The Gazette Hits a New Journalistic Low
An article published in The Gazette this week failed to meet any standard for publication whatsoever. It is riddled with lies, errors, and bigotry. The editors may argue that it is acceptable journalistic practice to misrepresent scientific research and demean minorities in an opinion piece; a better approach would be to find writers who can support their point of view with facts and reason.
We have to comment on this anti-marriage opinion piece in The Gazette last week by the president of the Citizens for Responsible Government, Ruth Jacobs, and the founder of a group called Marriage Savers, Mike McManus.
It isa strange and bizarre an unsurprising article that uses the gimmick of stringing together quotes by people such as Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, Noah Webster writing in his first dictionary, a site called Fatherhood.gov, and others.
It starts like this, just to give you a flavor...
This is online, dated January 13th, I don't know if it made it into the print versions.
It is pretty much a series of cliches that circulate incestuously among the anti-gay community, but at one point they quote some actual pediatricians. This is the legitimate group, the American Academy of Pediatrics:
I smell a rat, don't you? I suspected that the chicanery would be found in the dot-dot-dot parts of the quote, but actually it was even easier than that.
The quote comes from a 2010 study in Pediatrics, the AAP's official journal, titled, "US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents," by researchers Nanette Gartrell and Henny Bos.
You don't have to read very far to find the statement quoted in The Gazette. In fact, it is the first sentence in the document, in a box at the top of the first page. Here is the statement sans ellipses:
So the ellipses really didn't conceal anything vital, they just shortened the text, and that's fine, concise is good.
The deceit is much bolder than that.
This paper mentions the "paucity of data" as an explanation for why the study was done; after this publication there is no paucity. This study collected data on the children of lesbian mothers over a period from 1988 to the present, ongoing, with an amazing 93 percent retention rate.
As long as they were reading, Ms. Jacobs and Mr. McManus could have finished the abstract. Here are summaries of the results and conclusions of this study:
Ms. Jacobs and Mr. McManus started out by telling the reader that "the healthiest children are those reared by a married mother and father." But then they have the chutzpah to actually quote from a peer-reviewed paper published in a highly respected journal that finds exactly the opposite.
The people who wrote in The Gazette obviously only read one sentence of this well-known, widely-cited research paper -- the sentence that said that before this paper was published there was not much data on children raised in lesbian households. If they had finished the page they would have seen that in fact there is very solid research evidence that kids raised in lesbian homes are perfectly normal, and in fact were rated significantly higher in positive characteristics and significantly lower in negative ones.
First we must remark on the intellectual dishonesty of someone who would cherry-pick an irrelevant phrase from a scientific paper, and use the weight of the scholarly publication to justify their bigoted conclusion -- a conclusion that is one-hundred-eighty-degrees opposite of the quoted paper's conclusion.
Second, while we can easily understand The Gazette's willingness to present both sides of a controversy, it seems that they should maintain some editorial control over their content. The Gazette has a stake in this, they should have ensured that quotes were accurate and their context was preserved in the published piece.
The Gazette took fourteen years' worth of scientific research and deliberately misrepresented it.
But we have only just begun. Jacobs and McManus say:
They give no source for this. Since it is traditional for the Nutty Ones to cite this "fact" in reference to a study called “The contribution of steady and casual partnerships in the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam," published by Dr. Maria Xiradou in the May 2, 2003 issue of the journal AIDS, we assume they mean that. Please read Jim Burroway's dissection of these lies HERE. Xiradou definitely did not find that gay men's "duration of steady partnerships" was 1.5 years, and Jacobs and McManus know that -- they cite the paper, they must have read it.
The Gazette also says:
No citation is given, so of course we can't say whether this is an accurate report or not. The writers are careful not to say that 60 percent of lesbian couples with children actually split up before the child is seven, because the point here is not to represent facts but to malign lesbians. The statement does contrast poorly with this comment by the American Psychological Association:
If you are interested you can follow up on the references at the APA site -- the point is, there are references, and the APA stands behind them.
Oh, and here is something I have heard Ms. Jacobs say in speeches, and it is mind-bogglingly wrong.
It is shocking to think that any educated person believes that there is a one-to-one correspondence between "a gene" and any complex phenotypic trait, or that everything "innate" must be genetic. It appears they are referring to THIS PAPER, which reports,
In other words, though previous studies had found evidence of genetic factors, this study was inconclusive but did not rule it out.
Further, even though The Gazette has said that there is "no gay gene," Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, has written, "The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality."
I don't know, it's hard to tell who to believe, the head of NIH or the president of the Citizens for Responsible Whatever, who has described herself as "an infectious disease in Rockville, Maryland" (see HERE at 4:47).
This Gazette article just doesn't quit:
I just looked all over the Exodus International site, and all I found was this statement quoting another source:
In fact the thing you notice is that Exodus is steering away from the term "ex-gay" altogether. This may be related to their president's recent comment that:
The fiction of "ex-gays" is a cruel hoax intended to make gay people think they can escape the bigotry of people like the authors of this Gazette article by changing their sexual orientation and becoming straight. It was also an excellent fund-raising device in its day, but those days are gone. It is now clear that you cannot pray away the gay, and those who cling to the concept are considered extreme, even by extremists.
The Gazette has a journalistic responsibility to report fairly on controversial issues. If there is a reasonable argument, based on facts, for requiring couples to meet a government standard before they can marry, then the public should hear it. But for the paper to publish an article so full of lies and errors is irresponsible.
We have to comment on this anti-marriage opinion piece in The Gazette last week by the president of the Citizens for Responsible Government, Ruth Jacobs, and the founder of a group called Marriage Savers, Mike McManus.
It is
It starts like this, just to give you a flavor...
Gov. Martin O’Malley, in promoting same-sex marriage, wants to change the long-established meaning of marriage by promoting an illusion that gender and even biological relationships don't really matter.
Yet the healthiest children are those reared by a married mother and father. Dr. Ruth M. Jacobs and Mike McManus: Why O'Malley is wrong on same-sex marriage
This is online, dated January 13th, I don't know if it made it into the print versions.
It is pretty much a series of cliches that circulate incestuously among the anti-gay community, but at one point they quote some actual pediatricians. This is the legitimate group, the American Academy of Pediatrics:
Most studies of same-sex parenting involve children of divorced lesbian mothers who started out in a heterosexual household, thus providing little or no real information about parenting when dad is axed right out of family. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports, "There is a paucity of data on ... adolescents ... reared in lesbian households since birth."
I smell a rat, don't you? I suspected that the chicanery would be found in the dot-dot-dot parts of the quote, but actually it was even easier than that.
The quote comes from a 2010 study in Pediatrics, the AAP's official journal, titled, "US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents," by researchers Nanette Gartrell and Henny Bos.
You don't have to read very far to find the statement quoted in The Gazette. In fact, it is the first sentence in the document, in a box at the top of the first page. Here is the statement sans ellipses:
WHAT’S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: There is a paucity of data on the psychological adjustment of adolescents who have been reared in lesbian households since birth. No other study has followed a cohort of such offspring from conception through adolescence, prospectively and longitudinally.
WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: This study expands our understanding of psychological well-being in adolescent biological offspring of lesbian mothers and therefore has implications for the pediatric care of these adolescents and for public policies concerning same-sex parenting.
So the ellipses really didn't conceal anything vital, they just shortened the text, and that's fine, concise is good.
The deceit is much bolder than that.
This paper mentions the "paucity of data" as an explanation for why the study was done; after this publication there is no paucity. This study collected data on the children of lesbian mothers over a period from 1988 to the present, ongoing, with an amazing 93 percent retention rate.
As long as they were reading, Ms. Jacobs and Mr. McManus could have finished the abstract. Here are summaries of the results and conclusions of this study:
RESULTS: According to their mothers’ reports, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach’s normative sample of American youth. Within the lesbian family sample, no Child Behavior Checklist differences were found among adolescent offspring who were conceived by known, as-yet-unknown, and permanently unknown donors or between offspring whose mothers were still together and offspring whose mothers had separated.
CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents who have been reared in lesbian-mother families since birth demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment. These findings have implications for the clinical care of adolescents and for pediatricians who are consulted on matters that pertain to same-sex parenting.
Ms. Jacobs and Mr. McManus started out by telling the reader that "the healthiest children are those reared by a married mother and father." But then they have the chutzpah to actually quote from a peer-reviewed paper published in a highly respected journal that finds exactly the opposite.
The people who wrote in The Gazette obviously only read one sentence of this well-known, widely-cited research paper -- the sentence that said that before this paper was published there was not much data on children raised in lesbian households. If they had finished the page they would have seen that in fact there is very solid research evidence that kids raised in lesbian homes are perfectly normal, and in fact were rated significantly higher in positive characteristics and significantly lower in negative ones.
First we must remark on the intellectual dishonesty of someone who would cherry-pick an irrelevant phrase from a scientific paper, and use the weight of the scholarly publication to justify their bigoted conclusion -- a conclusion that is one-hundred-eighty-degrees opposite of the quoted paper's conclusion.
Second, while we can easily understand The Gazette's willingness to present both sides of a controversy, it seems that they should maintain some editorial control over their content. The Gazette has a stake in this, they should have ensured that quotes were accurate and their context was preserved in the published piece.
The Gazette took fourteen years' worth of scientific research and deliberately misrepresented it.
But we have only just begun. Jacobs and McManus say:
We also know that same-gender relationships lack the stability of traditional marriage. A study of homosexual men found that the "duration of steady partnerships" was 1.5 years.
They give no source for this. Since it is traditional for the Nutty Ones to cite this "fact" in reference to a study called “The contribution of steady and casual partnerships in the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam," published by Dr. Maria Xiradou in the May 2, 2003 issue of the journal AIDS, we assume they mean that. Please read Jim Burroway's dissection of these lies HERE. Xiradou definitely did not find that gay men's "duration of steady partnerships" was 1.5 years, and Jacobs and McManus know that -- they cite the paper, they must have read it.
The Gazette also says:
In a lesbian-parenting study, 60 percent of the mothers had separated before the child's 7th birthday.
No citation is given, so of course we can't say whether this is an accurate report or not. The writers are careful not to say that 60 percent of lesbian couples with children actually split up before the child is seven, because the point here is not to represent facts but to malign lesbians. The statement does contrast poorly with this comment by the American Psychological Association:
Lesbian couples who are parenting together have most often been found to divide household and family labor relatively evenly and to report satisfaction with their couple relationships (Bos et al., 2004; Brewaeys et al., 1997; Chan, et al., 1998a; Ciano-Boyce & Shelley-Sireci, 2002; Hand, 1991; Johnson & O'Connor, 2002; Koepke, Hare, & Moran, 1992; Osterweil, 1991; Patterson, 1995a; Sullivan, 1996; Tasker & Golombok, 1998; Vanfraussen, Ponjaert-Kristoffersen, & Brewaeys, 2003). Lesbian & Gay Parenting
If you are interested you can follow up on the references at the APA site -- the point is, there are references, and the APA stands behind them.
Oh, and here is something I have heard Ms. Jacobs say in speeches, and it is mind-bogglingly wrong.
Gay activists want you to believe that homosexuality is innate, making genderless marriage a "civil right." Yet, studies of identical twins indicate that if one twin is homosexual, in the majority of cases the other is not. There is no "gay gene."
It is shocking to think that any educated person believes that there is a one-to-one correspondence between "a gene" and any complex phenotypic trait, or that everything "innate" must be genetic. It appears they are referring to THIS PAPER, which reports,
In contrast to most prior twin studies of sexual orientation, however, ours did not provide statistically significant support for the importance of genetic factors for that trait. This does not mean that our results support heritability estimates of zero, though our results do not exclude them either. Our findings are also consistent with moderate to large heritabilities for both male and female sexual orientation, and the confidence intervals of our estimates include estimates from earlier studies... Our findings demonstrate the necessity of very large sample sizes to resolve familial variance into its genetic and shared environmental components, when one is studying traits with unfavorable distributions, such as sexual orientation.
In other words, though previous studies had found evidence of genetic factors, this study was inconclusive but did not rule it out.
Further, even though The Gazette has said that there is "no gay gene," Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, has written, "The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality."
I don't know, it's hard to tell who to believe, the head of NIH or the president of the Citizens for Responsible Whatever, who has described herself as "an infectious disease in Rockville, Maryland" (see HERE at 4:47).
This Gazette article just doesn't quit:
In fact, there are more 250 ex-gay groups (ExodusInternational.org).
I just looked all over the Exodus International site, and all I found was this statement quoting another source:
"Though it began with only a few people, Exodus now works with almost 250 ministries and is affiliated with organizations around the globe. According to Exodus’ Web site, the ministry is the 'largest Christian referral and information network dealing with homosexual issues in the world.'"There is nothing about "ex-gays" here, and nothing that says that all these ministries are "ex-gay groups."
In fact the thing you notice is that Exodus is steering away from the term "ex-gay" altogether. This may be related to their president's recent comment that:
"The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say that they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction."
The fiction of "ex-gays" is a cruel hoax intended to make gay people think they can escape the bigotry of people like the authors of this Gazette article by changing their sexual orientation and becoming straight. It was also an excellent fund-raising device in its day, but those days are gone. It is now clear that you cannot pray away the gay, and those who cling to the concept are considered extreme, even by extremists.
The Gazette has a journalistic responsibility to report fairly on controversial issues. If there is a reasonable argument, based on facts, for requiring couples to meet a government standard before they can marry, then the public should hear it. But for the paper to publish an article so full of lies and errors is irresponsible.
posted by JimK at 11:10 AM
17 Comments:
Further, even though The Gazette has said that there is "no gay gene," Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, has written, "The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality."
Guess what, Dr. Collins also said this: “No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up)…”
So where is his “evidence” in the previous statement?
There may be some hereditary factor, but there are other factors too. You know that Jim. You are playing games. Even the Health curriculum states the APA information.
Since Dr. Collins, according to your quote, did not include female homosexuality, then there must not be ANY hereditary factors at all for female homosexuality, bisexuality or heterosexuality!!
American Psychological Association realizes that there are other factors but it is still a mystery to know exactly what causes any sexual orientation.
“There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors.”
The fiction of "ex-gays" is a cruel hoax intended to make gay people think they can escape the bigotry of people like the authors of this Gazette article by changing their sexual orientation and becoming straight.
So are you saying gay people’s motivation for change is based on only their perception of bigotry toward them? It is obvious you do not know any former homosexuals.
It is now clear that you cannot pray away the gay, and those who cling to the concept are considered extreme, even by extremists.
It is quite arrogant to think YOU know what God’s motive is in this world.
"It is obvious you do not know any former homosexuals. "
What "former homosexuals?" There are almost none. Maybe you could do us all a service and produce some of these "former homosexuals" you talk about.
John Smid and now even Alan Chambers, "former homosexuals" themselves, agree that ex-gays maybe make up "0.1 Percent [of the population of gays, which] is Pretty Close to Zero." What do you know that this former and current reparative therapist don't know and how do you know it?
"It is quite arrogant to think YOU know what God’s motive is in this world."
Where do imagine you see mention of "God's motive in this world" in this blog? The word "God" does not appear at all until your comment. This blog entry correctly points out the misuse of SCIENCE by a board certified medical doctor, Ruth M. Jacob, MD, who should certainly know better.
No wonder Ruth M. Jacobs, MD, gets an average of only two out of five star reviews from her own patients posted on the internet. People go to the doctor to get well, not to get preached at.
The arrogance that makes YOU think YOU know God's motive is clear for all to see.
"The Gazette has a journalistic responsibility to report fairly on controversial issues. If there is a reasonable argument, based on facts, for requiring couples to meet a government standard before they can marry, then the public should hear it."
a new journalistic low
how could they disagree with a dearly adored fringe group like TTF?
Anon, Jim is obviously saying it's okay if they disagree with TTF's position, but the Gazette should make its writers stick to facts and limit the misconstruals, distortions. and lies.
Regarding the lesbian parenting sudy...
There's STILL a paucity of data, even when you include that study of lesbian mothers, which was funded, tellingly, by the Gill Foundation and the Lesbian Health Fund of the Gay, Lesbian Medical Association.
The study was a "self report" study. All the mothers, lesbian and straight, self-reported all of the information about their children. And, the gay mothers were recruited not randomly, but through gay organizations. These mothers knew that their answers were going to be used for propaganda. The other group of straight parents didn't know.
So, a bunch of lesbian mothers rated their children highly in a padded study which they knew was going to be used for political purposes. BIG surprise there!
Self reporting like this tells more about the mothers' tolerance levels for certain behaviors than it tells about the children. If I am a mother who thinks that a child throwing a temper tantrum is bad behavior, and someone asks me if my child exhibits bad behavior, and he throws tantrums, then I'll say, "yes, he exhibits bad behavior."
If I believe that tantrums are a natural, healthy outlet for children, and I'm asked if my tantrum-throwing child exhibits bad behavior, I'd say, "no, he does NOT exhibit bad behavior."
In both scenarios, it tells us nothing about the actual child.
Also, the lesbian mothers were overwhelmingly Caucasian (93%) and well educated, while the other mothers were from a mixture of backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds.
I say, "Teach the Facts!"
Where do imagine you see mention of "God's motive in this world" in this blog? The word "God" does not appear at all until your comment.
What are you talking about? The thought was you cannot “pray away the gay”… Who do you pray to? A tree?
Here are a few of many. Why do you feel so threatened by people who do not like being gay and want to change their orientation? Are you not comfortable in your gayness? Or is a case of “misery loves company” or a case of hatred of ex-gays.
Ann Heche, former lesbian partner of Ellen DeGeneres, left Ms. DeGeneres to marry a man.
Sinead O’Connor, Pop star who was once a lesbian, fell in love with a male and married him.
Donnie McClurkin, Grammy award winning gospel singer and evangelist, after 20 years living as a homosexual, is now a heterosexual.
Greg Quinlan, PFOX President, lived as homosexual for 10 years, and then chose to leave homosexuality 17 years ago and become heterosexual.
"Why do you feel so threatened by people who do not like being gay and want to change their orientation? Are you not comfortable in your gayness? Or is a case of “misery loves company” or a case of hatred of ex-gays."
alas, homosexuality is a cult, akin to Scientology
those who leave are subject to intense pressure and vicious attack
and they better not dare tell anyone they have overcome homosexuality
they'd drag you in for an inquisition with Andrew Sullivan, Barney Frank and Barbra "Freak Out" Mikulski
"The study was a "self report" study. All the mothers, lesbian and straight, self-reported all of the information about their children. And, the gay mothers were recruited not randomly, but through gay organizations. These mothers knew that their answers were going to be used for propaganda."
Now substitute "ex-gays" for "lesbians" and "Spitzer study" for "this study" and teach yourself some facts.
Here's a fact for you. Nobody in the Spitzer study observed any behavior, only self-reports of the subjects own behavior were scored.
Here's another fact for you. You find the very same methodology problematic in a study of lesbians, but not in a study of ex-gays.
Here's another fact for you. Unlike the study of lesbians which included both lesbian and straight mothers as subjects, the Spitzer study did not include any data from gay and straight subjects, but only subjects who claimed (via unconfirmed self-report) to be "ex-gay."
"There's STILL a paucity of data, even when you include that [Spitzer] study of [self-described "ex-gays", whose subjects were provided], tellingly, by [a religious organization involved in so-called 'reparative therapy' and an association consisting of a very small minority of mental health professionals who promote so-called 'reparative therapy' AKA, NARTH. It is not a random sampling of gay and lesbian individuals or even a random sampling of gay and lesbian individuals who have experienced so-called 'reparative therapy'. ]
This is threatening:
"LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The campaign manager for a congressional hopeful in northwest Arkansas says he found his family's cat slaughtered and the word "liberal" painted on its corpse.
Jacob Burris, who manages Democrat Ken Aden's campaign, said Monday that he found the cat on the porch of his Russellville home on Sunday morning. A spokesman with the Russellville Police Department confirmed that Burris had filed a report, but said the department did not have any suspects.
Burris said that he had not received any threats leading up to Sunday's incident. He has worked for Aden's campaign since the fall.
Aden, the former director of a West Memphis nonprofit, is the only Democrat running for the 3rd congressional seat held by freshman Republican Rep. Steve Womack....
Jacob Burris, who has served as Aden’s campaign manager since late October, arrived home with his family Sunday evening, and his four children discovered the gruesome scene as they exited the family vehicle to enter their home.
The family pet, an adult, mixed-breed Siamese cat, had one side of its head bashed in to the point the cat’s eyeball was barely hanging from its socket. The perpetrators scrawled “liberal” across the cat’s body and left it on the doorstep of Burris’ house.
“To kill a child’s pet is just unconscionable,” Aden said Monday morning. “As a former combat soldier, I’ve seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. Whoever did this is definitely part of the worst of humanity,” he said.
“It is one thing to engage in civil political discourse, and for Republicans and Democrats to disagree with each other, which is an expected part of the political process. Taking it to this level is beyond unacceptable,” Aden said.
While the campaign between Aden and incumbent Congressman Steve Womack has heated up in recent months, Aden said they did not believe the Womack campaign to be responsible. “Although we have certainly disagreed and engaged in a great deal of civil discourse, I do not believe in any way that Congressman Womack or his campaign had anything to do with this incident,” Aden said.
He noted that, before Christmas, KRUM Radio, a station owned by Womack’s father, actually promoted a toy drive held by Aden’s campaign for children in the Third District. “We suspect this is the action of a rogue individual or group of individuals who are the type of folks that stoop to the lowest common denominator instead of engaging in civil political discourse,” Aden said. “It is unfortunate this has occurred, and we will await the results of the police and federal investigations,” Aden said."
"The White House appears prepared to ignore a recent ruling by Georgia Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi that would require President Obama to attend a birther hearing in Fulton County, Ga., on Thursday.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney outlined Barack Obama's weekly agenda on Monday, noting that the president is scheduled to hit Las Vegas, Denver and Detroit on Thursday in a whirlwind campaign tour.
That's not likely to sit well with Malihi, who last week rejected an effort by Obama's legal team to quash a subpoena that would require president appear in court that day. The complaint, like many others of its kind, claims Obama isn't a natural-born citizen and therefore can't be president.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on Malihi's decision to deny the administration's efforts to counter the subpoena:
In his order, Malihi noted that Obama's legal team had argued that no president should be compelled to attend a court hearing.
"This may be correct," Malihi wrote. "But [Obama] has failed to enlighten the court with any legal authority.""
imagine that
Obama thinks he shouldn't have to come but can't explain why
this geting to be a pattern
can't Obama afford a lawyer?
"Obama's court filings fail to show why his attendance would be "unreasonable or oppressive" or why his testimony would be "irrelevant, immaterial or cumulative," the judge wrote.
The White House on Monday referred questions to Obama's reelection campaign, which had no public comment.
Birther queen Orly Taitz, who represents one of the complainants, is also likely to be unhappy with the administration's apparent decision to not take Malihi's order seriously.
Over the weekend, Taitz predicted that the hearing would "be 100 times bigger than Watergate."
Earlier this month, she reacted to Malihi's original decision to deny a motion by the administration to have the challenges dismissed by saying she would now be able to "depose" the president.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke with attorney Melvin Goldstein, who is not involved with the case, to get some insight on what might happen if the administration simply turned a blind eye to the court order. While unprecedented, he said Malihi could possibly refer the matter to a Fulton County Superior Court judge, who could then decide whether to enforce the subpoena. If necessary, Goldstein suggested, the judge could hold the president in contempt."
that's right
unprecedented
has there ever been a President more contemptuous of the law?
he apprently thinks he's above it
Oh yeah, more birther lawsuits from Orly Taitz, who has already wasted various states' tax payer dollars away from real issues like creating jobs.
Unemployment in the State of Georgia stands at 9.7%, a full 1.2% higher than the US unemployment rate of 8.5% and this judge wants to waste tax payer dollars on another one of Orly the bleached blond ditz's frivolous lawsuits?
Obama was born in Hawaii. If the stupid Georgia judge has a question about that fact, he should take it up with the Hawaiian state officials who have certified the President's birth.
These frivolous birther lawsuits are a waste of our legal system's time and tax payer money.
Of course our local showernuts like nothing better than filing and losing frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit as they themselves have been doing for years now.
"Oh yeah, more birther lawsuits from Orly Taitz, who has already wasted various states' tax payer dollars away from real issues like creating jobs.
Unemployment in the State of Georgia stands at 9.7%, a full 1.2% higher than the US unemployment rate of 8.5% and this judge wants to waste tax payer dollars on another one of Orly the bleached blond ditz's frivolous lawsuits?"
you must not be a Democrat
they think any expenditure of government money, other than for national defense, creates jobs
"Obama was born in Hawaii."
not according to his grandmother
she says she attended his birth
and she's never left Kenya
"If the stupid Georgia judge has a question about that fact, he should take it up with the Hawaiian state officials who have certified the President's birth."
actually, this distinguished jurist said he'd be happy to consider the possibility that Obama shouldn't have to apeear but that Obama has provided no legal justification for such a ruling
you'd think the former President of the Harvard Law Review could come up with something
seeing as he hasn't, you'd wonder if he wasn't qualified to attend Harvard at all but got in under some wacky preference program
"Of course our local showernuts like nothing better than filing and losing frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit as they themselves have been doing for years now."
if you're referring to CRG, remember, they stopped the nastily unconstitutional Fishback amendments
let's see here
Obama gives a State of the Union message urging the proleteriat to rise up against the bourgeoisie
within hours, both his Treasury Secretary and his Secretary of State announce they're not returning for a second term
not to worry
it's all rhetorical at this point
actually one of my face book friends says that the constitution says that Presidents must be natural born. ie, not just born here but their parents must also BOTH be citizens.
which means obama doesn't qualify, I believe.
Anon, I'm sure your face book friend is a constitutional authority and I am not sure I am qualified to challenge their scholarly opinion. Here is what the Constitution says:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
According to this, Obama does not qualify because he was not born yet, and thus was not a citizen, "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution!!!"
Don't say I never gave you anything. Take this and run with it, you might be the next Orly Taitz.
""Obama was born in Hawaii."
not according to his grandmother
she says she attended his birth
and she's never left Kenya"
I guess you missed this part of the transcript of that phone call:
McRae: Okay, uh, when I come in December I would like to go by the, the place, the hospital where he is born. Uh, could you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa? (Long pause) . . .
Translator: No, no — what? . . . No! Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America.
McRae: Wh-whereabouts, whereabouts was he born? I, I thought he was born in Kenya.
Translator: No he was born in America, not in Mombasa.
McRae: OK. Do you know whereabouts he was born?
Translator: Huh?
McRae: Do you know where he was born? I thought he was born in Kenya. I was gonna go by and see where he was born. . . .
Translator: Sir, she says he was born in Hawaii.
McRae: OK.
Translator: Yeah, in 1960 this was Hawaii, where his father, his father was also marrying there. This was Hawaii.
McRae: OK. . . . I thought you said she was present. Was she, was, was she, was she able to see him being, being born in, in Hawaii? . . .
Translator: No, no! The, the woman was not present. She was uh not, a what — you see, she was here in Kenya, and Obama was born in America.
"actually one of my face book friends says that the constitution says that Presidents must be natural born. ie, not just born here but their parents must also BOTH be citizens."
Wow, what a distinguished source....internet gossip. Just what are your anonymous FB friend's credentials?
The laws on the books in the 1960s which said that to be a "natural born citizen" both parents had to be US born, refers to births outside of the US, like John McCain's in Panama. Obama was born in Hawaii, a US state, so even if neither of his parents was a US citizen, he is a US citizen by virtue of being born here. And besides, one of Obama's parents already was a US citizen. Obama's mother was born in Wichita, Kansas. Go ask your very own ditz, Ruth M Jacobs, MD, how being born in Kansas makes you 100% American. Go read the birth announcement published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961, which documented Obama's Hawaiian birth and then contact Hawaiian state officials, who have certified Obama was born in the State of Hawaii.
I do like the way you are practicing Saul Alinsky's thirteenth rule.
"13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. "
No wonder you like Gingrich, whose polling numbers have dropped so much. Here's how let's-stay-positive-even-after-we-blow-through-$10 million-and-no-more-is-coming-in-Gingrich is applying Saul Alinsky's 13th rule to his "target" today:
"LUTZ, Fla. -- Newt Gingrich stepped out of church Sunday morning and launched some of his most vitriolic attacks on Mitt Romney to date in the Republican primary, seeking to recover lost ground in the polls two days before primary voting ends here on Tuesday.
"I believe the Republican Party will not nominate a pro-abortion, pro gun-control, pro-tax increase moderate from Massachusetts," the former House speaker said.
Gingrich repeated the phrase "pro-abortion, pro gun-control, pro-tax increase" again during a 10-minute gaggle with reporters."
You are so entertaining. Thanks for demonstrating how much you and your GOP nominee du jour admire the tactics of Saul Alinsky, especially rule 13.
For citizenship, some countries follow the Jus Sanguinis (right of blood), in which a person's parents' citizenship determines their own citizenship (i.e. if your parents are American citizens, you are also); some countries follow the Jus Soli (right of soil), in which the person's place of birth determines citizenship (i.e. if you are born in America, you are an American citizen). The U.S. follows either: if one of your parents is a citizen, or you are born in the U.S., you have a right to American citizenship.
Obama qualifies on both counts.
rrjr
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