September 11, 2001 — My husband, Jon, and I were in a hotel room in Atlanta preparing to attend the Fall 2001 NetWorld+Interop conference at the Georgia World Congress Center. We had tuned in to CNN to catch the news as we were getting ready to go to the show — Jon was scheduled to give one of the keynote speeches — on that fateful Tuesday morning. I was in the bathroom, putting on make-up, when Jon called to me, “Come look at this! The World Trade Center is on fire.”

“What?” I asked, coming out of the bathroom and sitting on the bed.

“It looks like some dumbass crashed a plane into it, ” Jon said, pointing to the television set.

I saw what appeared to be the tail end of a plane, sticking out of one of the Twin Towers, “They must’ve been drunk or something,” I speculated, “either that or their navigation system screwed up big time.”

On the television, the CNN announcer who was covering the still undetermined fire was filling time, apparently waiting for more details so that he’d have something to say other than, “There is a lot of smoke… We are trying to find out more… For those of you just joining us…”

This went on for several minutes while my husband and I watched, still preparing for our business agenda while contemplating how somebody could have done something so stupid, what sort of drugs they might be on, etc.

Then, suddenly, the CNN reporter exclaimed, “Oh my God! There’s another one!” And we watched, on live television, as a full-sized airliner crashed right into the South Tower and burst into flames.

“Oh my God! That was on purpose! ” I shouted. “Somebody did that on purpose! Who would do such a thing?”

“Arabs,” Jon replied, “its gotta be Arabs, they already tried to blow up the World Trade Center once back in ‘93.”

“Well, it was definitely a suicide mission,” I said, “American nutcases don’t usually commit suicide when they do stuff like that.” For some reason, I was thinking of Timothy McVeigh.

By then, it was after 9:00am and we had a 9:30am meeting at the World Congress Center. So we left, knowing that we could catch up with all the news during our lunch break.

When we met my father, Anthony Romao — who was also attending N+I — in the hallway at our hotel he asked, obviously still in shock, “Did you see the news? Can you believe that?”

“At first, we thought it was an accident,” I replied, “but one is an accident, two is on purpose.”

My father and I started talking about it in a sort of nonsensical manner, one of those still-numb-from-the-shock exchanges in which no real information is conveyed just a lot of “I can’t believe it,” and “can you believe it?”

“C’mon, we can talk about it on the way there,” Jon said, knowing that the chattering goes on and on when father gets into the mix, “we’ve got to go. Now.” We were running a bit behind schedule.

The “I can’t believe it , can you?” conversation continued as we walked through Centennial Olympic Park on our way to the Georgia World Congress Center, which was only 2 or 3 blocks from our hotel. Along the way, we met some business associates who joined in. Some expressed their worries about friends and associates in New York’s financial district while others were concerned about how it would affect their own business interests.

When we arrived at the GWCC, we went straight to the media lounge where security personnel were scrutinizing press credentials more closely than they had in previous years. Once inside, we went to the information desk to see if there were any messages. But first, Jon asked the woman working at the desk, “Can you believe it about the World Trade Center?”

“I’ve never been so scared in all my life.” she answered. “Did you hear that the Pentagon is on fire!? God help us all, I just don’t want to know what’s gonna happen next!”

We had left our hotel just a few minutes after nine and arrived at the GWCC a little after 9:30, so we missed a lot, “My God! Are we under attack or something?” I asked, “Who would do this?”

Again, Jon answered, “Arabs. who else?”

“Yeah, but which Arabs?” I found Jon’s answer quite unsatisfying, “What country are they from? Or are they just some random group of radicals?”

“Probably some random group of radicals,” Jon replied. “We don’t have time for this right now, I have to give a talk in a few minutes and we need to get over there now.”

“Okay.” And off we went to the auditorium where Jon was scheduled to give his talk.

When we got to the meeting room, which should have been buzzing with the sounds and activities of the usual last minute preparations and frustrations, it was quiet. A small clump of people were huddled around the monitor on stage, watching the CNN coverage.

A man walked over to us and asked, “Can you believe it?” Then he said that everything was running late but they should be starting soon. But they never did. Everyone was too shocked and upset to think about the business for which we had all traveled to Atlanta and it was highly unlikely that anyone was going to show up to hear the keynotes anyway.

Oh well, we thought, there’s always tomorrow and Thursday. Since we were already there at the GWCC, we decided to see what was happening on the convention floor.

Now, N+I Atlanta used to be a really big event that filled the GWCC. In past years, over 50 thousand people attended and almost every network technology vendor set up a pavilion or booth. But on September 11, 2001, the GWCC was strangely quiet. People were just milling around as if they were waiting for something to happen. Some were wandering the aisles in a sort of daze, while others stood in small groups watching CNN on the large flat-screen monitors that were usually used for sales presentations and product demonstrations.

The three of us — Jon, father and I — walked the convention floor, taking it all in, slowly beginning to realize the seriousness of the situation and picking up new details — a fourth hijacked plane was still missing, the FAA had ordered all planes to land immediately and the White House and the Capitol had been evacuated — as we heard them along the way. Occasionally, we’d see someone we knew and stop to say, “Hi” and, “Can you believe it?”

Most people were keeping their cool — or maybe they were just still numb from the shock — but a few were visibly upset and crying, perhaps worrying about loved ones living in New York or Washington, DC. And a couple of people were angry, shouting into their cell phones about their flight schedules or how much money they were going to lose as the result of N+I being disrupted and possibly canceled.

Through all of this, I kept wondering, where’s the President? Shouldn’t he be on television making a speech or holding a press conference or something? People are freaked and they need — I need — to hear someone in charge say something like, “Remain calm, we are doing everything that can be done to resolve this situation.”

Now, at that time, I really hadn’t given Mr. Bush much thought. I did not vote for him or Mr. Gore and had no interest in the partisan silliness that was still continuing months after the Florida re-count and subsequent Supreme Court decision. But I was getting annoyed that we had yet to hear from our president, whom I had decided to give — as I would have if Mr. Gore been elected instead — every benefit of my doubt.

Bill Clinton would have been on the television already, I thought out loud (though I was never really a big fan of his, either) as we walked around.

Jon said that we would probably not hear from the president until all planes were on the ground and the Secret Service could ensure his safety, which made perfect sense to me.

We paused in front of one of the monitors to watch the continuing CNN coverage just in time to see the first tower fall. I heard a collective gasp echo through the crowd. And then a brief silence followed by some screams and a lot of crying. The emotion in that huge convention hall was so powerful, I swear I could smell it.

While CNN kept showing the footage of the crumbling skyscraper — over and over again — I remember thinking how it looked like a controlled demolition and surmising that the fire department must have decided to implode the building so that its collapse could be controlled, therefore minimizing damage to the surrounding area. Smart move, I thought, probably saved a lot of lives and property.

Between the first and the second tower falling — which, as it turned out, was actually the first one hit — I learned that the destruction was unexpected and that many firefighters were killed because they were still inside trying to rescue people when the buildings crumbled.

Well, I thought, at least the towers didn’t topple over sideways, because that would have caused a lot more damage. But still, to this day, I have a difficult time believing that two buildings collapsed, straight down, in exactly the same way just as a matter of course. Of all the 9/11 conundrums and conspiracy theories, this is the only one I still find rather mind-boggling.

Soon after that, we went outside to smoke cigarettes and try to decide what to do next. I looked up at the empty and silent sky, which should have been filled with planes on a Tuesday morning, and thought, is it really over? Or is the worst still yet to come?

I decided to call home where my mother and her friend, Alice, were looking after the kids while we were out of town. “Hello, Mom?” I said into the phone, “Can you believe it?”

“My God! We’ve been watching it on the television all morning,” mother replied, “I can’t believe it.”

We mostly talked about the morning’s events and how the news kept playing the same awful footage over and over again. Somewhere in there, I asked how the kids were and they were fine, completely oblivious to the horrors of the day. My oldest, who was four at the time, understood that some bad people had stolen airplanes and crashed them into buildings, but was more interested in watching Barney and Blue’s Clues than the boring old news.

I closed my phone and asked, “So what should we do now?”

Jon suggested that we go back to the media lounge to get some coffee and see if they were still going to serve lunch. He had overheard some talk of the convention being closed for the day, possibly for the rest of the week, and wanted to find out if that was true.

When we got back inside, people were still going in and out of the convention hall and the media lounge was open — they still had coffee and other beverages, but no lunch would be served. We learned that the show was canceled for the day and that decisions were still being made about the balance of the week. The bulletin board was filled with notices of canceled parties and other events, but the press reception was still on. We also heard that President Bush was about to make a televised statement, so we went to the convention floor to watch on one of the monitors.

After hearing Mr. Bush’s statement, I felt a bit better knowing that someone in charge was doing something. I actually knew that all along, but needed to hear it anyway. This is America, I thought, it’s going to take a lot more than this to shake us up.

Jon said he was hungry and father said he needed a drink so we walked to Jock’s and Jill’s Sports Lounge at the Omni CNN Center and had lunch. After that, there wasn’t much else to do but go back to our hotel and watch the news (as it turned out, that was pretty much all there was to do for the rest of the week — our “September 11 baby” was born during the subsequent mini-baby-boom of May 2002) until the press reception later that evening.

The press reception — where free food and drinks would be served at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse — was not much of a party, but it was pretty crowded with many already-intoxicated press and PR flacks. A large wall-sized screen, which had been set up for presentations of new product announcements, was tuned to CNN.

We met with several colleagues there, but all anyone could talk about was the events of the day. One man, a PR guy, talked about the plans and meetings he had made for the week and how they were so important to him the day before but that they now seemed rather trivial and meaningless. I told him that none of us could have predicted such a thing and that we all probably felt the same way — it was supposed to be a convention, after all. And we drank a solemn toast to the firefighters who had died trying to save people.

A few drinks later, the room became quiet because President Bush was about to address the nation. I don’t recall exactly what he said off the top of my head, but I do remember feeling inspired by it.

Soon after that, the party — if you could call it that — started breaking up because the bar was closed. Jon, who had run into Mike Linett, a friend and business associate, was ready to leave and wanted to know if father and I wanted to go have a nightcap with Mike.

In the many previous years when Jon, father and I attended N+I in Atlanta, we always closed our evening festivities at the rotating bar at the top of Peachtree Plaza, one of the tallest buildings in downtown Atlanta. It was a sort of tradition.

There was a little apprehension expressed about going up into a tall building, but there weren’t any planes flying that night and, at that point, we were too deep into our cups of liquid courage to care anyway. So off we went.

On the way, the men talked about terrorism and world politics, but I was too buzzed to care until Mike said that the FBI would know the identity of the hijackers by the next day.

“How’re they gonna figger that out so quick?” I asked. “It’s not as if there’s gonna be any bodies that dint get vaporized.”

“C’mon Margaret,” Mike said, “you know all the technology involved here. The FBI is probably looking at the flight records and security tapes right now. I’m tellin’ ya, they’ll know who all of ‘em are by tomorrow night — at the latest.”

Well, duh. I knew he was right, I just hadn’t thought about it very much. After all, the perpetrators were obviously dead and it was not as if there would be anyone to arrest — I wasn’t thinking about details like how the terrorists probably had accomplices who weren’t on the planes.

I am not much of a drinker, so my memory after that is rather foggy. Somehow, we made it back to our hotel room where I awoke, hungover, on September 12. It was the first day of a New America, one which promised a renewed unity but ultimately delivered only more of the same partisan politics that had plagued us before — and still do today.

Do you feel oppressed because the government does not currently recognize your polygamous or polyandrous marriage?

Apparently, there are some people out there who do because they show up to make their feelings known whenever and wherever there is a discussion of the same-sex marriage* issue. The pro-polygamy/polyandry folks maintain that, since marriage is a civil right that is applicable to gay and lesbian couples, it should also be applicable to polygamists and polyandrists.

Polygamy.com is just one of many organizations working toward the promotion and eventual legal recognition of plural marriage. I think their cause is a valid one and I support their efforts to expand and modernize marriage and family because I believe that those institutions must be updated to include broader options so that they do not become obsolete in this contemporary society in which women and children are no longer considered property. However, simple arithmetic makes the goals of the plural marriage movement separate from those of the marriage equality movement.

The recognition of same-sex marriages only requires that the current marriage laws be made gender neutral. Many of the marriage laws have already become gender neutral as a result of progress toward womens’ empowerment, so making civil marriage a gender neutral affair between two people it is not that great a legal leap.

It is quite understandable that polygamists and polyandrists see the recognition of same-sex marriage as being a justification for their cause, but the marriage laws were designed to stipulate obligations and responsibilities and to confer benefits and protections for only two people. Many provisions and revisions would have to be made before our marriage laws will be able to adequately and fairly accommodate marriages between more than two people, regardless of the genders/orientations of the group.

The current property and inheritance laws associated with marriage simply will not work for more than two parties. For example, if one member of a group dies, how will his or her property and debts be distributed among the remaining members and how will the survivors handle the estate taxes? What will the group do about life, health, auto and homeowner insurance? Which member(s) of the group is(are) responsible for making end-of-life decisions when another member becomes permanently incapacitated and what if there is a disagreement (some want to terminate life support and the others do not)? What, if any, alimony will be owed to (or by) a member who leaves the group? How about child custody and support?

Of course there are reasonable answers to all of those questions, but those solutions have yet to be written into the property and inheritance laws associated with marriage. And before that can be done, the right to polygamy and polyandry must first be recognized via legislation, popular vote or judicial ruling.

I subscribe to the school of thought that teaches that there are no such things as “new” civil and human rights because civil and human rights are not invented, but rather discovered after always having existed and, that once they are discovered, they must be recognized.

* Yes, I know that some of them are just using the polygamy angle as a straw man because the position opposing same-sex marriage is untenable and logical fallacies, intellectual dishonesty and emotional appeals are pretty much all they’ve got for their “arguments.”

This article was also published at Blogcritics

On Tuesday, September 6, 2005, California lawmakers became the first in the United States to approve a bill recognizing same-sex marriages. Assembly Bill (AB) 849, “The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act,” authored by California Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) passed 41-35. The California Senate approved it 21-15 last week. The bill, which makes the law defining marriage gender-neutral (gender was not placed into California’s marriage laws until 1977), does not require any church or other religious organization to recognize or perform same-sex marriages.

The bill will now go to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who has until October 6, 2005, to either sign or veto the bill or to simply allow it go into effect without his signature. Governor Schwarzenegger, who has expressed acceptance of same-sex marriage, has signaled that he will veto it, saying that this is an issue that should be decided by the courts.

The Governor’s spokeswoman, Margita Thompson said, “The people spoke when they passed Proposition 22. The issue subsequently went to the courts. The governor believes the courts are the correct venue for this decision to be made. He will uphold whatever decision the court renders.”

A case testing the legality of a ban on same-sex marriages is headed for the state Supreme Court. The state appellate court is now considering appeals of a lower court ruling, which overturned the California laws that banned the civil recognition of same-sex marriages.

Mr. Leno characterized the recognition of same-sex marriage as the most significant civil rights issue of the 21st century and said that he is optimistic about Governor Schwarzenegger’s open-mindedness.

“I believe this is a governor who at his core is a libertarian on issues of social matters,” Mr. Leno said, “and that he is very fair-minded. I think he also takes the longer, rather than shorter, view of history.” Mr. Leno also noted a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, which showed that Californians are evenly split, 46% to 46%, on the issue of same-sex marriage.

“Do what we know is in our hearts,” said Mr. Leno in a debate on the bill, “Make sure all California families will have the same protection under the law.”

The measure was approved after three Assembly members, Tom Umberg (D-Anaheim), Gloria Negrete-McLeod (D-Chino) and Simon Salinas (D-Salinas), changed their minds after having abstained on a similar proposal that failed in June by 4 votes. Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), who was not present for the June vote, also helped the bill to pass.

“This is one of those times when history looks upon us to see where we are,” Mr. Umberg said. “Ten years from now, there are a handful of issues that history will record where we stood, and this is one of those issues. History will record whether we pushed a bit, took the lead to encourage tolerance, to encourage equality to encourage fairness,” he said.

Ms. Negrete-McLeod also said that she regretted her June abstention, saying that she was convinced by the words of the Declaration of Independence that demanded “justice for all.”.

Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, a backer of the bill said that Tuesday’s vote showed that gay rights advocates have “turned the corner on the issue of marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples.”

“As the debate today shows, love conquers fear, principle conquers politics and equality conquers injustice, and the governor can now secure his legacy as a true leader by signing this bill,” Mr. Kors said.

The bill’s supporters compared the legislation to civil rights campaigns to eradicate slavery and secure the right to vote for women.

Opponents of the civil recognition of same-sex marriage have vowed to go to court if the bill becomes law, saying it violates the spirit of Proposition 22, a 2000 ballot initiative that prohibits California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries. Proposition 22, which California Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer deemed unconstitutional earlier this year, is not actually impacted by AB 849.

Those who disapprove of marriage equality for gay and lesbian people are also trying to qualify initiatives for the 2006 ballot, one that would amend California’s state Constitution to ban the recognition of same-sex marriages and another that would roll back some of the rights gained by same-sex couples who register as “domestic partners.”

Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families (but apparently only children and families that organization finds acceptable) said, “The only word I can see here is prostitution. Instead of obeying the voters and the Constitution, the Democratic politicians have prostituted themselves to the homosexual marriage agenda. It’s not gay, it’s bad.”

In a September 6 press release, Mr. Thomasson said, “Schwarzenegger can’t afford to sign the ‘gay marriage license’ bill, He’ll actually become a hero to the majority of Californians when he vetoes it. The ‘Terminator’ should announce without delay that this bill is dead meat.”

“I think it’s a sad day. I think the people of California want us to do the business of jobs, the economy, education, illegal immigration, and today we had to spend several hours talking about an issue that the voters decided back five years ago, that marriage should be between a man and a woman … I think it shows how out of touch the legislature is,” said Assemblywoman Sharon Runner (R-Lancaster).

Assemblyman Jay La Suer (R-a San Diego) said, “You are not leading, you have gone astray. History will record that you betrayed your constituents, and their moral and ethical values.” –

“The institution of marriage transcends political fads. We are talking about an institution that has been defined for thousands of years … and we are being asked to engage in a great social experiment,” Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta) said.

“It’s not about civil rights or personal rights, it’s about acceptance. They want to be accepted as normal. They are not normal,” insisted Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia), who also said, “We damage the moral fabric of our society, that’s what’s damaged here.”

The opponents of the civil recognition of same-sex marriage do not want this issue characterized as one of civil and human rights because it is an issue of civil and human rights.

Who do they think they’re fooling and how long do they expect them to stay fooled? After all, equality is not the same thing as acceptance and nobody can objectively define that ambiguous social concept some people call “normal.”

Aren’t oppression and bigotry damaging to the moral fabric of our society?

Is it ethical to create a second class of citizenship?

Is it prudent to think of equal protection under the law as a “social experiment?”

And, the current most important question: Will Governor Schwarzenegger place equality over injustice and principle above politics?

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the 16th chief justice of the Supreme Court, died of cancer on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005 in his Arlington home. A widower since his wife’s death in 1991, he was surrounded by his three children when he passed.

The Chief Justice, who was named to the Supreme Court by President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, had served on the court for 33 years. In 1986, he was elevated to chief justice by President Ronald Reagan. Only four other men served on the court for more than 34 years.

Diagnosed with thyroid cancer in October 2004, Chief Justice Rehnquist declined to retire and continued in his duties on the court despite his illness and subsequent radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Determined to perform his duties as chief justice as long as possible, the Chief Justice said, on July 14, that he would remain on the bench as long as his health allowed.

A Wisconsin native, Chief Justice Rehnquist attended Stanford University law school in California where he graduated at the top of his class in 1952. He was a private lawyer who joined the Justice Department in 1969. During his term, Chief Justice Rehnquist oversaw the court’s conservative shift, presided over President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial and helped to decide the 2000 presidential election.

When Jay of Stop the ACLU de-linked Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, some segments of the blogosphere got into a tizzy and Jay cannot understand what the big deal is. After all, it is his blogroll. Neither can I, especially when I think about my own blogroll being… well, mine.

I originally wrote about this controversy in a September 1 blogpost entitled Stop The ACLU vs. Instapundit: Justifiable De-linking or Pettiness Writ Large? I left a comment and trackback for Jay so that he could have the opportunity to respond (I could not do the same for Mr. Reynolds, however, because he does not offer comments or trackbacks on his blog site) with corrections or clarifications.

In a comment under that blogpost, Jay wrote, “Perhaps I should have just quitely delinked him…I mean, I’m feeling the backlash. INDC [Journal] and [The] Volokh [Conspiracy] are asking me to delink them too.”

Although The folks over at INDC Journal and The Volokh Conspiracy agree with Mr. Reynolds’ position in this matter (and apparently on several other issues), Jay seemed disappointed by their requests to be de-linked, “The difference between those sites however is that they provide a forum of debate. Comments. Glenn doesn’t even offer trackbacks.”

Describing the fallout, Jay wrote, “However, I announced it. But I thought I would be announcing it to my thousand or so readers I get a day…not the entire blogosphere. He decided to link to it, and suprisingly sent me a lot of haters, and a handful of supporters. So I gained from it, since the fact is that I didn’t lose any supporters at all over it. It really caused more of controversy than I expected.”

Jay, who regularly invites people whose viewpoints are diametrically opposed to those of Stop The ACLU (including yours truly) to comment on Stop The ACLU’s blog also wrote, “I offer my comment section to all, including Glenn. So he can come to MY site and debate me if he wants. I provide a place of debate…he only ignores emails.”

In a September 1 blogpost entitled, Instapundit Plays The Victim, Jay explains why he did not care for Mr. Reynolds’ assessment of a book that he probably did not actually read (the book in question was Alan Sears’ and Craig Osten’s, The ACLU Vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values), “So he just got it in the mail, and it is already a hatchet job. You can pretty much see that he is accusing Alan Sears of bias in the book, but how can he conclude this if he just got the book in the mail. He couldn’t.”

Jay concluded his blogpost with a clarification of his position and a challenge to Mr. Reynolds, “I don’t have a problem with you working with the ACLU because they do ’some good.’ While you are there see if you can reform their position on the second amendment. What I have a problem with is smearing someone’s books without sufficient proof to back up your claims. Anyway, I’m offering you an opportunity to back your claims up, right here in my comments…since you don’t have any. That is if you don’t think you are too important to stoop to the level of using a comment section.”

Thus far, there are 7 comments under Jay’s September 1 blogpost and none of them are from Mr. Reynolds. Stop The ACLU’s “Blogs Not Linking To Instapundit” blogroll/list contains the names of 49 blogs.

What this controversy should demonstrate to the people on both sides of it (personally, I am on the side of our civil rights, believing that Mr. Reynolds had every right to assert that “demonizing the ACLU is a bit silly” and that Jay had every right to de-link him just for that, even though Jay’s real problem with Mr. Reynolds was that he criticized a book that he apparently did not read) is that all of us bloggers have the right to make our own policies, not only for linking/de-linking, but also for trackbacks, comments, what sort of advertising (if any) we will allow, and all of the other blogstuff that might occur in our respective little — and not-so-little — corners of cyberspace. And if others have a problem with our individual rules and regulations, they are free to flame, de-link and go elsewhere.