote this yesterday:

Sometimes I’ll come across an article focusing on family and friends remembering the victim, and may be able to glean a little more information. But just as often, those friends and family may not have known — may have guessed or inferred, or may have assumed since they were not told — that their loved-one or their friend was gay. Co-workers who have worked beside the victim for years, friends and family who have known the victim even longer, may simply not have known who their friend and love-one really was. That is, until they become the victim of a hate crime.

That was the case with the murder of Victor Manious. When I filed away an article on Manious’ murder a couple of months ago, I intended to get back to it, and I did. But I didn’t expect to find so much information on the case, or to spend much time with it. But the more time I spent looking in to it, the more I was reminded of a few other stories, which raised some questions for me.

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I posted earlier about the isle of Lesbos suing entire lesbian sisterhood for exclusive rights to the word “lesbian.” Well, it looks like we can all breath a little easier. The court ruled that the folks who live on Lesbos don’t own the word “lesbian.”

A Greek court Tuesday ruled that a gay rights group can use the word lesbian in its name, stating that the people from the island of Lesbos do not have sole claim to the word, Reuters reported.

A group from the Aegean island filed a lawsuit in June against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, claiming its name was an affront to the residents of Lesbos, who refer to themselves as Lesbians. A Greek court ruled against the islanders.

That’s a relief. Because you know if the court had ruled the other way, somebody would be going to court to “take back” “gay,” “queer,” and anything else they could come up with, and we’d be busted back down to “Urnings,” or some such.

And nobody came? This was apparently the case with the D.C. gun registry, following the Supreme Court decision.

With the ban lifted after a momentous, years-long legal battle that led to the landmark high court decision last month, here’s how many applications the city received by day’s end: one.

Bracing for a crowd at the registration office, at police headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW, officials set up a reception counter in the lobby and used portable metal railings to reserve one of the building’s entrances for “gun registry applicants.” Officers stood guard at the door, and a dozen reporters and TV cameras were waiting expectantly at 7 a.m., when the registration process was to begin.

But in the eight hours that the office remained open, there was no crush of people eager to avail themselves of the newly affirmed right to own a revolver in the nation’s capital. Police gave out 58 registration packets to people stopping by for the materials. But only two people showed up to apply to register handguns, and one was turned away by police officials because he didn’t bring his weapon with him, as the registration rules require.

And the beauty part?

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Or else. That’s what I thought when I read about John and Cynthia Burke, after someone linked to the article in a comment on my post at Pam’s.

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children’s Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple’s religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau denied the Burkes’ application. After the couple began court action, however, the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy from the Children’s Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

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I’ve been meaning to post some kind of follow-up after my last three posts on mental illness and mental health care (or the lack thereof). After going off about the lack of mental health services, or lack of access to treatment, can lead to problems for the mentally ill, their families, and the rest of society, it was encouraging to read about states increasing funding for mental health services. But it raises some interesting questions about how to achieve a balance that also protects the rights of the mentally ill.

I thought about it a couple of weeks ago, when I read about Kaine’s plan to boost mental health funding, in the wake of the VA Tech shootings. But that funding comes with a reform that—though apparently intended to address situations in which people, like VA Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho, don’t get court ordered treatment—raises questions about the effectiveness of basically coercing the mentally ill into getting treatment.
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