“COMMAND PERFORMANCE” -THE ARTHUR MAILING LIST BULLETIN
No. 0017
FRIDAY APRIL 22, 2005
1. TONIGHT, LET IT BE PINCHBECK
People always ask us what columnist Daniel Pinchbeck is *really* like. Well now you can see for yourself, as the man will be live and in the flesh and talking TONIGHT in NEW YORK CITY. Here are the details from the hosts:
“how i learned to stop worrying and love the dimensional shift”
a talk with Arthur columnist Daniel Pinchbeck
Friday, April 22, 2005
8:00 p.m., $10
The Project Room
619 East 6th Street, between B and C
“Daniel’s current book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl is on indigenous prophecies, crop circles, shamanism, The Book of Revelation, and other related subjects. He will discuss his research that supports the Mayan Calendar’s projection of the year 2012 as the “end of history” and the movement into a new experience of time and space, as well as the inception of an harmonic and utopian global civilization on the Earth. Open discussion for questions and answers will follow.”
2. NEW ISSUE OF ARTHUR OUT THIS WEEKEND.
Best yet? You be the judge and jury. Rising star M.I.A. on the cover, with a gigantic interview with her by Piotr Orlov on the inside. Erik Davis on a place called Druid Heights. Peter Lamborn Wilson on secessionist movements. Stacy Kranitz visits with surviving black metallers in Scandinavia, with an introduction by metal scholar Ian Christe. Douglas Rushkoff turns his back on the internet. Pinchbeck on transhumanism and nanotech and the Singularity. Comics. C & D on the landmark (!) new album of fuzzed up, psychedelic (!), ear-scalding, mind-melting heavy rock by Sleater-Kinney (!?!?!?). John Payne on new prog by Magma and the Mars Volta. Mike Patton gets in the kitchen. Byron Coley & Thurston Moore get mindzapped. And so on. All free for you. 50,000 copies, going fast. Details here:
3. MATTHEW GREENE EXHIBIT IN LONDON.
Arthur contributing artist Matthew Greene (he did some beautiful illos for the piece on legal magic mushrooms in England in the Jello Biafra issue of Arthur) has a hot new exhibit in London that just opened two days ago. Go here if you can:
Modern Art inc.
10 vyner st.
London E2 9DG
It’s the Bethnal Green stop in the tube.
http://www.modernartinc.com/exhibitions_future.html
4. BASTET NEWS.
Ethan Miller of Comets On Fire has curated a new compilation of spiritual brainfry for Arthur’s Bastet label. The CD is now being mastered. We should have it out before the end of May. Stay tuned. This will be a limited edition thing, with handscreened sleeves and all that quality goodness that we’ve come to expect from the Comets crew.
5. RIGHT ON, ERIC BERNDT!
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/about/scalia-subjected-to-probing-question-the-aftermath-040057.php
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia visited NYU to receive an honor from the members of the NYU Annual Survey of American Law , which is dedicating their 2005 issue to Scalia.
Scalia is the subject of controversy for his dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, in which he criticized the decision to overturn a law that criminalized sodomy.
In asking about Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas and his view that privacy is not constitutionally protected, Eric Berndt, a law student, shocked the crowd by asking, “Do you sodomize your wife?”
Scalia refused to answer the question while the crowd gasped and the administrators promptly turned off Berndt’s microphone.
Berndt later explained his actions in a post on the Internet:
As the student who asked Justice Scalia about his sexual conduct, I am responding to your posts to explain why I believe I had a right to confront Justice Scalia in the manner I did Tuesday, why any gay or sympathetic person has that same right. It should be clear that I intended to be offensive, obnoxious, and inflammatory. There is a time to discuss and there are times when acts and opposition are necessary. Debate is useless when one participant denies the full dignity of the other. How am I to docilely engage a man who sarcastically rants about the “beauty of homosexual relationships” (at the Q&A) and believes that gay school teachers will try to convert children to a homosexual lifestyle (at oral argument for Lawrence)?
Although my question was legally relevant, as I explain below, an independent motivation for my speech-act was to simply subject a homophobic government official to the same indignity to which he would subject millions of gay Americans. It was partially a naked act of resistance and a refusal to be silenced. I wanted to make him and everyone in the room aware of the dehumanizing effect of trivializing such an important relationship. Justice Scalia has no pity for the millions of gay Americans on whom sodomy laws and official homophobia have such an effect, so it is difficult to sympathize with his brief moment of “humiliation,” as some have called it. The fact that I am a law student and Scalia is a Supreme Court Justice does not require me to circumscribe my justified opposition and outrage within the bounds of jurisprudential discourse.
Law school and the law profession do not negate my identity as a member of an oppressed minority confronting injustice. Even so, I did have a legal point: Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Lawrence asked whether criminalizing homosexual conduct advanced a state interest “which could justify the intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.” Scalia did not answer this question in his dissent because he believed the state need only assert a legitimate interest to defeat non-fundamental liberties. I basically asked him this question again – it is now the law of the land. He said he did not know whether the interest was significant enough. I then asked him if he sodomizes his wife to subject his intimate relations to the scrutiny he cavalierly would allow others – by force, if necessary. Everyone knew at that moment how significant the interest is. Beyond exerting official power against homosexuals, Scalia is an outspoken and high-profile homophobe. After
the aforementioned sarcastic remarks about gay people’s relationships, can anyone doubt how little respect he has for LGBT Americans? Even if no case touching gay rights ever came before him, his comments from the bench (that employment non-discrimination is some kind of “homosexual agenda,” etc.) and within our very walls are unacceptable to any self-respecting gay person or principled opponent of discrimination. The idea that I should have treated a man with such repugnant views with deference because he is a high government official evinces either a dangerously un-American acceptance of authority or insensitivity to the gay community’s grievances. Friends have forwarded me emails complaining of the “liberal” student who asked “the question.” That some of my classmates are shallow and insensitive enough to conceptualize my complaint as mere partisan politics is disheartening. Though I should not have to, I will share with everyone that I am neither a Democrat nor Republica!
n and do not consider myself a “liberal” except in the classical sense. I hope that we can separate a simple demand for equality under the law and outrage over being denied it from so much dogmatic ideological baggage. LGBT Americans are still a persecuted minority and our struggle for equal rights is still vital. 4 out of 5 LGBT kids are harassed in school – tell them to debate their harassers. Suicide rates for them are much higher than for others. We still cannot serve in the military, have little protection from employment and other forms of discrimination, and are denied the 1000+ benefits that accrue from official recognition of marriage. I know some who support gay rights oppose my question and our protest. Do not presume to tell me when and with how much urgency to stand up for our rights.
I am 17 months out of a lifelong closet and have lost too much time to heterosexist hegemony to tolerate those who say, as Dr. King put it, “just wait.” If you cannot stomach a breach of decorum when justified outrage erupts then your support is nearly worthless anyway. At least do not allow yourselves to become complicit in discrimination by demanding obedience from its victims. Many of our classmates chose NYU over higher-ranked schools because of our reputation as a “private university in the public service” and our commitment to certain values. We were the first law school to require that employers pledge not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Of Scalia’s law schools that have “signed on to the homosexual agenda,” our signature stands out like John Hancock’s. We won a federal injunction in the FAIR litigation as an “expressive association” that counts acceptance of sexual orientation as a core value. Those who worry about our school’s prestige should re
member how we got here and consider whether flattering those who mock what we believe and are otherwise willing to fight for appears prestigious or pathetic. We protestors did not embarrass NYU, Scalia embarrassed NYU. We stood up to a bigot for the values that make NYU more than a great place to learn the law. I repeat my willingess to discuss this issue calmly with anyone who respects my identity as a gay man. I have had many productive talks with classmates since Tuesday and I hope that will continue.
Respectfully,
Eric Berndt
And with that inspirational message, we bid you adieu
Arthur Editorial Action Squad
Los Angeles
Arthur Magazine 