News for the Week Ended November 23, 2010

News for the Week Ended November 23, 2010
BY ANN ROSTOW


Repeal Not Dead Yet

I forgot that I had to write this column a day early because of Thanksgiving and the morning has slipped away in the meantime. Plus, it appears to be a slow GLBT news week, dominated by speculation over the prospect of a Don’t Ask repeal during the lame duck session.

I must say, that prospect is brighter than it has been since the election. Initially, the Senate’s lame duck agenda appeared chock full of all sorts of other things and Don’t Ask looked as though it was going to fall through the cracks.

But this week, various Senators, led by Joe Lieberman, announced they had amassed the sixty votes they need for passage, and Harry Reid insisted he would call a vote on the military ban. Meanwhile, top military officials came out publicly for immediate repeal and Defense Secretary Gates ordered the Pentagon to release that year-long commission report a day earlier than scheduled in order to allow the Senate Armed Services Committee to hold timely hearings on the subject. Advance leaks of the report, as you have probably read, indicate that over 70 percent of the military think that repealing Don’t Ask would be either a positive or a neutral development.

So that’s all good! Except for the fact that several of the essential Senate votes seem to come at a price, namely an expanded debate on amendments to the Defense Appropriations bill that could eat up too much of the lame ducks’ valuable time. Quack!

Reid has also announced that he will strip the controversial DREAM Act from the defense legislation, which could make it easier to pass. The DREAM Act, a fantastic immigration proposal for kids who were brought to the United States as small children, will be offered as a stand-alone bill.

So we shall see, but I think I’ll retract the pessimistic statements I made in my last few columns.
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Must See TV

That’s the main news, but it’s not the most exciting news. Last Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that C-Span can televise the oral arguments in the Prop 8 case, scheduled for 10 am Pacific time on December 6, a Monday for those of you who can’t count in sevenths.

It’s worth repeating that the arguments are split into two one-hour subjects. Hour one will be devoted to the question of whether anyone has standing to appeal the original ruling that struck Prop 8 as unconstitutional.

Although the advocates of Prop 8 were given permission to defend their nasty little initiative in trial court after the state of California declined to act, that does not mean that they have the right to appeal their defeat. After all, they were not harmed by the ruling and legally, they have no more stake in the outcome than any average person with an opinion one way or another. The Prop 8 proponents are trying to insist that California law specifically allows them to represent the voting public in this context, but their arguments seem, um, weak.

Into the fray jumped the conservative leaders of Imperial County, who are trying to intervene in the event that the Prop 8 gang is denied standing. Imperial County suggests that since the state of California has refused to participate, they can represent the state as a public entity. Further, Imperial County says their bureaucrats will be harmed if they have to enforce a policy that a large majority of their residents voted against. Whatever.

Both Prop 8 and Imperial County will split a half-hour of the first argument, and our side will take the other half hour.

In the second hour, the court will look at the main case against Prop 8, with half an hour for the proponents and fifteen minutes each for the Olson Boies attorneys and the City of San Francisco (which is also a party to the case against Prop 8).

I know you might wonder why the Prop 8 lawyers get to argue for the merits of their position when it’s not clear whether or not they have standing. Don’t worry. It will all come out in the wash one way or another. And the main thing is that we can all look forward to a sensational TV experience, complete (in my case) with popcorn and Champagne. Because the last time I checked, 10 am Pacific was after twelve in central Texas.

I can’t wait!

Speaking of Prop 8, have you noticed that we seem to have tacitly decided not to field a repeal campaign in 2012? I don’t know. Maybe there’s still a plan out there to repeal Prop 8 next year, but if so, it seems to be operating on the DL. I assume that most California GLBT leaders think a victorious Prop 8 lawsuit will save us from an expensive, labor intensive and possibly risky exercise in electoral politics, and I am inclined to agree.

After all, the Ninth Circuit has expedited the Prop 8 case and will have finished its briefing and arguments in record time. A decision will be expected in a few months, I’m guessing, and we can go from there.
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House of Pain

Mel’s in bed with a pinched nerve in her back that makes it impossible for her to walk without aid from her new domestic servant, moi. She has a little bell to ring, the same one I usually use to summon Myrtille, who is inconveniently missing today for some reason. I have just returned from delivering an ice pack, cigarettes and a glass of white wine. In solidarity, I have provided myself with the same amenities, minus the ice pack.

Back again. I was just assigned to make some anti-gay popcorn, specifically popcorn acquired from a neighborhood scout who is too cute to boycott. Meanwhile, I’ve been searching in vain for some lowbrow news to share with you, something that won’t require either you or me to overextend our precious little gray cells.

But I have nothing. Nothing! So I will dive into the frigid waters of post-election gay rights to inform you that the New Hampshire legislature did not just switch parties, it mutated into a Republican supermajority with the power to overturn a veto from the Democratic governor, John Lynch. There is now talk of an effort to reverse marriage equality in the Granite State, and were the legislature to initiate such a travesty, Governor Lynch would be powerless to defeat it.

Last month’s rightward swerve was credited to populist rage against The Machine, specifically Obama, Pelosi and Reid and their inability to make the impact of the deepest recession since 1929 magically disappear in the space of 18 months or so. The Tea Party people were not supposed to be the conservatives of yore, obsessed with social issues. Instead, they were the freedom fighters, insisting that government meddling was making our economy worse, not better.

But guess what? They elected the same old conservatives. And although much was made over the GOP takeover of the House, the real damage came in the states, where something like 19 chambers flipped right and God knows how many rightwing governors took over the reins from Democrats.

Brian Brown, head of the National Organization for Marriage, blogged about the New Hampshire victories, adding: “We will now fight for a vote on a constitutional amendment and a repeal of same-sex marriage in New Hampshire. And we look forward to the Legislature overriding any veto that John Lynch might attempt.”

In Iowa, Democrats barely kept their grip on the state senate, where majority leader Michael Gronstal stands as a one-man barrier to any legislative attempt to roll back marriage rights in the Subsidy State. Gronstal has pledged to block any attempt to hold a constitutional vote on marriage, which was legalized last year by the state supreme court. As you know, all three members of that unanimous court who were up for a confirmation vote were ousted last month, and the Democratic governor Chet Edwards lost as well.

Gay rights progress in Minnesota will come to a halt now that conservatives won control of both houses of the legislature for the first time in years. Minnesota was one of the few states to avoid a constitutional referendum on marriage thanks to Democrats in power. Now the future is, let’s say, murky.

As for Maine, if anyone was hoping that the legislature would once again pass a marriage equality law and that this time, said law would survive a public vote, that hope is dead. Both Maine houses flipped to the GOP on a Tea Party surge that brought antigay lawmakers in with the seaweed.

But the state news is not all bad. Illinois lawmakers are poised to pass a civil union bill when they return to work next week. And in Maryland, Democrats somehow gained ground, and a push to legalize marriage in the Soft Shell Crab State is expected in the next session.

Still, on balance this was not a good election for our cause. You may have noticed that 2010 was the first even year in ages where we didn’t have a antigay marriage referendum anywhere in the country. Now that the conservatives are back in power in so many places, we may not be so lucky in 2012.
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One More Bell To Answer

The little bell dinged about six times over the course of writing that tedious account of mostly dismal state politics. Let’s see. I brought the ice pack again. I refreshed the popcorn. I plugged in her phone. I gave her another glass of wine. And once I was called in for a kiss, which I thought was sweet even though I was in the middle of trying to check on Minnesota legislative results while my computer froze.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that the high court in France is considering whether or not to legalize same-sex marriage in a case that will be decided in late January. If I’m not mistaken, the last time the high court was given a gay rights assignment, they sent the whole issue over to the legislature. But who knows? Maybe they’ll add the great country of France to the growing list of free marriage territories.

Myrtille will be pleased. She’s not gay herself. In fact, she’s kind of promiscuous and her frequent absences have suspiciously coincided with the disappearance of my pool boy, Yves. That said, Yves is not around much anyway since we have yet to build the pool. But still. It’s a bit of a coincidence. Anyway, Myrtille has a very generous spirit.

On that note, I think I will wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and cut this column only slightly short.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, did you know that Squanto, the friendly Indian who taught us how to make corn and starred in our grade school Thanksgiving plays, went to England and died of syphilis?

We never had that detail in our productions.
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