I have always found modern art to be a bit suspect, but now there seems to be proof that it is rotten (or at least rotting).
From an article by David Tubbs and Robert George in City Journal:
"It is often remarked that marriage tends to "civilize" sexuality—particularly male sexuality. Although the complete picture is more complex than that, there is truth in this remark. But there is no magic in a word. Redefining marriage means abolishing it and shifting the label to a new institution—one for which there are no grounds of principle for sexual exclusivity or monogamy. Thus redefined, marriage won't function to civilize anybody. If marriage is redefined out of existence, our entire society will be harmed, but the harm will be distributed unequally. In the libertine utopia of "sexual freedom," women and children will suffer the most."
Worth reading.
An interesting case that raises questions about religious liberties and religious discrimination was reported by the Miami Herald yesterday:
"A woman is suing her former employer, a telecommunications firm with Muslim workers and clients, claiming she was fired because she ate pork products in the company lunchroom. Pork is unclean, according to Islamic beliefs, and Rising Star Telecommunications CEO Kujaatele Kweli said his company has a policy against openly eating or preparing the meat. But the attorney for Lina Morales, an administrative assistant fired in March 2003, said the company admits there is no written policy against pork. And when Morales complained she was being disciplined for a policy of which she was unaware, she was fired for insubordination."
A Central Florida news station, Local 6, reported that, "Morales, who is Catholic, was warned about eating pizza with meat the Muslim faith considered "unclean. She was then fired for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, according to the report." Local 6 quoted Kweli as saying, "Our point of view is to respect the laws of the land and the laws of the land as I understand it is to the accommodate people's right to practice their religions if you can."
The practice of religion (or atheism for that matter) is a critical freedom- inseparable from freedom of conscience- and much worth protecting. The state, however, has a compelling interest in commerical workplaces free from discrimination. It is one thing for a religious organization, a church or charity for example, to create a workplace that does not contradict religious beliefs. It is altogether another thing for a commercial enterprise dominated by a religious group to impose beliefs and practices on employees of differing or no faith. In the former case, employees accept the religious mission of their employer as a fact of employment, in the latter case there is no such mission and no such consent- there is only discrimination.
Having said as much, any matter imposing secular standards over and above religious practice is not to be dismissed lightly- regardless of the religion in question. Recent court decisions in California and in other jurisdictions have held, for example, that charities of the Catholic Church must include contraception and abortion amongst health benefits offered to employees. This, despite the Church's irreconcileable moral and dogmatic opposition to the "benefits." What the court decides in one case will take hold in others.
Kweli confuses religious liberty with religious discrimination and Rising Star Telecommunications is in clear violation of employment law. Friends of the First Amendment should not rush to celebrate a likely victory, however, because the precedents established when courts impose secular norms too often impact religious liberty in future disputes.
Update: Tom at Redhunter also addressed this story today.
The New York Times today reported on efforts in Canada to allow Muslims to apply Sharia in disputes over property, inheritance, marriage and divorce. The Times is late in reporting on the establishment of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice in Canada. In “Justice Canadian Style,” responding to an April 28 article in the Washington Post addressing the same subject, I argued that Sharia is the antithesis of civil justice.
The Times report is distinguished from that of the Post by quotations that boggle the mind and reasoning that demands comment. For example, in introducing what would seem to be a Canadian multicultural ideal, the Times wrote, “The late Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau dreamed of a Canada in which distinctive customs and identities could live side by side in harmony. Turning nationalism on its head, there would be no dominant Canadian identity, no melting pot, no official culture.
The Times continued, “H. Donald Forbes, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said he cannot be sure how Mr. Trudeau would have responded to the idea of Shariah tribunals, “but I think he would go along.” He added that as long as the arbitration is voluntary, Mr. Trudeau would probably have concluded that “this kind of meaningful accommodation was in the spirit of multiculturalism.””
No dominant national identity? Is this not a recipe for balkanization? While common sense does exist in parts of Canada, Daimnation is proof, one can not be faulted for wondering whether Canadian common sense is destined to be overwhelmed by a people disinclined toward self preservation.
The Times did provide evidence that not all Muslims in Canada support the option of Sharia: “…some Canadian Muslim women - who say Muslim law is already applied behind closed doors - say efforts to apply it openly… would represent a dangerous precedent.” The Times quoted Homa Arjomand, an Iranian born counselor for battered women, “Here in Canada, girls are segregated from boys at private Islamic elementary schools, then forced into arranged marriages through Shariah at the age of 13, 14 or 15 to men over twice their age. How much choice do these women have?”
The Times dismissed Arjomand’s concern by noting that, “… the Ontario government has appointed Marion Boyd, a feminist activist and former provincial cabinet member to review the 1991 arbitration law.” The Times then cited an example of coexistence between religious and secular law: “It would not be the first time laws have changed to balance religion and secular rights. A group of Canadian Jewish women pressed the federal government in 1990 to enact a law to help Jewish women seeking a religious divorce against recalcitrant husbands who under Orthodox rules have the upper hand in such cases.”
This might be encouraging if Jewish law compared to Sharia like plowshares compare to plowshares, but the accurate comparison is of plowshares to swords. Jews have history as proof of the Torah's adaptability to host cultures. Islam has no similar record. Instead, Islam and Sharia, invented to authenticate a conquest, demand ascendancy.
The Times quoted Boyd: "How do we honor two commitments, to multiculturalism and equity to the rule of law, that often seem to come into conflict? We have been struggling a bit. There really are conflicting values."
There really are conflicting values? Ms. Boyd just realized this? The Muslim women she is to protect- pressed by their culture into the arms of Sharia- should worry.
Update: Jane at Armies of Liberation also addressed this story today.
The Washington Post this morning editorialized against President Bush’s denial of funding to non governmental organizations sympathetic to abortion. The Post took exception to what it characterized as the Bush administration’s decision to minimize funding for and participation in international conferences where pro abortion groups hold sway. It also complained about the denial of funding for groups that while not specifically focused on abortion nonetheless team with pro abortion groups in delivery of services. The Post opined that, “the attempt to deny conference platforms to groups that oppose the administration's view is inimical both to free speech and to scientific inquiry.”
This is moral relativity and sloppy thinking taken to a new extreme. The Post conceded the administration’s right to a pro life position: “Abortion will always be an agonizing issue, and the right balance between abstinence and contraception is a fair subject for debate.” At the same time, the Post argued that the administration must not translate its position into policy: “canceling grants that would have been used to allow delegates from developing countries to attend, is to drag the battles over abortion and conservative values into forums where they have no place.”
Only an idiot would argue that denying funds to pro abortion groups threatens free speech. In fact, it is the Post’s argument that poses the greater threat to free speech. If an administration must fund the very groups that oppose its policy positions, then the voice of the people who elected the administration will be neutered.
Victor Davis Hanson focused on the West's will to win the war against terrorism in an article published by National Review this morning. Worth reading.
On this Memorial Day, to every veteran, but especially to those who secured freedom with their lives, you are heroes. Thank you!
I got a jump on the crowd gathering in Washington for this weekend's dedication of the World War II Memorial. I took my girlfriend to see the Memorial a fortnight ago after work and before dinner. It was one of those evenings in Washington where the ending of a beautiful day is punctuated with storm clouds from the east and north in a prelude to the deluge. The temperature dropped pleasantly and we felt the coming of the storm.
I had doubts about the Memorial before ever I saw it. I am a believer in symbolism and symmetry, and I object to any war memorial- with the possible exception of a civil war memorial- being placed in the central axis of the Mall. What was a tale told about the founding and preservation of our nation becomes now a tale of brave men. To be sure, brave men were at the center of our nation's founding and brave men preserved our nation when brothers fought to tear her apart, but their brave cause was our nation. Those who fought in the Second World War, while equally brave, were engaged in a cause much more about the world than about America.
Many were opposed to this location for the Memorial and as a consequence, it was promised that the Memorial would not distract from the axis formed by the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. In this it succeeds to its own detriment. As Catesby Leigh wrote in today's Weekly Standard, "It's a bad sign when a memorial needs a big inscription to let you know that it is, in fact, a memorial. Uninformed visitors looking at the World War II Memorial from a distance might not realize what they are looking at.”
The inscription to which she referred is a poor attempt to rationalize the placement of the Memorial: “Here in the presence of Washington and Lincoln, one the eighteenth century father and the other the nineteenth century preserver of our nation, we honor those twentieth century Americans who took up the struggle during the Second World War and made the sacrifices to perpetuate the gift our forefathers entrusted to us: a nation conceived in liberty and justice.” It doesn’t quite work.
On that evening, in the calm before the storm, the Memorial struck me as objectively beautiful, as contributing wonderfully to an underutilized part of the Mall without being at all intrusive. Where previously an often-drained symmetrical pool with fountains that rarely worked served only as an obstacle between the Smithsonian Metro exit and the Lincoln Memorial, a lovely sunken plaza with a central fountain and beautiful stone facades now provides a landscaped transition, and a resting point, between the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool and Lincoln Memorial.
Memorials are not constructed for landscaping purposes, however, and this fact underlies what is wrong with the Memorial. In Leigh’s words, “A memorial to World War II should be very intrusive.” Precisely! She attributes success in securing the Memorial site to the lobbying power of veterans of the Second World War who wanted to trump the location of other war memorials on the Mall. The Memorial's unobtrusive design, the political price paid to secure the site, undermines their objective. In this instance, the "greatest generation" won a battle but lost the war.
Living in Dupont Circle, the hub of what passes for alternative lifestyles in Washington, D.C. I am accustomed to heavy traffic in political protest. Leftist marches on Washington are invariably preceded by warm-up and warm-down protests, teach-ins and concerts in Dupont Circle. I always feel special in my neighborhood because I am the counter-culture. This feeling is amplified when the Circle and surrounding area is overrun by political correctness, as was the case the weekend past with the pro-abortion march.
My girlfriend saw a placard intended for the march that read, “Stop the War on Women.” When she told me about it I knew immediately what it meant. The war against women is being fought in unisex bathrooms across the country. Or so at least I am led to believe by one of that gender’s less flattering representatives. On Saturday evening I went to dinner with my girlfriend at a nice local restaurant called Firefly (4 stars for décor, 3 ½ stars for food and 1 star for unisex bathrooms). I was leaving the bathroom when an animated woman close to my mother’s age put her face in front of mine and shouted, “Put the seat down!” I was taken off guard and said, “What?” Again shouting, she said, “Did you put the seat down? Put the seat down!” The hallway in which this woman stood conspiring against males with two of her friends is quiet and afforded her no view of the toilet I was leaving, so she had no call for raising her voice. I stepped in close to her to make sure she realized her shouting wasn’t at all intimidating. I stood still, and she paused, now unsure what to do. In a quiet, measured voice I said, “Can you say please?” Again, she paused, and then stammered, “Please.” I always thought there was a reason why such women are referred to as “feminazis” but I never suspected it had to do with toilet seats. Even life in Dupont Circle has left me unprepared for the odd accosting by a menopausal woman over the issue of a toilet seat, but life with my mother and father has not. When in doubt, be polite.
The march was disingenuous to say the least. A gathering of people celebrating infanticide under the euphemistic label, “March For Women’s Lives” could not be farther from the truth. Polemics notwithstanding, motherhood and the health and welfare of children do not threaten the livelihood of women. While the mainstream media was rhapsodic about the large turnout, it said little about the march’s having been several times re-labeled by it’s single issue pro-abortion organizers who found difficulty attracting large numbers when their cause was explicitly defined. The media was also quiet in noting (if at all) that some of the crowd resulted from the march having been timed to coincide with meetings of the International Monetary Fund. IMF protesters weren’t the only supplementary forces drawn from marginally aligned groups. Organizations that logically should be opposed to pro-abortion politics were encouraged to participate. The National Education Association, an organization that apparently does not always side with the children it claims to educate, officially co-sponsored the march with monies derived from compulsory union dues.
The women on stage represented the spectrum of hate-Bush partisanship that passes for politics in Democrat circles. Theirs was not to reason, not speak in paragraphs, but to exhort with coarse and often vulgar slogans. With so much political trash talking and so little civil discourse my feminazi friend from Firefly must have felt quite at home at the March For Women's Lies.
Pat Tillman declined a multi-million dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League to join the United States Army after the Islamist attack on September 11. In doing so, he shunned publicity, insisting that he was no more special than any other man in uniform. He was right; every soldier fighting in the war against terrorism is a hero.
Tillman was killed in combat in Afghanistan today, fighting for things about which he cared deeply enough- country, duty, honor and freedom- to sacrifice the immense rewards he had reaped and was poised to continue reaping at the pinnacle of secular American society. He recognized that his achievements were possible because America secures life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all of her citizens, and that this patrimony requires defending if it is to be passed on to future generations.
Fabrizio Quattrocchi went to Iraq as a contractor to an American security company to earn sufficient money to marry and set up home in Italy. Earlier this month he was kidnapped, forced to dig his own grave, and then shot in the neck by Islamists. Quattrochi too is a hero. To the last moment, he defied his murderers who filmed what they hoped would be a means of humiliating and intimidating the Italian people. Instead, Quattrocchi tried to remove the hood placed over his head, and his last words were audible on the videotape, “Now I'll show you how an Italian dies.”
Al Jazeera, the Islamist mouthpiece that masquerades as a news station, refused to broadcast the kidnappers tape of the execution claiming that it was too bloody. In fact, al Jazeera does not back away from airing any footage that advances the Islamist cause. In this case, al Jazeera chose not to broadcast a Western hero defying Islamist bigots even unto death because doing shows Islamism as the bullies game that it is.
While liberals in the Western world oppose the war against terrorism in terms that sound moral, but really boil down to a concern for material convenience, Tillman and Quattrocchi demonstrated that life becomes moral when we struggle for freedom. A prosperous life is good, but not at the price of enslavement. A peaceful death is good, but not at the price of humiliation. There are times when good men are confronted by evil and the only moral response is action and defiance. We live in such times- Islamism is an objective evil. Tillman and Quattrocchi are heroes because in living and dying, they answered the moral call for action and defiance. In living and in dying the made the world a better place, they shall not be forgotten.
Clear Channel, the media company that broadcasts Howard Stern, has decided to terminate his program in the face of FCC fines totaling $495,000. The New York Times yesterday quoted a statement posted by Stern on his website: "It is pretty shocking that governmental interference into our rights and free speech takes place in the U.S. It's hard to reconcile this with the 'land of the free' and the 'home of the brave."'
One hopes that minus his day job, Stern doesn’t take up a second career in the law. On second thought, perhaps he should go to law school; he might learn that free speech is not an unlimited right. It would be shocking if the government did not interfere with an assertion of unlimited free speech rights, shouting fire in a crowded theater for example, or burning a cross in a black family's front yard. To the extent that Stern broadcasts on public radio spectrum, he is beholden to standards of public decency, and defining those standards is the job of the government.
That Stern doesn't get this is obscene.
The Times of London (subscription necessary) reported this morning that the conclusions of a recent study presented to the Royal Economic Society indicate that government efforts to promote what we in America call “safe-sex” amongst teenagers have resulted in an increase in sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases. The Times wrote, “Expanding contraceptive services and providing the morning-after pill free to teenagers have encouraged sexual behaviour rather than reducing it… sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases have risen fastest in those areas where the Government’s policy has been most actively pursued.”
The Times quoted David Paton, the author of the study: “When you introduce policies that seem obvious, it is important to factor in the possibility that the policies may actually cause people to change how they behave. In this case, it appears that some measures aimed at reducing teenage pregnancy rates induced changes in teenage behaviour that were large enough not only to negate the intended impact on conceptions, but to have an adverse impact on another important area of sexual health — sexually transmitted infections.”
Deftly avoiding responding to the results of the study, Ann Weyman of the Family Planning Association told the Times, “… of course, if you start looking for more infections you will find them.” Distorting logic as only a proponent of big wasteful government spending can, she continued, “We want to see young people delaying having sex until they are able to make responsible decisions. I don’t think this research helps to achieve any of those aims.”
A couple of weeks ago I noted an editorial in the Boston Globe about the abysmal rate of graduation amongst college basketball players, especially amongst black basketball players. Thanks to William for bringing to my attention another article on the subject in the Cincinnati Enquirer, which reports, "... that 10 of the schools in this week's round of 16 have failed to graduate even half of their players in recent years." A snapshot of graduation rates at major NCAA basketball programs can be seen here, the story it tells is not nice.
The Enquirer quotes the author of the study, Richard Lapchick, on the opportunity that the graduation scandal provides for Myles Brand, President of the NCAA, "I think he's got a moment in time, where there have been enough scandals happening, to try to mobilize college presidents to say this is an embarrassment to us as a group. We have this window here, let's use it to do something real."
Brand apparently hopes to "... reward or punish schools by tying the number of scholarships to graduation rates." But Lapchick warns, "The challenge is that there are going to be a lot of powerful coaches who will argue that this would deny opportunities, particularly to African-American students who wouldn't be able to come to their schools under a system like that."
I recall John Thompson, when he was basketball coach at Georgetown, making the same argument in favor of athletic scholarships for black students. Then as now this argument is fallacious. To do away with athletic scholarships does not mean that the money saved may not be applied in the form of academic scholarships for black students. It does mean that athletic ability will not drive the award of scholarships.
Allen Iverson attended Georgetown on an athletic scholarship and left college to join the NBA before graduating. Would Thompson or any other coach really argue that developing Iverson's NBA potential was a good use of scholarship money. Could not Georgetown have found an academically gifted, or even a struggling but academically motivated black student who would have graduated into a better life with scholarship assistance?
The ability to make three point shots does not correlate with the ability to maintain a 3.0 grade average. In fact, the statistics behind the scandal point to the opposite conclusion, that athletic scholarships are usually given to students with little academic inclination, and that those students are not pushed by coaches, teachers or administrators to complete school.
Students competing for public scholarships should have confidence that the overiding factor in their award is academic inclination. More importantly, society should have confidence that dollars invested in scholarships (by the public as a whole, or by individuals) will be used to educate future doctors, writers, thinkers, and businessmen- not to exploit would be athletes.
Thank you to Elizabeth for calling my attention to "KidsPost", a special section of the Washington Post published for young readers. On Wednesday that section featured a lengthy article on the subject of gay marriage written in what no doubt was intended to be fair and balanced terms. I don't know what age group is targeted by KidsPost, but the article interviewed a ten year old boy living happily with his "moms". I suspect the target audience was children of a similar age.
Not surprisingly, the boy doesn't understand the fuss around gay marriage and thinks things are fine at home. I trust he is a good boy in a happy home, but I don't believe that he or any other ten year old has the emotional and intellectual maturity to discern comparative advantages and disadvantages between children in gay and straight marriages. More to the point, if I am right about the age of the target audience, they are equally unprepared to make such distinctions.
A sidebar to the article notes that a number of religions and social movements oppose gay marriage, and that others support gay marriage. This, I suppose, is intended to provide perspective to the "balanced report" on the subject. All very good for the kids, but for one missing detail. If there is to be balance, where is the interview with a child whose experience in a gay family is not ideal? Obviously, such reporting would not make good copy for young readers, and would be politically incorrect to boot.
That the Post cannot present a truly balanced discussion of a controversial subject in a report intended for young readers because the requirements of such balance are beyond the maturity of those readers is reason enough not have broached the subject in KidsPost in the first place. It also was reason enough for Elizabeth to cancel her subscription.
The 2004 NCAA Basketball Tournament begins on Thursday, showcasing what is in athletic terms, a sporting institution, but what is in academic terms nothing short of a debacle.
In a timely bit of reporting, the Boston Globe today noted that the NCAA has decided not to divulge the graduation rates of basketball players at NCAA institutions. This decision results from an interpretation of federal law that would suppress, "information on any category containing only one or two students". The thinking seems to be that if only one or two students on a basketball team actually graduate, the result can be suppressed.
The Globe writes that, "Because of the new rules, 37 of the 65 men's teams in this year's tournament did not publish graduation rates of their African-American players. Sixteen schools published no graduation rates at all." Looking at graduation rates reported in previous years, the Globe article highlights more than a handful of major public universities with a zero percent rate of graduation for black students, and an appalling low (from 10 to 33 percent) overall graduation rates. One school actually reported a zero percent overall graduation rate.
I enjoy college sport as much as the next fellow, but I have never been able to rationalize the subsidy of academics on the basis of athletic ability. I appreciate the ideal of the student-athlete, but in public education that ideal is dead. Compounding the problem, when college sport becomes a national distraction it eclipses and degrades the academic purpose of colleges and universities. Zero percent graduation rates prove this point.
The Globe article values this year's tournament at close $10 billion. With such a market at stake, is there any doubt that private enterprise could create a league of young players, properly compensated for their efforts, and having nothing to do with colleges and universities.
If one has the mind for it, one should pursue a rigorous college education. If one has the body and inclination for competitive athletics, one should pursue paid sport. The two should not, and need not be entangled.
Now... off the soapbox and Go Wildcats!
From Andrew Sullivan and the Chronicle Online:
"We try to hire the best, smartest people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill's analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too."
So said Robert Brandon, Chairman of the Philosophy Department at Duke University in response to an advertisement by the Duke Conservative Union regarding the schools lack of ideological diversity.
Let me see if I understand this, the conservatism of St. Aquinas, St. Augustine, Friedrich Hayek, David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Milton Friedman, William Buckley, George Will, Thomas Sowell, Abraham Lincoln, John Paul II, James Baker, Condi Rice, Robert George, Irving Kristol, John Locke and Adam Smith, results from their stupidity. Whereas, the liberal intellectualism of Ted Kennedy, Ted Danson, The Dixie Chicks, Woody Harrelson, Cold Play, Madonna, Run DMC, Billy Bragg, Barbara Striesand, Johnny Depp, Walter Duranty, Sean Penn, and Janet Jackson is a result of their being smart?
With apologies to Douglas Adams, you're a jerk Brandon, a real kneebiter.
The controversial Super Bowl half time show on Sunday has driven it's actors and sponsors to a game of finger pointing. The corporate parties, Viacom, CBS, MTV and the NFL, all stated that they were surprised by the incident. Yesterday, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake described the exposure of Jackson's breast as an 'accident'. Today, however, Jackson came clean, admitting to planning the incident in advance. One would be hard pressed to explain how advance planning could occur without Timberlake's participation.
In a demonstration of the entertainment industry's moral obtuseness (as if a demonstration were necessary), CBS announced that Jackson will present and Timberlake will perform during the broadcast of the annual Grammy Awards celebration on Sunday. CBS said today, "...it [will] air the Grammys with a longer tape-delay so that network censors [can] edit any crude language or behavior from the telecast". Censoring lascivious behavior does not address the issues behind the behavior. In fact, the CBS plan proves that networks aren't capable of self-policing.
A firm hand from the FCC is needed. In this case, all corporate parties should be fined, and Jackson and Timberlake should be banned from the public airwaves for a year.
An excellent match, in play until the final seconds and pitting superb teams known for playing together rather than showboating, was upstaged by the inexcusable smut that passed for commercials and a half time show in the Super Bowl yesterday. I watched the game with friends at an annual party. We were adults, teenagers, children and toddlers gathered to celebrate the season finale of what National Football League (NFL) marketers like to refer to as the American pastime. It was shameful, therefore, to see that CBS and the NFL had segmented 'family entertainment' out of their target audience. The combination of commercials dependent on toilet humor, songs with indecipherable lyrics and dancing laden with explicit sexuality left no room for young viewers or serious adults.
I dislike half time shows as a rule, featuring as they so often do the bottom feeders of popular culture. This half time show proved my point- a carnival of freaks relying on lip synching, and sexual innuendo for lack of real talent. That the performers couldn't sing was the just the beginning; their voice-overs were muddied by the stadium sound system- what to do if not fall back on dancing, groin grasping and public indecency. It is silly to expect adult behavior from mindless arrogant pop celebrities. It is not unreasonable to expect sound judgment and responsibility from the corporations that hired them. Viacom, CBS, MTV and the NFL are responsible for broadcasting pornography to a national audience during THE prime viewing hours. They should be rebuked by citizens and the FCC, and they should pay a price in a language they understand... big money.
Today is the 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that has resulted in the murder of more than 40 million Americans. The annual March For Life on the capitol Mall attracted more than 100 thousand people committed to overturning the decision. Especially heartening was the massive participation of young people from so many religious backgrounds.