Homophobia, Public and Private

Reason's Jacob Sollum distinguishes between governmental and private homophobia:

Ideally, the government would leave marriage to the private institutions that handled it for most of its history. Short of that, those institutions and the individuals who follow their teachings should be free to accept or reject gay unions as they see fit, which means they should not have to worry about being sued for unlawful discrimination.

Such fears played a conspicuous role in the Proposition 8 campaign, and the eHarmony case shows they’re not fanciful. Eric McKinley, the gay man who filed the civil rights complaint that forced eHarmony to start matching same-sex couples, says the company’s straights-only policy was “very hurtful,” making him feel like “a second-class citizen.”

Unlike a government that claims exclusive authority to approve adoptions or marriages, eHarmony has plenty of competitors, including online matchmakers that advertise themselves as gay-friendly. Yet McKinley could not bear the thought that one of many dating services chose to focus on heterosexuals. Such intolerance undermines the struggle for gay rights by feeding fears that equal treatment by the government means equal treatment by everyone.

Homophobia -- like racism, sexism, and antisemitism -- is a bigot's right. If the chief troglodyte of a business refuses to provide a service to gay persons (or hire them), then let him -- to his own detriment. Given competition, he and his business will suffer in the end. It is not the business of government to enlighten the hayseeds of America.

Instead, our energy should be focused on the pernicious practice of governmental discrimination, the kind of discrimination that we all pay for. Equal (not special) rights for a minority ultimately boils down to the fact that the individual is the smallest minority there is, and that minority's rights must be protected by the government. Gay marriage, like interracial marriage, should be legal not because gays need "special" privileges from the government, but the same status, as individuals, that straights enjoy.

As long as we still have some semblance of a constitutional republic, we cannot allow the majority to vote away the rights of an individual. But, in the same turn, those individuals also have a right to privately discriminate. It is the market, not the government, who is ultimately the arbiter. (This includes the "market" for friends and acquaintances, those who we choose to fraternize with.) No one is forced to deal with those bigoted individuals or companies.

We choose to deal with them. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of our dealings with the government.

The Public Gets It...

...but do you, Mr President?

[HT: Cafe Hayek]

Fairies, Unicorns, and Free-Market Republicans

Russ Roberts, responding to Minority Leader John Boehner's declaration that “the era of big government” has returned:

And what did we have the day and the week and the year and the decade before Obama's address? Ah yes, I remember. The Milton Friedman inspired laissez-faire world of free market capitalism and a limited Jeffersonian state.

I almost feel sorry for the Republicans. They know what their role is supposed to be. Having failed to inhabit the role for the last eight years (and a lot longer) they don't realize how silly they look slipping into the same old costume. It's like a fat man trying to do an ad for a weight loss regimen. It doesn't sell that well.

It would be an understatement to say that the Republicans have lost their free-market credibility. (If they ever really had it in the first place.) Yet politicos, and intelligent laymen, still inexplicably insist on linking the two; this only injures real pro-capitalists: it muddies the waters.

So, let it be said once and for all: Republicans do NOT represent laissez-faire capitalism. There. Now can we please move on?

The Conundrum of the Kindle 2

Roy Blount Jr, president of the Authors Guild, laments the new "text to speech" functionality of the Kindle 2. From yesterday's Times:

[The] Kindle 2 can read books aloud. And Kindle 2 is not paying anyone for audio rights.

True, you can already get software that will read aloud whatever is on your computer. But Kindle 2 is being sold specifically as a new, improved, multimedia version of books — every title is an e-book and an audio book rolled into one. And whereas e-books have yet to win mainstream enthusiasm, audio books are a billion-dollar market, and growing. Audio rights are not generally packaged with e-book rights. They are more valuable than e-book rights. Income from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and publishers, afloat.

You may be thinking that no automated read-aloud function can compete with the dulcet resonance of Jim Dale reading “Harry Potter” or of authors, ahem, reading themselves. But the voices of Kindle 2 are quite listenable. There’s even a male version and a female version. (A book by, say, Norman Mailer on Kindle 2 might do a brisk business among people wondering how his prose would sound in measured feminine tones.)

And that sort of technology is improving all the time. I.B.M. has patented a computerized voice that is said to be almost indistinguishable from human ones. This voice is programmed to include “ums,” “ers” and sighs, to cough for attention, even to “shhh” when interrupted. According to Andy Aaron, of I.B.M.’s Thomas J. Watson research group speech team: “These sounds can be incredibly subtle, even unnoticeable, but have a profound psychological effect. It can be extremely reassuring to have a more attentive-sounding voice.”

I'm a bit split over this. My first thought is: Blount is the head of an organization that represents a dying medium, and is trying to protect it from creative destruction. Boo hoo, right? On the other hand, if the Kindle 2 does infringe on the copyrights of audiobooks (which is something for the courts to determine), then, for contractual purposes alone, they should be protected.

Even if Blount is successful in upholding audio rights, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Ultimately, the dam will break and this reading technology, if it indeed is able to mimic the best human readers, could transform the audiobook industry. Just look at what has happened with music and television (from recordable cassettes and VCRs, to iTunes and Hulu).

Creative destruction will always be opposed by those who are destroyed (candlemakers, buggy drivers, Woolworth's), but that is the nature of progress. Ultimately, everyone is made better off because of it.

Politics in the Lab

Do some scientists have a political ax to grind? Here is an excerpt from another wonderful John Tierney "Findings" article in the Times. Mind the fact that Roger Pielke Jr, the scientist quoted in the article, is a self-described "Obamite."

Most researchers, Dr. Pielke writes, like to think of themselves in one of two roles: as a pure researcher who remains aloof from messy politics, or an impartial arbiter offering expert answers to politicians’ questions. Either way, they believe their research can point the way to correct public policies, and sometimes it does — when the science is clear and people’s values aren’t in conflict.

But climate change, like most political issues, isn’t so simple. While most scientists agree that anthropogenic global warming is a threat, they’re not certain about its scale or its timing or its precise consequences (like the condition of California’s water supply in 2090). And while most members of the public want to avoid future harm from climate change, they have conflicting values about which sacrifices are worthwhile today.

A scientist can enter the fray by becoming an advocate for certain policies, like limits on carbon emissions or subsidies for wind power. That’s a perfectly legitimate role for scientists, as long as they acknowledge that they’re promoting their own agendas.

But too often, Dr. Pielke says, they pose as impartial experts pointing politicians to the only option that makes scientific sense. To bolster their case, they’re prone to exaggerate their expertise (like enumerating the catastrophes that would occur if their policies aren’t adopted), while denigrating their political opponents as “unqualified” or “unscientific.”

Eerily Prescient

This is from 2005.



[HT: Andrew Sullivan]

"President Obama, Are You Listening?"

This is amazing.


[HT: Cafe Hayek]