Spain has become the third country (with Canada appearing to become a fourth soon) to pass legislation allowing people of the same sex to marry.

The measure passed the 350-seat Congress of Deputies by a vote of 187-147. The bill, part of the ruling Socialists’ aggressive agenda for social reform, also lets gay couples adopt children and inherit each others’ property.

The bill is now law. The Senate, where conservatives hold the largest number of seats, rejected the bill last week. But it is an advisory body and final say on legislation rests with the Congress of Deputies.

It’s so nice to see freedom on the march. And I’m lucky enough to live in a state where we have it already.

” They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years, and hell, we’re not using it anymore.”
– Jay Leno

“The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.”
– Frederic Bastiat

You know, it’s just this kind of publicity stunt that really irks me.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. [Justice David] Souter’s home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

“This is not a prank” said Clements, “The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.”

The stunt has earned some appreciative chuckles around the blogosphere, which leads me to believe that the entire country needs a lesson in separation of powers all over again. Look kids, legislatures and city councils pass laws allowing eminent domain. The only role the Supreme Court played in Kelo was in interpreting the law and the Constitution and determining whether the law passed Constitutional muster. Justice Souter, along with four other justices, determined that condemning private property for the purpose of selling to another private owner to improve the tax base was Constitutional. Now, I disagree with that interpretation of the Constitution. But just because David Souter interpreted the Constitution in that way does not, in any way, shape, or form, mean that he necessarily supports the policy of that type of eminent domain. They are two separate creatures.

The media, of course, is largely to blame for this sort of attitude. To be sure, Supreme Court rulings have policy consequences. And there’s no doubt that these policy considerations influence the justices to a certain extent. But at the end of the day, most judges and Supreme Court justices interpret the law the way they think the law was intended to mean–for the most part, they do not interpret the law to put into play their own policy preferences. There are classic examples of this–for instance, in Justice Thomas’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, he made the point that while he felt that Texas’s sodomy laws were deeply stupid, the state nonetheless had the right to pass such laws. It would be absurd to label Thomas as “homophobic” because of his dissent, because leaving the sodomy laws intact had nothing to do with his personal politics and everything to do with his interpretation of the language of the Constitution.

So while a publicity stunt like the above might gain a few chuckles, it’s not really fair to Justice Souter, who for all we know curses city councils who condemn private property in his prayers every night. A much more fitting target for such eminent domain requests would be the homes of developers, real estate lawyers and city councillors–who, after all, are actually responsible for abuses of eminent domain.

Leave the poor justices alone.

(link via James Joyner)

The official one-sheet for the movie adaptation of V for Vendetta has been released, and it features what might be the best tagline for a movie ever.

Anyone who’s a fan of the lamentably short-lived show Firefly (And if you’re not, why aren’t you? Too busy watching CSI or Fear Factor or something?) knows that one of the things that endears it to the heart is the catchy and poignant theme song. Well, Firefly fan and folk singer Michelle Dockrey loves it, too, but she thought that it was a “chorus in search of verses.” So she wrote the verses and put it together as “Mal’s Song.” Lyrics are here. MP3 is available as a torrent here. It’s a wonderful song and well put together.

Speaking of Firefly, I caught a screening of the upcoming movie Serenity last week, and it was wonderful. It was definitely a rough cut of the movie, but that didn’t change it from being really good. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished version in September.

(links via Fireflyfans.net)

As I’m getting ready for the day this morning, A Time to Kill is on HBO in the background. I can’t help myself–this is definitely a “car crash” movie. Bad, but you can’t help but watching. If you’ve never seen it, you should stop reading now, because some plot points are going to be discussed.

Okay, for those of you who’ve seen A Time to Kill, I have to ask: am I alone in thinking that this is a deeply, deeply immoral film? I mean, we are essentially rooting for an attorney to game the system (and solicit witnesses to perjury in doing so) so that a man who is clearly guilty of premeditated murder can go unpunished for his crime.

In my mind, there’s no question that Carl Lee (Samuel Jackson’s character) committed cold-blooded, unjustifiable murder. Yes, he killed the men who raped his daughter. But he had no justification for doing so. They had been arrested. One had confessed and it was a foregone conclusion that both of them were going to jail. They were being punished to the fullest extent of the law. There was no corruption. The guys weren’t going to walk. So what moral justification is there for their murder? None at all. Carl Lee was a murderer and ought to have been punished for his crime.

But yet, we’re supposed to root for this guy, aren’t we? And just to make sure that we do, the movie makes sure that everybody who thinks that Carl Lee should go to jail is a racist and probably a Klan member. There’s no discussion of the right or wrong of Carl Lee’s act in and of itself. You either naturally think he did the right thing or you think it’s horrible that he killed two white boys.

I find the whole movie to be deeply disturbing, yet still compellingly watchable. Strange.

“All of the money in the world, though, won’t protect you from the laws of gravity.”
– James Joyner

News.com.au is reporting on a rather startling breakthrough in medicine.

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.
US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh’s Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject’s veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

This is a really cool advance, with a lot of potential applications. However, there is one thing that really bothers me about this, and that’s the shoddy reporting.

These are not “zombie” dogs.

Given the process described–removing the blood, replacing it with another fluid, then replacing the blood later–the end result isn’t a zombie, but rather the Abominable Dr. Phibes. C’mon now–is it that hard to get the facts straight?

Scott Ott reports on an overlooked ruling handed down by the Supreme Court today.

In a pair of rulings on the constitutionality of the 10 Commandments on government property, the Supreme Court today said the commandments may be displayed on public land if that property has been seized from private owners for ‘public purposes’ under eminent domain.

The 5-4 decision comes on the heels of last week’s court declaration that so-called “private” property is actually government land temporarily under private management until its eventual seizure.

Makes sense to me. But Court watchers are mighty surprised.