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 hose
moral differences are for all Vermonters to wrestle with in the
privacy of their spiritual domain."
That's good
writing.
At least it
is according to the totally nonbiased Pulitzer Prize committee.
The author of that paragraph, David Moats, editorial-page editor
of the Rutland Herald (Vt.), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for his "evenhanded and influential series of editorials commenting
on the divisive issues arising from civil unions for same-sex couples."
The Pulitzer
committee evidently has a penchant for illiterate compositions packed
with run-on sentences, verbs and nouns that don't agree, multiple
prepositions, legal errors, and cloudy thoughts. It is wholly coincidental
that the gist of these turgid, gaseous editorials was to support
gay marriage.
That "spiritual
domain" number was one of the sentences highlighted by the
New York Times as an example of Mr. Moats's "plain-spoken"
editorials. Not to be a stickler, but differences in morality
— differences that "exist today" and "will continue
to exist" — cannot be "wrestled with" in private.
Any wrestling of differences has to occur among the people who disagree.
The moral opinions themselves can be wrestled with in private, but
not the differences.
Masking the
illiteracy of his sentences with excess verbiage, Mr. Moats writes:
"What the House required was not more finely calibrated gauges
of public opinion, but the power to weigh the opinion it heard against
the requirements of the law."
So, the House
required the power to weigh opinions? What kind of legislature does
Vermont have if it doesn't already have the power to weigh opinions?
Doesn't Mr. Moats mean the House needed to weigh opinions, and not
that it "required" the "power" to weigh opinions?
In another
felicitous turn of phrase, Mr. Moats describes the gay marriage
bill as "extending fair treatment to neighbors who have had
to conduct their personal lives in a shadow of discrimination."
If gays — or neighbors conducting personal lives — are only in the
shadow of discrimination, whose discrimination is casting the shadow?
Who's really being discriminated against up there?
Mr. Moats egged
on the Vermont legislature, saying, "The confidence of their
own convictions ought to serve as their best shield against criticism."
Convictions can't have confidence, self-assurance, low self-esteem
or bad hair days. Convictions can give humans confidence or humans
can have confidence in their convictions. There cannot be
confidence of convictions.
He continued:
"The swift, sure action they have taken ought to serve as the
best protection against the deep division that a protracted conflict
would create." If the legislature has already avoided a protracted
conflict, it has also avoided the consequences of a protracted conflict.
No "protection" is necessary. By taking "swift, sure
action" the legislature has thoroughly bypassed the fallout
from not taking "swift, sure action."
In another
profundity, Mr. Moats writes: "By establishing the principle
that same-sex couples have equal rights, the court has set down
a benchmark."
No, no, no!
A "benchmark" is a point of reference for making measurements.
If the court had required gay marriages to be made legal by a certain
date or ruled that homosexuals were entitled to one-half of the
rights of heterosexuals, those would be benchmarks. Simply announcing
that homosexuals have equal rights is a principle, a holding, a
hard-and-fast requirement. (Moreover, if "benchmark" meant
what Mr. Moats thinks it means, that sentence would read: "By
establishing a principle, the court has established a principle.")
Mr. Moats's
dazzling writing style is matched only by his impressive legal acumen.
He stated that it is "likely" that the U.S. Supreme Court
will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, which permits states
not to recognize gay marriages consummated in other states.
While it's
always dangerous to make predictions about what the inventors of
Roe vs. Wade might discover lurking in the "penumbras"
of the Constitution, it can be categorically stated: There is zero
possibility that the Supreme Court will find the Defense of Marriage
Act unconstitutional.
The Full Faith
and Credit Clause gives Congress express authority to determine
the effect to be given state laws in other states. Congress's exercise
of that authority has been repeatedly upheld in analogous cases.
That law is so bulletproof, I highly doubt that anyone would be
stupid enough to bother challenging it.
In the six
months before Mr. Moats won a Pulitzer for his "influential"
editorials, seven state senators and 29 House members who supported
the law retired or were defeated, the Vermont House of Representatives
passed a bill repealing the gay-rights law, and the governor who
signed the gay-marriage law saw his approval ratings fall from 63
percent to 41 percent.
The editorials
were highly influential, however, with the Pulitzer Prize committee.
As Mr. Moats might put it: Those linguistic differences were not
for all Pulitzer committee members to wrestle with in the privacy
of their ideological domain.
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