Word: civilities
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...National Book Awards don't have as large an impact on book sales as the Pulitzer Prize or Oprah's seal of approval, but the honor remains highly sought after nonetheless. This year's finalists include Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Peter Matthiessen's controversial Shadow Country, which came under fire for being a re-written compilation of three novels that he wrote in the 90s and Patricia Smith's collection of poems Blood Dazzler, which describe New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. With 1,258 books submitted from...
...protests against same-sex marriage bans. Many of these protests have stressed first and foremost that opposition to same-sex marriage (incidentally, the position publicly held by the much-beloved Obama) stems from hate rather than from political sensibility. “5,419,478 Bigots Stole Our Civil Rights,” read one sign at a rally in Chicago. “No More Mister ‘Nice Gay’,” read another. This strategy—declaring that opponents of gay marriage are bigots and threatening retribution—is exactly the sort...
...proceed on the gay rights front now hinges on whether or not same-sex marriage bans constitute an act of tyranny of the majority—in other words, whether or not gay rights are minority rights. Many activists have described the gay rights debate as the most important civil rights issue of our time. This is not an apt description, as gay Americans are not being denied rights. This was not the case in previous civil rights movements. African-Americans living in the sixties were granted fewer rights than their white counterparts. Women living in earlier decades were granted...
...major problem with the gay rights movement is that it simultaneously champions democratic government and rejects it. The movement views marriage as a civic institution rather than a religious one (this is one distinction between marriages and civil unions), but only so long as government functions from a pro-gay marriage position. Once the cogs of government have turned to an anti-gay marriage slant, gay rights activists cease to be tolerant of the democratic process. Cue the banners decrying opponents as hateful and intolerant. Is this unfortunate divide what activists seek? Certainly that sort of culture of separatist intolerance...
...under a hundred tons of rock at Tora Bora, or so weakened that he might as well be dead? Indefinitely crashing around Afghanistan's and Pakistan's wild, mountainous tribal region on a ghost hunt cannot serve our interests. The longer we leave troops in Afghanistan, the worse the civil war there will become. One day Obama will need to give up the hunt - declare bin Laden either dead or irrelevant. He has more important enemies to deal with, from Iran to Russia...