did you ever go clear?

So I'm in the process of transferring this site to its proper domain--that is, www.UnfashionableObservations.com. However, approval of the domain name is still pending. I guess it should be done by no later than Wednesday. How exciting...

In other news, here is what Dean Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford Law School had to say about the Supreme Court's recent decisions:

"I would suggest that the court is really quite a moderate court or a centrist court, that in fact expresses a great deal of the values expressed elsewhere in society, rather than seeking to change those values. In the landmark decisions upholding affirmative action, as long as it's not too mechanical a use of race to provide the leaders for future positions in America, the court helped to legalize practices that many institutions of higher education have been involved in for the last generation, and had relied on to produce a much more diverse leadership in our society, and the landmark decisions striking down the Texas sodomy law, the court just legalized and brought cultural legitimacy to the view that many Americans would think ought to be part of our constitutional freedom, and that is that government has no business being in the bedrooms of consenting adults engaged in non-commercial, intimate sexual and loving activities. I would say that the big theme of the court is that it's a centrist, moderate court that expresses the values of most Americans."

Which is precisely what I said: Affirmative action has not changed (i.e., the Court affirmed the status quo); and the sodomy case was no surprise, as people have already gone a long way in accepting alternative lifestyles. The more I think about the cases, the less shocking they seem. (They're even starting to get boring!) I think Dean Sullivan is correct to note that the Court's rulings last week merely expressed the values of most Americans. That is not to say that most Americans are pro-affirmative action, or that most Americans support gay rights. By no means! I still believe that most Americans are politically moderate. However, most Americans do feel that racism is still a problem, and hence something should be done about it; and most Americans have recognized the reality of homosexuality, and are rational in concluding that it would be an exercise in futility to simply ignore or suppress this group. Perhaps there is a culture war out there, but I don't think these cases have chosen a winner just yet (as Scalia intoned). They've merely leveled the playing field. Indeed, the culture war has just begun.