The Loving Decision

Back in May I wrote about the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down laws against interracial marriage, the fortuitously-named case Loving v. Virginia. In recent days a number of commentators have noted the irony that in 2008 Virginia's electoral votes were won by a presidential candidate whose parents would have been thrown in jail if they had visited the state when he was a child.

In May I happened across and wrote about Mildred Loving's obituary just a week before the California Supreme Court delivered its decision striking down as unconstitutional a California state law against same-sex marriage. And now Anna Quindlen has delivered a column that puts it all in beautiful perspective. "The world only spins forward" -- yes.

Tim Lincecum and Keith Olbermann

Other than the fact that Olbermann used to be a sportscaster, those two subjects have little to do with one another outside my personal bubble. But today they come together because I have two items to offer. One is of course the news about Timmy winning the Cy Young Award at age 24 in his first full season in the major leagues. Watching this kid pitch is the most fun I've had watching baseball since October 2002.

Item the second is one of Olbermann's trademark special comments. Now, Keith can be a bit of a blowhard; in his own way he has assumed the mantle of the Bill O'Reilly of the left, utterly sure of his own correctness at all times. That said, this special comment is clearly heartfelt and genuine and confronts the viewer with compassion rather than brow-beating. Well done, Keith.

Strange days indeed

What a strange day dawned just now. On the same day the nation overcame a centuries-old legacy of discrimination by electing our first African-American president, the citizens of California -- who voted for Obama by a 61-37 percent margin -- also voted 52-48 percent to write discrimination into our own state constitution. Never mind questions of right or wrong, the simple cognitive dissonance of that act is staggering.

To the extent there is a bright side, it's this. In 2000, California voters enacted a statutory ban on gay marriage by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent. Proposition 8 wrote that ban into the state constitution by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. All indications are that voters over 60 years old supported Prop 8 by a substantial margin, and voters under 30 opposed it by an even greater margin. In eight years, the numbers moved nine percentage points. Supporters of Prop 8 may have prevailed in this instance, but the tide of history continues to run in the direction of freedom and equality.

Proposition 8: The Last Word

The No on 8 campaign released this ad over the weekend. Well done.