Despite my best intentions, I haven’t posted much during my vacation, because nothing in the news has really caught my eye and driven me to write. It has nothing at all to do with a newfound addiction to Kongregate. I swear.

Really, I have nothing to say about the Blagojevich scandal, which doesn’t interest me. I have somewhat moer interest in the stories about about Israel’s latest (entirely justified) retaliatory attacks, but haven’t had much to add to the discussion. Besides, even if I had felt the need to write about it, Omri covered it in just his(?) headline (hat tip: Cold Fury).

Merry Christmas, everyone!

According to California’s Attorney General, Proposition 8 violates the state constitution:

SAN FRANCISCO: In a sharp rebuke to supporters of a contested state ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage, the California attorney general said on Friday that the measure was constitutionally indefensible and should be overturned.

As a reminder, Proposition 8 changed the state constitution to strictly define marriage as being between one man and one woman. I’m fine with the idea that the Attorney General disagrees with the proposition, but to argue that the state constitution now violates itself would indicate that he probably doesn’t have a particularly firm grip on the concept of what a Constitution (and the amendment process) is.

Hm. If the Constitution of California does violate itself, does the state cease to exist (sort of like how existence would have ceased to exist in Dogma if Ben Affleck had had his way)?

Rob, at Say Anything, has a post up about Bush’s “Conscience Protection” rule, which would allows medical providers to decline care based on moral objections.

The Left tends to talk a lot about tolerance and about how people on the Right want to force our beliefs on people, but they seem to want to force everyone to not only tolerate but endorse their ideas. That is, in fact, the only serious issue I have with the idea of the government legalizing homosexual marriage (or creating a legal equivalent). It would take about a week before a Catholic Priest or some other minister would find himself the subject of a lawsuit because he tried to choose which marriages he would perform.

That said, the article Rob linked expressly says that “[t]he rule says providers — including hospitals, clinics, universities, pharmacies and doctor’s offices — can be charged with discrimination if an employee is pressured to participate in care that is ‘contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions.’”

I strenuously disagree with the rule as described in the LA Times article. Not for the reasons given in the article, which seem to center entirely on patient rights (as though a patient has a “right” to force a doctor to perform a procedure that he finds morally objectionable), but because it seriously curtails the employer’s right to dismiss any employee (for whom there is no express contract) for any reason at any time.

True, this isn’t as blatant a violation of Employers’ rights as, say, a city-wide ban on smoking. After all, it only affects medical providers who accept government funds. Still, I find it quite troublesome, and it serves as a reminder to those of us who are liberty-minded that, while elected Republican politicians are often better defenders of citizens’ rights than elected Democrats^[a], they’re still often less than ideal.

1. For example, did anyone see a “Free Speech Cage” at the Republican convention? Or, can you imagine what would happen if Republicans threatened a major broadcasting company for supporting Democrats? Or, for that matter, just look at the parties’ track records on The Second Amendment [↩]

Starting yesterday^[a], I am off work until January 5th. In addition to getting caught up on important things like naps and video games, I hope to actually write a few blog posts. We’ll see how that goes.

1. of which I spent a good portion redesigning this blog [↩]