Justin Katz
Even just the lead of the Providence Journal’s front-page reprint of this McClatchy Newspapers story deserves an LOL: With little to gain and much to lose, the [Democrat] party’s presidential hopefuls avoid highlighting their positions, which are more moderate than their GOP rivals. But David Lightman’s actual text gets even better (if one is judging…
During a brief break, some of my fellow attendees of the Tiverton Charter Review Commission meeting engaged me in discussion, with two interesting points made: A Republican suggested that running as such probably costs a candidate votes. A Planning Board member suggested that, in Tiverton (at least), party doesn’t really matter, because anybody elected to…
I wasn’t planning to attend tonight’s meeting of the Tiverton Charter Review Commission, but based on the concern about its actions expressed by the school committee last night, I thought it worth observing. Also based on that concern, I sorta expected the attendance to be greater. I’m one of nine non-commission attendees, a group including:…
At last night’s Tiverton town council meeting, my man Councilor Hannibal Costa took the opportunity of a routine tax assessor request (regarding the firm that will handle the assessment) to make everybody well aware that he’s not going to sit idly by while rates get jacked up — what with all those houses sitting on…
Tonight’s Tiverton School Committee meeting gave a taste of how things might operate in a union-free school district: a quiet and respectful audience; parents and teachers making reports and suggestions as if giving testimony as concerned and/or informed parties; a general feel of give and take. In other words, there wasn’t the sense that a…
Thanks to the holiday, both the town council and the school committee are meeting tonight, and I’ve discovered that I’m not yet sufficiently informed to be able to spot the hot-button items on each body’s bland-looking agenda. So, I’ve started with the committee and will hit the council on my way home if the town…
The third mechanism that I posit as likely to undermine marriage should the definition be changed to include same-sex couples speaks to the core justification of public recognition and government encouragement of the institution. As I argue in terms of the first mechanism, if the state’s irreducible interest in encouraging marriage is to foster mutual…
Well, whaddaya know: Many speakers highlighted the fact that as polyamorists, they didn’t see themselves as adulterers or swingers. Instead, polyamory involves several simultaneous committed physically intimate relationships. Also, unlike polygamy, made famous by HBO’s “Big Love,” both females and males may have multiple partners. Polyamory NYC hosts monthly meetings at the LGBT Community Center…
In my experience with the same-sex marriage debate, the second corruptive mechanism that I suggest in answer to the question of how incorporating homosexual relationships would undermine marriage is often asserted to be the weakest, but it’s also the least well understood (whether the fault is mine, a failure of the imagination, or a desire…
This happens with most highly charged topics, but with the same-sex marriage debate, it seems especially common (making the debate particularly tedious after years of engaging in it): After a few steps setting the mutually understood context, the thread becomes lost in opponents’ eagerness to make their total case. To review the discussion thus far:…