The Code-Mongers Dilemma

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Okay, here is a ripe one.

Those who have been following the lefti-capades here in Moscow should remember that this last November, a strident hard-left Moscow City Council was voted out and replaced by some grown-ups. In a fit of pique, before the old council left, they extended benefits to domestic partners of city workers. The only problem was that this went clean against a Marriage Amendment that the citizens of Idaho had voted for a mere eighteen months before. All this was just par for the course here in crazyville, and I don’t recall having said one single thing about it.

Well, a senator in the state legislature, a Sen. Russ Fulcher, asked the attorney general’s office about it, and received confirmation that the Moscow action was likely out of bounds. Okay, so what else is new? But then the newspaper added this:

“Fulcher, who has visited Moscow twice over the years, said he has no political ties to the city. He said was not aware of a connection to Moscow’s more socially conservative demographic until it was pointed out to him. Fulcher’s children attend a private Christian school in Garden City called Foundations Academy. The school is accredited by the Association of Classical Christian Schools, a national group based in Moscow. The ACCS arose from the educational philosophy of Moscow’s Christ Church leader Douglas Wilson. Wilson is listed as an ‘ex officio’ ACCS board of directors member. Wilson’s conservative views have sparked something of a culture war in Moscow. ‘I have never met or talked to this guy,’ [Fulcher said].

This is quite right, and the non-meeting and non-talking referred to here was mutual. But this is still a hoot — the Moscow City Council enacts something that flies in the teeth of something the entire population of the state voted on and approved, and a senator says something like, “Hey, that can’t be right.” The attorney-general’s office says, “Well, you know, that’s because it ain’t.”

But that’s just part of the story. You see, the senator who asked the question has children, indicating that he is not quite objective about all this hetero/homo stuff. Eh? And furthermore, obviously caring for them, he enrolls those children in one of the best schools in the state. What do you think of them apples? Speak into the microphone, senator. Well, it turns out that this fine school in Boise (when will the perfidy stop?) is connected to other fine schools around the nation, and the association of these classical and Christian schools is headquartered in Moscow, the town where the city council just extended benefits to domestic part . . . no, wait, got off message there . . . the town where conservatives have been, you know, doing stuff. One of the conservatives who has done and said stuff, sometimes in public, has been moi, as the French actually don’t say, because usually their entire sentences are in French. But at any rate, I have been involved in some of this Moscow pushing and shoving, and I also serve as an ex officio member of the ACCS board, which accredited Foundations Academy. O tempora! O mores! In addition to all this, Sen. Fulcher and I never heard of one another. Clearly something nefarious is up.

Actually, I have a simpler explanation. Sen. Fulcher never heard of me, but over the course of the last several years, he had to have heard a constant drumbeat of calls from the Intoleristas of Moscow, all saying that what matters, everywhere and always, is the LAW, what matters is the CODE, what matters is simple CONFORMITY to the LAW, however we might feel about it on a personal level. Feeling inspired by this noble sentiment which our intoleristas were injecting by the kilo-ton into the karmasphere, Sen. Fulcher asked if the action of the (happily former) Moscow City Council was legal. Turns out it wasn’t.

Huh. Now what? I turn to Moscow’s code-mongers with an interested and quizzical expression on my face.