Sweet Home Alabama (for once)
As Ralph Luker at Cliopatria has pointed out, for example, Gerald Allen, a state legislator in the county where I live, is sponsoring a silly bill to withdraw tax funds from any non-fiction work that"appears to condone homosexuality." For my part, I have lamented the attack on the first amendment by the Faculty Senate at the University of Alabama, where I teach, which has proposed a draconian speech code.
For this reason, it was refreshing to see that Alabama has struck a blow for liberty in a very uncharacteristic way. According to a news report in The Chicago Sun-Times, the state government has filed a legal brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in defense of California's medical marijuana law.
Alabama Attorney General Troy King states"I could not disagree more with the public policy that underlies the California law....But if somebody can go in and tell California you can't regulate drugs the way you want to regulate them in California, the next step is they would come to Alabama and tell us we can't do it."
It is a sight for sore eyes to see a southern politician actually use a states rights argument for this purpose. Troy King deserves the highest kudos for taking this stand.
Hat tip to my fellow Alabamian Alina Stefanescu.