Jackie Greiner – Assistant Producer, Real Law Radio

Lately, there’s been a lot of media coverage on the Gay Marriage issue in this country: specifically in regards to the constitutional amendment recently passed in North Carolina which defines marriage as being between “one male and one female”.

And the fact that it’s the far right Christians, in the guise of Republicans, that are attempting to further this narrow definition is very strange to me.  The Republicans are the people who say they want government out of our lives!?!  What happened to the idea of separation of Church and State!?!

Given our very diverse and pluralistic society, this limiting definition of marriage begs the question; “How do we, as Americans, define ‘Marriage’?

If you ask any devout Catholic “What is the purpose of marriage?” the main reason will always be procreation.

And here is where I take issue. I never really wanted children; I felt that they would prevent me from living independently and doing the things I wanted to do in life.  I married a great guy, and we have a great life, just the two of us, but according to the Catholics, who state that the main reason for being married is to have children and raise stable families, I might as well be gay; i.e., not be able to be married.

Marriage isn't just for kids anymore.

I did get married in the Church.  I was raised as a Catholic, as was my husband, and when the time came we decided to have a Catholic wedding service.  But first, to be able to get married in the Catholic Church, we were required to go through a kind of pre-qualification, called the Pre-Cana, to see if our values were compatible with the Church.  When asked about having children I chose to respond that, basically, I thought they would get in the way of my fun.  My husband and I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was a bit uncomfortable to feel so at odds with the establishment.  In the end, I had to recognize that these were the rules of their club, and so I left.

But it’s just one club, one group, who somewhere along the line got the idea that their values were the ones that were “right” and “good” and should be followed by everyone.

I don’t think I’m any less of a woman for not having children and I don’t feel that I owe it to society, or anyone else, to have children.

And what about the couples who wed after their child bearing years?  Are they also to be denied the chance to be married if that’s what they choose to do?

What is Marriage?

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from the link below:

“Marriage is a basic human and social institution. Though it is regulated by civil laws and church laws, it did not originate from either the church or state, but from God. Therefore, neither church nor state can alter the basic meaning and structure of marriage. Marriage, whose nature and purposes are established by God, can only be the union of a man and a woman and must remain such in law. In a manner unlike any other relationship, marriage makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the common good of society, especially through the procreation and education of children..” (Read the whole statement.  There isn’t one benefit they associate to marriage that can’t be had outside of marriage.)

This is the Catholic Church’s stance, but it doesn’t represent the views and values of all American citizens.  One group is calling the shots, and deciding what’s good for the rest of us.

What if you’re not a Christian?  What if you don’t believe in God?  Who has the right to tell a woman her sole function in life is having children?  This is still America, right?: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  For all of us to be Free in our personal choices we’re all going to have to be Brave and except our fellow citizens’ right to their values and follow the ideals that our Founding Fathers put in writing over 2 hundred years ago that defend personal freedom and individual pursuit of happiness.

And if we’re going to support, and encourage, a pluralistic society and a liberality of ideas, we have to use a standard that works, and is just, for everyone.

- Scott Roller, Co-Host, Real Law Radio

When Mitt Romney says “marriage is between a man and a woman,” he is right.

When Barack Obama says, “same sex couples should be allowed to get married,” he is right, too.

They aren’t talking about the same thing, even though they are using the same word.

Conservative definitions of a proper marriage

In debates over “Right v. Wrong,” it is critical that we use the same frame of reference to judge each side. Romney’s personal religious beliefs are his own, and deserve proper respect. He is not solely stating his personal position, however; he is stating his belief regarding the role of Government. His position presupposes that it is the Right and Proper Role of Government to define virtuous behavior, that is Moral that the power of Government impose a morality based on “Virtue.” This is no new idea; Aristotle argued in favor of it a couple of thousand years ago. The idea is no less contentious today.

Debates over “Right” and “Wrong” are debates about Morality, and despite the best efforts of some really smart people we have never developed a one-size-fits-all-circumstances code of morality.

No one would argue that an infant, abandoned by its mother, should be left to die. It is the Right and Proper Role of Government – it is Moral – to provide for the care of the baby. This is a role of Government centered on a moral concept of “Welfare,” not the politico-economic government program of subsidies, but the sustenance of the individual.

Most would agree that this same child does not have the same moral entitlement to support as he grows to adulthood. The Right and Proper Role of Government is not to provide individual support, but to ensure that he has an opportunity for success, a concept of morality based on “Equality.”

Regardless of one’s beliefs regarding the religious context of marriage, there is also an undeniable political context to a wedding. A Justice of the Peace “marries” two people outside of the church. Are they married? We may choose to believe not if our faiths so require. What we may not do, is act in a way that undermines the political rights afforded by that marriage.

In that context, what difference does the gender of the couple married by the Justice of the Peace make?

Those who most vehemently deny the validity of a marriage between two men or two women do so from a framework of morality centered on Virtue. If we find that framework structurally sound, we must accept that it is the Purpose of Government to define what is Good. This idea is contrary to every other principle of personal liberty that Conservatives say they hold dear.

Whether Obama’s position has “evolved” or is merely pre-election politicking is a matter for other discussions. His recent stated position is based on a morality of “Equality.” Romney’s position is centered in an ethic of “Virtue.” The fundamental issue for the rest of us is to determine which of those moralities, which “code of ethics,” we expect Government to follow.

As strongly as I disagree with the President on most issues, for exactly the reasons discussed here, in this case, and at this moment, he is right, even from the Left.

- Bob DiCello, Host of Real Law Radio

Paige Sultzbach, a freshman, played baseball because her high school doesn’t offer girls softball. And, apparently she was on a pretty good team.  Mesa Prep actually made it to the Arizona State Championship game. But Mesa Prep’s opponent, Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, a private school in Phoenix, Arizona, which is part of The Society of Pius X, refused to play a team with a girl on it. So two days ago, they forfeited the championship to Mesa Prep.

And the reason Our Lady of Sorrows Academy opted to quit rather than play against a girl? Read for yourself the full text of the statement released by Our Lady of Sorrows reprinted here:

“Our Lady of Sorrows Academy unfortunately will not be able to participate in the Charter Athletic Association High School Baseball League championship game scheduled for Thursday, May 10, 2012, resulting in a forfeit. This decision is pursuant to school policy which rules out participation in co-ed sports.

This policy is consistent with the traditional approach to education. As a Catholic school we promote the ideal of forming and educating boys and girls separately during the adolescent years, especially in physical education.

Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls. Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty.“

This is not the Catholic education I remember.  And I don’t think Our Lady of Sorrows wants to have a frank discussion about the “traditional approach” to Catholic education that I do remember. The favorite disciplinary approach of a few “traditional” nuns at my school: striking kids with wooden yard sticks.

And if the policy of Our Lady of Sorrows echos another aspect of the traditional approach to Catholic education, gender inequality and stereotyping, I have concern for the students who are being indoctrinated to this warped thinking.  Gender stereotyping and ancient (or maybe I should say “traditional”) notions of femininity or masculinity are not useful because they hurt children. Many kids don’t – or can’t – conform to these nifty identity boxes that stereotypes put them in.  There is nothing kind, or Catholic, about stereotyping.

And what is uniquely Catholic about teaching boys that girls get deference?  In Catholic church they don’t get deference. Last I checked, women play no role in the leadership of the Catholic church. The Vatican is a “men only” organization. Priests can’t marry. Catholic girls can’t be priests. And girls have only recently been allowed to participate in mass to assist priests. Boys have been doing that for a long time. (And having boys around priests didn’t go so well either). Catholic gender and sexual issues are the biggest reason why the image and reputation of the Catholic church has been so tarnished. Time and time again, the Church appears out of step with the lives of contemporary men and women. I wish my Church would leave the 18th or 19th Century and come to its senses.

Lucy & Peppermint Patty hangin' with the boys.

Putting aside the Catholic aspect of this discussion, just consider the secular educational aspects of teaching boys that girls get deference. Deference means “respectful submission or yielding to the judgment, opinion, will etc., of another.” It also means “respectful or courteous regard: i.e., in deference to her wishes.”  Do we really want boys being taught that they should defer to girls simply because they are girls?  Yikes.  As a father who has a daughter, I want my daughter to earn respect from her good works, not her looks. There is nothing wise, let alone Catholic, about teaching deference to girls. Frankly, it’s rather chauvinistic.

The Lady of Sorrows statement leaves me with one last question. 

Charlie stops listening, suddenly worried he’ll offend.

What exactly does Our Lady of Sorrows mean when they say athletic competition between boys and girls makes it more difficult to respect “proper boundaries”? Charlie Brown and his friends seem to have had no problem with that. Sure, they had their disagreements. But no one ever accused one of those guys that they had taken undue liberties with Lucy or Peppermint Patty.

For goodness sake, we’re talking about girls and boys playing baseball. Besides, isn’t baseball  the kind of thing a boy is supposed to think about when he’s out with a girl?  And I say that without wanting to remind these “proper” Catholic administrators of the many convenient analogies that high school kids have given to baseball terminology over the years. From what I know, Charlie Brown never “got to second base” with Lucy.

Jackie Greiner – Assistant Producer, RLR

As a member of the Real Law Radio team, I come to the table representing different sides of the stories we cover.  The two I usually get called on are my position on handguns (I am a CCW holder) and the fact that I am the token girl in the studio.  It’s the female position I would like to take now. 

I’ve been following the Martin-Zimmerman case since the first reports out of Florida on February 26.  It’s been very interesting, and disturbing, to see how this situation has been so sensationalized.  And, I believe, it has given too many people reason to speculate on the case without benefit of all the facts being known.

Some are accusing George Zimmerman of being a racist.  They say Trayvon Martin would not be dead if he had been white.

Some are blaming George Zimmerman for having a legally owned hand gun the night he was patrolling his neighborhood.  They are saying that Trayvon Martin would not be dead if George had not been carrying.

Although both scenarios put poor George in the hot seat, both men were involved in the outcome.

So…

WHAT IF Trayvon had been white?

WHAT IF George had not been carrying?

I can play this game…

WHAT IF Trayvon and George had both been females!?!

In my opinion, we would not now be arguing about the fate of these two if both had been female because the thing never would have gotten as far as it did.  We just don’t solve these situations the same way that guys do!

Come on, People!  You know I’m right!

The “Stand-Your-Ground” legislation is just a way to give the guys the rationalization they’ve been looking for to not have to back down from a confrontation under any circumstances, EVEN when it’s in their own best interest. 

The other side of this Stand-Your-Ground coin is the possibility that a normally sensible, practical man, who knows his own limits, may feel compelled to act, due to a testosterone-bolstered adrenalin rush after being confronted for whatever reason, because a “real” man doesn’t run from a fight, right!?!   

And now, because the law says you don’t have to run… VOILA, suddenly every man with a gun thinks he’s invincible and is in mortal danger of learning the phrase Tomb Stone Courage, the hard way! 

I really hate that I can’t support this legislation 100% because I am all about individual rights and carrying a handgun to protect myself and not having to be the one to run if I’m not doing anything wrong.

But in a confrontation, such as the one between Trayvon and George, in the respect that neither chose to remove themselves from the situation, there was bound to be trouble.  The situation simply escalated with each one countering the other’s moves, until the confrontation was completely played out and we have the outcome we probably should have expected.  I don’t understand why everyone is so shocked.  That’s men for ya!

So, let’s break it down to illustrate what would have happened if both Trayvon and George had been women.

We’ll call George “Georgette” and we’ll call Trayvon, oh, I don’t know, how about “Sally”.

Georgette is driving around her neighborhood and spots Sally, someone she doesn’t know. 

She approaches Sally and says “Hi.  Can I help you?” 

Sally, seeing another female, so not feeling any apprehension, comes toward Georgette and responds “I’m staying with my family in the neighborhood.  I’m just coming back from the store.”  

Georgette explains she’s on block watch duty and says “Thanks, just checking.  We’ve had some trouble in the neighborhood recently.”

Georgette then says “It was nice to meet you.  Have a nice visit!”

And Sally says “Thanks!” as she heads off to her family’s house.

Women communicate with words – not brute force, or even just merely physical intimidation.  The whole encounter between the women was handled very civilly, with no one ending up dead.

You see?  This tragedy was not about race or guns.  It’s about how we – or I should say men – communicate.

End of story!  

If you missed listening to the show as much as I missed being in the studio today, please tune in tomorrow, Sunday, September 18, from 2pm-3pm. Bob and I have been “bumped” because WHK has contractual obligations to broadcast college football during the fall.

“Contractual Obligations?” How’s THAT for “REAL LAW!”

We will be on the air on Sundays from 2pm to 3pm for the next four weeks.

Check this blog frequently. I will post schedule updates as soon as I know about them.

Hope to talk to you tomorrow. Call us at 888-281-1110 and let us know what’s on your mind.

During the past week, we have heard much about the legacy of the attacks on September 11, 2001. We will hear and read more, I am sure, of the “lessons learned from 9/11.”

According to some we learned that “We are vulnerable.” Did we really learn our vulnerability just ten years ago? Did we not learn it at Pearl Harbor, or in Viet Nam, or aboard the USS Cole, or at the World Trade Center in 1993? Others have said we learned the consequences of our national arrogance. As early as November, 2001, historian Mary Beard said, “however tactfully you dress it up, the United States had it coming.”

“America is solidly organized egoism, it is evil made systematic and regular,” said Pierre Buchez in the 1840’s, when this country was, at best, attempting to become a regional power, more than a century away from being the sole remaining world “superpower.”

To his credit, in a December, 2001, Time Magazine article, Lance Morrow pointed out the irony of taking upon ourselves the “arrogance” described above in the aftermath of an attack motivated by twisted religious zeal. “What is more arrogant than a vocabulary of “infidel,” “jihad” and “fatwa”? More arrogant than the totalitarian conceit that Allah obliges ‘the faithful’ to wage vicious holy war against the airplanes and office buildings of the ungodly?”

Whatever we may have learned on September 11, 2001, or during the time since, we have not learned the two most important lessons.

1. The world is not a safe place.

No matter how many times you have taken an evening stroll around the block in your neighborhood, tomorrow may still be the day that you get mugged around the corner. No matter how peaceful your involvement in matters that are important to you, there will always be people who disagree. Some of those people will debate you, some of them will shout at you, and some will adopt the tactics of Jared Loughner, Timothy McVeigh, and Mohammed Atta.

On 9/11, we did not learn our vulnerability, but we were reminded of it.

2. We can’t make the world a safe place.

Were it possible to live in absolute safety with unlimited liberty, my services as a police officer would no longer be needed, and I would celebrate my unemployment. Unfortunately, it is not possible. There will always be those who take advantage of an open society to do it or its members harm.

We continue willfully to overlook the inverse relationship between liberty and security. We took from 9/11 a faulty lesson that others are solely responsible for our security, and that they can carry out that responsibility even within unreasonable constraints. We continue to want to have our cake and eat it, too.

“Ridiculously invasive” TSA search procedures? Don’t want to have your shoes and underwear checked? No problem. We can stop those checks tomorrow if you ask me, but remember that someone else WILL use those methods to do harm. Do you think it’s unreasonable to search infants and small children? If so, remember that small children will then be used to transport explosives. Your idea that innocent children shouldn’t be blown up is not shared by some.

Some people don’t have a “better nature” to which we can appeal. They can’t be debated, and they can’t be persuaded. “Talk softly” to them all you like; I’ll be right behind you with the “big stick.”

Last week, while my cohost, Bob DiCello and I were discussing the conviction and sentencing of the Cleveland serial killer, Anthony Sowell, Jeremiah Lee Wright had either murdered or was thinking about it in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

Wright killed. Check off that box on the “Evil Checklist.” So did Sowell. Check.

Wright killed his son. Check. Sowell killed strangers.

Wright’s son was only seven years old. Check. Sowell killed adults.

Wright’s son had cerebral palsy and other disabilities. Check. Sowell’s victims were physically sound.

Wright decapitated his son, and partially dismembered the remainder of the corpse. Check. Sowell had a head in a bucket. Check.

Wright intentionally left the head in front of his house so that the boy’s mother would find it on her return home. Check. Sowell hid his victims.

So on the checklist of evil, it seems to me that Wright has more checks.

“But Sowell killed more often,” you say?

Our judgment of murderers isn’t a judgment of quantity, or at least not solely so. Our outrage can be sparked not only by the number of victims, but by characteristics of the victim that trigger emotional responses. The innocence and physical vulnerability of Wright’s victim is the underlying cause of our outrage. Sowell’s victims cannot be said to be either innocent or physically vulnerable in the same way.

Outrage is proper in these cases, but we need to be careful to temper our tempers. The proper time for outrage is during the drafting of law, where debate blunts hostility, not in the crime’s aftermath. The fact that laws against murder even exist is an acknowledgement that crimes like this inevitably are going to occur, albeit rarely, we hope.

Sowell  is a despicable, reprehensible, contemptible, loathsome, detestable, disgusting, repugnant, repulsive, abhorrent, individual who has willfully relinquished his privilege to remain living among us. So did Wright.  They both welched on the most important provision of the contract by which we all agree to live together, and for that they should both die. For that, they need to die.

I say that not from an emotional response, but from the basis of the rules we have drafted – in the form of law – that define the lines we must not cross.

Judging the criminal after the fact, outside of Law, based on individual emotional responses, takes us one step further from being a community, and one step closer to becoming a lynch mob.

So I’m driving somewhere last week and I hear a “conservative talk show host” tell his listeners that he sleeps with his beagle every night.

Okaaay . . . .

So then he says, “Every night she pees in the bed and all over my sheets.” And then he says the bed gets “soaked.” So he washes all the sheets on his bed every morning and every day because he loves the dog so much.

Huh?

So I start thinking, What’s the deal? And he blows my mind when he tells me how he fixes the situation.

He puts the dog in diapers.

Look, I like dogs as much as the next guy – if not more.  I grew up with dogs.  But seriously. Where is the sense in holding on to an old dog that can’t control where it takes a leak? And how is that practice morally justified?

Don’t forget, in some places — here in the U.S. — little kids are homeless. Ohio ranks 20th in the nation in child homelessness. More than 20,650 of Ohio’s children experience homelessness each year according to the data collected by the McKinney-Vento Educational Programs. The money spent on doggie diapers for dying dogs could be used to help them.

Now that I think about it, I guess it’s pretty cool that these kids can at least get diapers for their dogs when they need them. Being homeless is horrible, but having a dog that pees everywhere when you’re on the street is unthinkable.

One of the host’s fans who thanked him for “hanging in there” had this to say: “Too many people have had their dogs put down because it was too inconvenient for them. [The dog] is a lucky little lady.”

Uh . . . . “Lady”? . . . . How about, “bitch”?  (It’s a dog, remember).

Besides, what sort of “lady” lays with her man and regularly spills her pee everywhere while they both sleep in it? And for that matter, what sort of man lays in his lady’s pee every day and then spends his time, water, electricity, soap, and money to wash the bedding? Are you kidding me?

If my “lady” wasn’t sick and peed the bed, she’d only be able to get away with that once. And it would have to be for a good reason, like we won so much lottery money she lost all control.  Something like that.  But if it was just because she couldn’t hold it, or didn’t want to take protective measures, I’d have to end it. To be my “lady,”  you’re gonna have to care enough about me to not pee on me. I’m sorry. But I really think that’s a non-negotiable bottom line for me.

People who put diapers on dying dogs (not the ones who are temporarily injured or recuperating from a setback)  represent what’s wrong with our society today. Fearing the pain of loss so much, they would rather wrap a dog’s butt in a diaper, instead of saying good bye to their family friend and restoring dignity and reason to their family. They also rest on the mistaken belief that putting the diaper on the dog is “good for the dog.”

Did you know, in the wild it is fairly common for the pack to kill off an elderly or sick dog? Why? Because it’s better for the pack! It prevents illness and disease from spreading – the kind of things a person gets from sleeping in dog pee.

So, just like those people who make dogs wear clothes for fun, or have them sit at the table with them (for real), dog owners who prolong the life of their old, dying dog by wrapping its back side in diapers should be prosecuted under the applicable animal abuse laws of the state in which the owner lives.

And if that sounds too harsh, think about it this way.  Any time an animal is exploited solely for our own joy, we ignore their natural value and beauty. Any time we indulge ourselves to avoid pain, we practice unhealthy coping.  And every time we treat a dog like a person or convince ourselves that they are people, we redefine the natural dynamic of life’s four legged creatures to suit our needs, not theirs. We expose them and us to injury, misunderstanding, and problems. In the end, doesn’t a dog deserve the right to be a dog?

Look, be honest about it.  Putting a dying old dog in diapers isn’t about helping the dog.  It’s all about the owner. The dog could care less. Just ask the guy who wrote “5 Reasons Why Dogs Eat Poop.”

Anthony Sowell is not evil, and he’s not an animal.

OK, let me rephrase that.

Sowell might be evil. I don’t know. In the classic biblical, God-versus-Satan sense of evil, I’m not qualified to render judgment.

On June 25, my co-host, Bob DiCello, and I were informed by a listener that we were “working for the devil.” Evil? Really? A political statement resulted in religious condemnation and eternal damnation?

That frightens me. What frightens me more is a moral and religion-based condemnation of wrongdoing – even wrongdoing by a mongrel like Sowell.

I am frightened by that because there have been moments in the past when I have been capable of great violence. I’m a policeman. People EXPECT me to carry out that violence in certain circumstances. Does that make me “evil?” Who will then sit in judgment of me? Will it be the person who thinks that Sowell should be staked out on the freeway so that the motoring public can assist in his execution?

I have no doubt that a killer lives in each one of us. If you disagree, ask yourself this question: “Is there anyone for whom I would die?” If so, there is someone for whom you would kill.

To kill in defense of another is lawful and proper, but it requires violence that is primal, animalistic, ugly, and offensive to our idea of how life “should” be.

Immoral?

Evil?

Isn’t that how we are describing Anthony Sowell? It is FEAR of that internal killer – fear of the piece of us that looks like Sowell at first blush – that brings calls for Sowell’s quick, gruesome death. It is the desire not to have a part of ourselves judged as “evil.”

Anthony Sowell’s execution does not require a judgment between “Good” and “Evil.” It requires that we enforce the line that we have drawn in the sand – in the Law – that defines the rules by which we have agreed to live.

That process has NOT been completed. It is ongoing. I believe that it’s outcome is predictable, but I could be wrong.

When it is complete, the best in us requires not outrage, but dismissal.