Thread:Comments:California's same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional; appeal expected/The US finally begins to crawl out of the third world/reply (15)

It would be interesting to hear how 4 and 5 are "half-truths" as you've put it. Creationism is legally taught in the U.S. state of Kansas (look it up if you don't believe me), while Arizona has recently passed a law requiring all police officers to inquire as to the immigration status of persons who they "suspect" may not be U.S. citizens or legal U.S. Immigrants while conducting other routine law enforcement activities, such as roadblocks and traffic stops. The very nature of such a law forces police to resort to superficial ethnic/"racial" characteristics, such as skin/hair colour, dialect etc. as guidelines for whom is considered "suspicious".

As for the comparisons of U.S. policies to "Third World" countries, it is a quite valid rubric for Americans to consider, especially as the United States conducts an aggressive, militaristic foreign policy which -although driven by geopolitics- is largely sold to the public in terms of promoting "democracy" "freedom" and "Human rights" in countries around the world. Such presumed moral authority is easily challenged if objective criteria are used to Compare the U.S. own domestic policies to those of other nations, both "Third World" and "First".