Feminism's Last Line of Defense
by Michelle Goldberg
the Daily Beast: October 13, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor's debut this week restores a two-woman Supreme Court. But
Ruth Ginsburg is the voice that matters on gender issues. Michelle Goldberg
on why there'll never be another justice like her.
Confident and assertive on her first day of her first Supreme Court term,
Sonia Sotomayor made headlines for asking more questions in an hour than
Clarence Thomas has in years. Thrilling as that was, it was even better to
read that 76-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg dominated
questioning along with her new colleague. Ginsburg was recently hospitalized
after feeling faint at work; she underwent an operation for pancreatic
cancer earlier this year. For feminists, she's irreplaceable, even with a
Democratic president around to appoint her successor. She needs to stick
around as long as she can.
Her voice is especially necessary now, at a time when, thanks to George W.
Bush's nominees, the Supreme Court has become the branch of government most
hostile to gender equality.
Ginsburg's pathbreaking legal work on women's rights has sometimes been
analogized to Thurgood Marshall's civil-rights advocacy. The two justices'
temperaments are profoundly different; Ginsburg is actually quite modest and
incremental in her approach to the law.
She's written that courts should, at most, "moderately add impetus" to
social change. Nevertheless, her work on behalf of women has changed the
lives of most Americans. Her voice is especially necessary now, at a time
when, thanks to George W. Bush's nominees, the Supreme Court has
become the branch of government most hostile to gender equality.
As co-director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in the 1970s, Ginsburg
was a central figure in a string of cases in which various kinds of sex
discrimination were ruled unconstitutional. She was famously clever in
choosing cases in which discriminatory laws hurt men--one of her cases
involved a widower father who couldn't collect social security benefits
available to widowed mothers, another challenged an Oklahoma law that let
women buy low-alcohol beer at age 18, while men had to be 21. Presented with
victimized men, justices had a way of suddenly comprehending the
perniciousness of sexism. Her work resulted in many of the protections later
generations of women would take for granted.
Indeed, that's one reason we're unlikely to see someone like her again.
Ginsburg was seared by personal experiences of sexism, while her work has
helped insure that later generations of women would be spared similar
injustices. As one of nine women in her Harvard Law School class, she was
asked by the dean how she could justify taking a place that would have gone
to a man. Justice Felix Frankfurter refused to hire her as a clerk because
of her gender. As a law professor in the early 60s, she hid her second
pregnancy because she was afraid it might endanger her job.
Though Obama is in many ways more liberal than Clinton, it's hard to imagine
him nominating someone like Ginsburg. Unlike Sotomayor, who has no real
paper trail on abortion or other contentious gender issues, Ginsburg had a
long, public record as an advocate for sexual equality. It's amazing to
remember that in 1993, only three Republicans voted against her
confirmation--as polarized as the Clinton years were, things are far worse
today. A record as a feminist champion is far more likely to hinder than
help future Supreme Court candidates.
Not, of course, that Ginsburg is remotely radical. She's usually been a
quiet presence who prizes collegiality. One of the oddest and most charming
things about her is her close friendship with Antonin Scalia- apparently she
and her husband spend every New Years Eve with him and his wife. But in
recent years, as an increasingly conservative court has chipped away at the
rights closest to her heart, she's been a lucid and indignant voice of
opposition.
In 2007, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on late-term abortions that made no
provision for exceptions when a woman's health is threatened. Clearly
outraged, Ginsburg took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the
bench. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy made the
maddeningly condescending claim that women needed to be protected from a
procedure they might later regret. "This way of protecting women recalls
ancient notions about women's place in society and under the
Constitution--ideas that have long since been discredited," she wrote.
Later that year, the court voted to limit sex discrimination lawsuits in the
Lily Ledbetter case.
Once again, there was a cold fury in her dissent, which she again read from
the bench: "In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent
to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination."
"This year we are witnessing - what shall we call it? -- the radicalization
of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?" the columnist Ellen Goodman wrote at the time. "The
transformation of the 74-year-old justice who is watching a court undo her
life's work?"
Even with Sotomayor to back her up, that undoing will likely continue in the
Roberts court. It's a sad way to wind up a career, seeing one's legacy
eroded. Still, given how public she's been about her loneliness as the only
woman on the bench, at least now she'll have some company. Hopefully she'll
be able to enjoy it for years to come.
Michelle Goldberg is the author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and
the Future of the World and Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian
Nationalism. She is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and
her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, the Los Angeles
Times, Glamour, and many other publications.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at
editorial@thedailybeast.com.
***
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091013_lt_choi_wont_lie_for_his_country/
Lt. Choi Won't Lie for His Country
By Amy Goodman
Truthdig: October 14, 2009
Lt. Dan Choi doesn't want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate
of West Point, declared last March 19 on "The Rachel Maddow Show," "I am
gay." Under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" regulations, those three
words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military. Choi has become a
vocal advocate for repealing the policy, having spoken before tens of
thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their
allies at last Sunday's National Equality March in Washington, D.C.
Shortly after Choi's public admission to being gay, the Department of the
Army sent him a letter stating, in part, that "you admitted publicly that
you are a homosexual which constitutes homosexual conduct. ... Your actions
negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army
National Guard." Since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was signed into law by
President Bill Clinton in 1993, 13,500 soldiers, sailors and Marines have
been discharged from the military for similar alleged behavior. Choi could
receive an "other than honorable" discharge, losing the health, retirement,
educational and other benefits to which combat veterans are entitled. While
Congress acts to remove the restrictions on health insurance for people with
"pre-existing conditions," Choi's pre-existing conditions, being gay and
being honest about it, may be enough to keep him out of the Veterans Affairs
health care system for life.
The night before Sunday's march, President Barack Obama spoke to the Human
Rights Campaign, the largest and wealthiest gay-advocacy group: "We should
not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this
country. ... I will end 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' " He laid out no timetable,
however.
After receiving the letter from the Army, Choi wrote an open letter to his
commander in chief, Obama. He said: "I have personally served for a decade
under Don't Ask, Don't Tell: an immoral law and policy that forces American
soldiers to deceive and lie about their sexual orientation. Worse, it forces
others to tolerate deception and lying." U.S. troops in Afghanistan are
serving side by side with NATO forces that include openly gay and lesbian
troops.
Longtime gay-rights activist Urvashi Vaid, author of "Virtual Equality: The
Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation," is opposed to war and
militarism, but told me, "The military is a large employer, and has to
commit to not being discriminatory." She, too, was at the march Sunday,
whose turnout surprised many of the mainstream gay organizations, as they
hadn't actively organized it. She said: "First, it's a generational shift in
the LGBT movement. There is a new wave of activism coming up. And it's gay
and straight. That's a second big change ... the third shift that's
happening in the LGBT movement is that it's much more of a multi-issue
agenda that is being carried by the people who are marching." In addition to
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the LGBT movement is also intent on repealing the
Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, and on achieving marriage equality.
This will be a hard fight, Vaid predicts, based on grass-roots activism in
every congressional district. Challenging discriminatory laws couldn't be
more timely: On the day before Obama's speech to the Human Rights Campaign,
a gay man in New York City was taunted with anti-gay slurs and savagely
beaten by two men. He is currently in a coma.
Lt. Dan Choi is still technically a serving officer. Obama could halt
proceedings against Choi. Activists contend Obama could stop active
enforcement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" through an executive order.
Presidential or congressional action may not come in time to save Choi's
military career. If he loses his health benefits, he has a plan. Choi got a
message from an Iraqi doctor whose hospital Choi helped to rebuild while he
was there. He said the doctor is "in South Baghdad right now. And he's seen
some of the Internet, YouTube and CNN interviews and other appearances, and
he said: 'Brother, I know that you're gay, but you're still my brother, and
you're my friend. And if your country, that sent you to my country, if
America, that sent you to Iraq, will discharge you such that you can't get
medical benefits, you can come to my hospital any day. You can come in, and
I will give you treatment.' "
Choi ended, "I hope that our country can learn from that Iraqi doctor."
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio
news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the
author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback.
© 2009 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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