Gender and Sex

Anything Goes: Campaign by Rumor and Slander in the Wisconsin Recall

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Wait…who’s “Dan”?

Combining  confirmation bias, whereby any uncomplimentary rumor about one’s enemy is assumed to be true, with “ends justify the means” political warfare philosophy, can banish all fairness and honesty from political campaigns. Spreading slanderous falsehoods about candidates for office is as old as the United States, but the internet and social networking sites, along with the increasingly irresponsible news media, allow the unethical tactic to be more effective, and sinister, than ever.

Now, fearing that the vengeance of the public unions, as orchestrated by the Democratic Party, is going to fall short in tomorrow’s recall election in Wisconsin, the foes of Governor Scott Walker grabbed a manufactured smear about Walker fathering a love child 24 years ago, and have made every effort to make it viral. An anti-Walker website called the Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op [“a group of citizen journalists who began covering the Wisconsin Uprising in February, 2011. We came from different walks of life, different professional backgrounds and different parts of the state to document the dismantling of democratic process and tradition taking place in our state under the right wing onslaught of the Scott Walker regime”] recounted a second-hand story by an anti-Walker  classmate of the governor, who purported to have inside knowledge about his efforts to cover-up his impregnation of her roommate while he was running for class president (yes, this is another school days smear, like the Romney prep school episode. If you can’t beat ’em as adults, beat ’em as kids. That seems to be the current philosophy in both political camps. Phew!). Continue reading →

On Tolerance, Religious Freedom, and “Ain’t No Homos Gonna Make It To Heaven”

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

It is generally true, as the indignant members of Greensburg, Indiana’s Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church say, that what they include in their church’s services is nobody’s business, and the fact that the congregation loudly applauded the horrific spectacle of a 3-year-old boy singing the hate anthem, “Ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven!”would have never bothered a soul if it hadn’t been videorecorded and placed on YouTube. At this point, however, that no longer matters. The cat is out of the bag, the horse has left the barn and the beans are spilled, and now millions of Americans know that this church teaches hate, indoctrinates young and vulnerable children with its poison, and sows the seeds of prejudice and the active deprivation of American citizens of their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Since millions of people know this now, a critical number of them will go out of their way to make life in this country a living hell for members of that church and the church itself by demonstrating at every turn that we don’t want churches like that in America, or people like that in America. They aren’t good for society, they cause positive harm without any compensating benefits, and they need to change their ways or suffer the consequences. And to that I say: Good. Go to it. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The “Lady in Red”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Now that the John Edwards trial is over—it ended with an acquittal on one charge and deadlocked jurors on the rest—it’s time to heap some deserved contempt on the so-called “Lady in Red,” the alternate juror whose courtroom demeanor became such a distraction that it prompted the judge to send all the alternate jurors home. From the Washington Post:

“She walked in flipping her hair, smiling broadly at [Edwards], batting her long eyelashes, cocking her head playfully. She was just an alternate juror, but suddenly she was the most watched person in the cramped federal courtroom. Commentators had dubbed her the “Lady in Red” after she bopped into the courtroom last week in a revealing, off-the-shoulder red top. Others just called her the “flirty one,” interpreting her vivacity as some kind of courtship dance, though no one can say for sure whether that was her intent.” Continue reading →

Is It Fair For A Business To Discriminate Against the Homely?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

 

Take your pick!

The EEOC is investigating a popular Boston area coffee shop chain, alleging that it discriminates in favor of attractive young waitresses to the detriment of older or more homely waitresses. The management of Marylou’s disputes the accusation, arguing that its hiring pool is disproportionately young and attractive.

I don’t want to get into the actual guilt or innocence here, but rather muse about the ethical issue. Should there be laws preventing employers from using attractiveness as a criteria in hiring, if it is relevant to the success of the business, or even if it is not? If a coffee shop owner’s patrons are overwhelmingly male, and the owner believes that having waitresses who look good in a starched uniform makes the customers happy and more likely to spend their money, why should the law prevent that? Is there anything really wrong with the conduct? Continue reading →

Anderson Cooper vs. “Human Barbie”: A Double-cross Masquerading As Integrity

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Sarah Burge, a.k.a “Human Barbie,” who actually contains more plastic than Plastic Barbie, who, come to think of it,  is quite possibly a better human being than “Human Barbie.” It’s complicated.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that somewhere out there is always someone who has seen through the fog of lies, spin, misrepresentations and conventional wisdom, and is writing about it. The first trick, of course, is finding such individuals, who may be part of the spin and confusion the very next day. The next one is getting the truth to as many people as possible.

When I heard that Anderson Cooper had kicked the plastic-surgery mutant named Sarah Burge off his show on the air, I was ready to give him an Ethics Hero award. Not only has Burge, who is known as “Human Barbie”, * indulged her pathological obsession with plastic surgery to spend almost a half-million dollars making herself look like the iconic Mattel doll, she is trying to make sure her daughters are similarly afflicted. She told Cooper she wants to botox her 15-year-old daughter, and she is setting up a trust for her 7-year-old so she can start mutilating herself when she turns 18.

Suddenly Cooper stopped the interview, saying, “I gotta be honest, I gotta just stop. I’m sorry. I try to be really polite to all my guests, but I just think you’re dreadful. I honestly don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Continue reading →

Legal/Ethical Train Wreck in Indiana: The Case of the Poisoned Fetus

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Mother, failed suicide, accused murderer, and ethics train wreck engineer.

If there are logical and ethical holes in a law, you can count on a case eventually coming along that will make them obvious and painful. Thus it is that the the case of Bei Bei Shuai, a Chinese immigrant living in Indiana, was concocted by the vengeful Gods of Inconsistency to highlight some of the legal problems in two notorious ethical gray areas, abortion and suicide. I’m not going to even try to solve the mess. It’s hard enough to describe it.

Suicide is illegal in Indiana, but attempted suicide is not. In Indiana, as in most jurisdictions, however, if one’s unsuccessful  suicide kills another by accident, that could be prosecuted as manslaughter, through the doctrine of transferred intent. In the case of Shuai, she drank poison, ostensibly to kill herself. But she also wrote a note saying that she was “taking the baby.” Of course, when a pregnant woman kills herself, that usually suggests that she understands that her act will kill her unborn child as well.  Perhaps she was trying to kill herself and wasn’t considering the baby. Perhaps she was trying to kill the baby, and not herself. Perhaps she was trying to kill both herself and her child.

What happened, however, is that she lived. The baby was born, but died shortly thereafter as a consequence, prosecutors say, of the poison Shuai swallowed. Continue reading →

Ethics Round-Up in Race, Religion and Sex: GOP Bigotry, Georgetown’s Integrity, and Warren’s Absurdity

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Help! I’m buried in great ethics stories!

This is one of those periods in which there are so many juicy ethics stories that I am falling far behind. Here are three that are worthy of longer treatment that I can’t allow to get lost in the crowd: Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: Seniors at Lexington (Ky) Catholic High School

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The fun prom…in the parking lot.

When Lexington (Kentucky) Catholic High senior Hope Decker, 18 tried to take sophomore Tiffany Wright, 16, to the school’s senior prom as her date, school officials told the couple that they would not be admitted, because their unholy same-sex coupling violated the Catholic Church’s teachings. Defiant, the couple tried to enter the school’s gymnasium that night, where the prom was held, but as promised, their tickets were refused. So their fellow students held an impromtu protest prom outside the official one, in the parking lot. They played music from their cars, and set up a table for refreshments.

“We had a wonderful night, and we were surrounded by true friends,” Wright said. “I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.”

Here is what else she will remember for the rest of her life: Continue reading →

The Washington Post’s Teenage Romney Smear Job

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

This just in: When he was 2 months old, Mitt Romney made boom-boom in his didies!

The Washington Post, which reached its previous nadir of attempted disgraceful and irresponsible character assassination of a GOP Presidential candidate with its “Niggerhead” hit job on Gov. Rick Perry*, sunk lower still with today’s stunningly unfair attack on Mitt Romney. Reporter Jason Horowitz wrote a bottom-of the-barrel story about an incident in which Romney bullied and harassed a gay class mate when Romney was at prep school, and 17-years-old. Naturally, this was published to contrast with President Obama, finally being shamed into announcing his support of gay marriage, in order to embarrass Romney, and force him to apologize for an episode that took place nearly a half-century ago when he was legally a minor.

If you want to read this garbage, it is here. You shouldn’t want to, however. It has no relevance to Mitt Romney or his qualifications for the Presidency. Paying any attention to it at all, even if you are actively trying to torpedo Mitt, is a bright-line violation of the Golden Rule…unless, of course, you never did anything you’re now ashamed of when you were a selfish, hormone-addled, ignorant teen, and are perfectly willing to have colleagues and potential employers judge your current character on the wedgies you handed out in gym class. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Those are four words I once would have bet I would never type.

Real. Honest. Brave. Beautiful. Thanks.

The Secretary of State deserves them though, for appearing in public, before the cameras, with no make-up and just a touch of lipstick. Let Fox News and the Matt Drudge mock: Hillary didn’t “forget her make-up.” She just decided “to hell with it.” And, as the Washington Post correctly noted, she looks just fine.

I just spent an event sitting next to the wife of a friend. She must be pushing 70, and her face and hair would not provide a single clue that she was more than 45, except for this: but for the movement of her eyeballs and occasionally her lips, her expression was completely unchanging.It was creepy. Her husband, whom I hadn’t seen in about ten years, was aging normally, but now his marriage of 40-plus years looked like he had robbed the cradle, albeit the cradle of a family afflicted with genetic facial paralysis. What’s the point? Why do American women feel the need to feign youth, even to those who they can’t possibly fool? Hillary looks like a real person to me; my friend’s wife looks like she may crumble into dust when the sunlight hits her. Continue reading →