News for the Week Ended March 9, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Maryland Vote Any Day Now, Really!
I know I’ve told you for weeks that marriage equality is just around the corner in Maryland. And it’s still true! It’s just that the corner continues to stretch around the bend and as I write, a vote in the House of Delegates is pending for, um, maybe Friday. I don’t know. Soon.
The 141-member Maryland House was supposed to be a progressive chamber, poised to back up the state senate and send the marriage bill to the friendly governor’s desk. Our big fight was supposed to be in the senate, and indeed we finally pulled that one off and passed the marriage bill in the smaller chamber ten days ago.
Since then, we’ve had a rocky road through the House judiciary committee, but finally emerged with a yes vote last week. This morning, Wednesday, our allies managed to defeat four poison pill amendments, including one that would have legalized bestiality and polygamy (I think). After these victories, the House sent the bill to a final floor vote, but again, I’m not sure when that vote will be held.
But for now, it’s all good. Sort of.
As you may recall, a victory for marriage in Maryland may well be put on hold and tested by a voter referendum. Opponents must collect about 55,000 signatures within a relatively short time in order to shelve the new law until voters have a chance to weigh in. Although marriage enjoys a small majority in the latest Maryland polls, it’s the kind of majority that slips away after our foes throw a few million dollars worth of sweet little children onto the airwaves.
Oh, they’re not our children of course. They’re the innocent little ones who will be forced to confront graphic discussions of homosexual acts in school if two men or two women are allowed to marry in the state. Much as we ourselves learned all about the birds and the bees from our first grade teachers in our early classes on heterosexual marriage. You remember those lessons, right?
Side note. I was adopted at birth, and when I finally learned exactly how babies were conceived, I remember thinking with relief: “So that’s why I was adopted! Of course my parents would never degrade themselves in that fashion!”
--
No News Is Very Good News
What else is new? Well a Colorado committee advanced a civil union bill, so we’ll keep an eye on that. And Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire wisely decided to forget about trying to roll back marriage rights by shelving an antigay amendment for at least a year. Perhaps they were influenced by the poll indicating that two thirds of the voters had no interest in such a move.
All in all, our news this week is solid, but less than scintillating. And I suppose that the main story would be the lack of interest we’ve seen in President Obama’s amazing gay rights decision from two weeks ago. Hello? The President of the United States announces that gay men and women should be considered a protected class under constitutional law and no one objects? Obama’s justice department decides not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and we hear nary a peep?
Yes, the far right has been squeaking about it, but few people are listening to their feverish cries. This is excellent news.
Earlier this week, House Speaker John Boehner announced that a bi-partisan committee of three Republicans and two Democrats would get together to hash out a response to the various lawsuits that challenge the Defense of Marriage Act. If my math is correct, this bi-partisan committee will likely decide to defend the antigay law, presumably by hiring some lawyers and writing a few briefs or whatever. This effort will fill the void created by Obama and company, who decided, as you know, that DOMA is unconstitutional and not worthy of a defense in court.
Speaker Boehner seems indifferent at best to the whole issue, so one can hope that the Congressional push lacks a certain, je ne sais quoi. We’ll see, won’t we?
I’m still not clear which lawsuits are being completely abandoned by the United States government. They are certainly dropping their defense of two new suits filed last November in lower courts in Connecticut and New York under the jurisdiction of the Second Circuit. But I’m not exactly sure how Obama’s Justice Department is handling the two Massachusetts DOMA suits now before the U.S, Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
According to the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the Justice Department is continuing to participate in those cases. But they have informed the court that they will argue that Section Three of DOMA is unconstitutional under a high legal standard. Although the Justice Department has not written a second letter to Speaker Boehner concerning the First Circuit cases, I assume that Congress will be able to step into these cases as well in order to put on a more rigorous defense.
We’re still waiting for a DOMA-related ruling out of Northern California federal court that should arrive any day in the Golinsky spousal benefits case. That should be good for a lead story in this column.
And finally, as I wrote last week, the Prop 8 case could come roaring back if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decides to lift the stay on Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling, and allow marriages to resume in California while the case continues. Our side has petitioned the three-judge panel to reconsider the stay based on the lengthy delays that loom ahead for the litigation.
Needless to say, if the panel decides to lift the stay it would be a huge development. And that decision would likely be routed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a quick, and extremely revealing, review.
--
Honorary Lesbians Behaving Badly
So that’s it for hard news. Now, Ladies? Please join me in conferring honorary lesbian status on Craig Munro of Ipswich, a Brisbane suburb, who has managed to assemble the four essential elements of a classic Lesbians Behaving Badly news item.
First, he is British and/or living in part of the old British realm. You know. The one where the sun never sets.
Second, he is a substance abuser, in this case a pill popper rather than a boozer.
Third, he attacked his ex-lover in a bizarre and obsessive fashion, surely the prime signature of the genre.
And finally, his murder attempt did virtually no damage to the hapless ex, one Brendon Gannaway, a fellow cleaner at the Brassall Shopping Centre.
According to the Brisbane Times, Munro spied his former boy toy kissing a female friend in late 2009. Enraged and unbalanced, Munro overdosed on pills of some sort and was briefly hospitalized. He then fired off 49 text messages, including:
“I’m going to dance on your grave,” “[I’m] out for blood and I promise it will be yours,” and “You shouldn’t have crossed me and you will pay.”
He then waited in his car for Gannaway to ride by on his bike, and slammed into the man at about 45 miles an hour, at the same time texting: “Ha Ha!” Gannaway was knocked out of his shoes, hit Munro’s windshield and then landed on the road. Luckily, he only suffered abrasions, and it probably helped that Munro, in keeping with the traditional Bad Lesbian scenario, called an ambulance.
Munro turned himself in at the scene, telling officers “I just wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. That’s why I ran him over… I just put my foot down and hit him.” In the end, he pled guilty to malicious intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to sixteen months in the clink.
Anyway, congratulations to Craig from his new lesbian sisters, and welcome to the club!
--
Christian Patriots Behaving Even More Badly
Since we’re not seeing the usual blockbusting news headlines this week, I think we can breath a sigh of relief and check out some of the stories that I was obliged to spike during the heady days of February.
For example, did you read about Grant Storms? Storms is a 53-year-old antigay “Christian patriot” from New Orleans, who became known for leading a crusade through the French Quarter during the annual Southern Decadence party, yelling at gay men through a bullhorn and waving his Bible.
Well, Grant was arrested the other day for masturbating in public at a local playground!
Hmmm.
The father of four explained that he had been watching porn earlier and presumably was unable to control his subsequent reaction. He also insisted he was not a pedophile, and was instead suffering from a sex addiction that was causing problems in his marriage.
Touchingly, Storms offered a word of apology to his erstwhile targets in the gay community, telling the press “I was very proudful [sic], arrogant. I have been vicious at times in my condemnation of others.”
You know, Grant. We understand. Perhaps we didn’t masturbate in front of the kids, but still. We were out there in the French Quarter wearing tight pants, buying drinks and, I don’t know, throwing beads at each other. Who are we to judge!
--
Other Stuff in the News
So I should probably mention a marriage case in a Minnesota state court, where the judge just ruled against several same-sex couples, who will no doubt appeal.
As New York law professor Art Leonard pointed out, the trial court based its decision on the decades old case of Baker v Nelson, where the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected marriage rights out of hand, and where the U.S. Supreme Court wrote that marriage law was not a federal issue. The only problem here is that Baker was a federal case, and these same-sex couples were suing under state law so Baker shouldn’t even apply.
But you know what? With all our high profile lawsuits in action all over the country, I find it hard to focus on a state court ruling out of Minnesota. So let’s not.
Professor Leonard, who has inadvertently been sending me spam messages for the last week in what I assume is a snafu on his AOL account, also reviewed an interesting ruling out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in favor of a gay plaintiff.
Here’s the issue. If your employer sends you out into the field where you encounter relentless homophobic attacks at a client’s workplace, do you have a case for discrimination against your boss?
The answer is probably yes, assuming you told your own employer and they did nothing to protect you or resolve the situation. The case is interesting as well because the plaintiff is suing under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a federal law against workplace discrimination that does not specifically cover sexual orientation. And yet! Many courts have found a way to apply this vital law to protect victims of gay bashing, particularly when they are harassed due to gender non-conformity, a variety of sex discrimination that is indeed covered under Title VII.
And here’s the bottom line. If more courts could agree that Title VII covers discrimination against gays and lesbians, we would not need the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which stands alone as a very flawed half-assed untested weak-kneed second class substitute for the powerful law that protects everyone else.
As long as ENDA is not enacted, courts continue to try and fit our cases into the rubric of Title VII. But if the damn thing becomes law, we would automatically be blocked from Title VII protections, because obviously, our cases would then fall under our own personal gay workplace bill.
ENDA was a fine idea back in the early 1990s. In 2011 however, we should be working either to add sexual orientation to Title VII, or increase court precedents that effectively achieve the same goal. Passing ENDA would arguably be a step in the wrong direction.
I hate to end on a serious note. I promise it won’t happen again.
BY ANN ROSTOW
Maryland Vote Any Day Now, Really!
I know I’ve told you for weeks that marriage equality is just around the corner in Maryland. And it’s still true! It’s just that the corner continues to stretch around the bend and as I write, a vote in the House of Delegates is pending for, um, maybe Friday. I don’t know. Soon.
The 141-member Maryland House was supposed to be a progressive chamber, poised to back up the state senate and send the marriage bill to the friendly governor’s desk. Our big fight was supposed to be in the senate, and indeed we finally pulled that one off and passed the marriage bill in the smaller chamber ten days ago.
Since then, we’ve had a rocky road through the House judiciary committee, but finally emerged with a yes vote last week. This morning, Wednesday, our allies managed to defeat four poison pill amendments, including one that would have legalized bestiality and polygamy (I think). After these victories, the House sent the bill to a final floor vote, but again, I’m not sure when that vote will be held.
But for now, it’s all good. Sort of.
As you may recall, a victory for marriage in Maryland may well be put on hold and tested by a voter referendum. Opponents must collect about 55,000 signatures within a relatively short time in order to shelve the new law until voters have a chance to weigh in. Although marriage enjoys a small majority in the latest Maryland polls, it’s the kind of majority that slips away after our foes throw a few million dollars worth of sweet little children onto the airwaves.
Oh, they’re not our children of course. They’re the innocent little ones who will be forced to confront graphic discussions of homosexual acts in school if two men or two women are allowed to marry in the state. Much as we ourselves learned all about the birds and the bees from our first grade teachers in our early classes on heterosexual marriage. You remember those lessons, right?
Side note. I was adopted at birth, and when I finally learned exactly how babies were conceived, I remember thinking with relief: “So that’s why I was adopted! Of course my parents would never degrade themselves in that fashion!”
--
No News Is Very Good News
What else is new? Well a Colorado committee advanced a civil union bill, so we’ll keep an eye on that. And Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire wisely decided to forget about trying to roll back marriage rights by shelving an antigay amendment for at least a year. Perhaps they were influenced by the poll indicating that two thirds of the voters had no interest in such a move.
All in all, our news this week is solid, but less than scintillating. And I suppose that the main story would be the lack of interest we’ve seen in President Obama’s amazing gay rights decision from two weeks ago. Hello? The President of the United States announces that gay men and women should be considered a protected class under constitutional law and no one objects? Obama’s justice department decides not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and we hear nary a peep?
Yes, the far right has been squeaking about it, but few people are listening to their feverish cries. This is excellent news.
Earlier this week, House Speaker John Boehner announced that a bi-partisan committee of three Republicans and two Democrats would get together to hash out a response to the various lawsuits that challenge the Defense of Marriage Act. If my math is correct, this bi-partisan committee will likely decide to defend the antigay law, presumably by hiring some lawyers and writing a few briefs or whatever. This effort will fill the void created by Obama and company, who decided, as you know, that DOMA is unconstitutional and not worthy of a defense in court.
Speaker Boehner seems indifferent at best to the whole issue, so one can hope that the Congressional push lacks a certain, je ne sais quoi. We’ll see, won’t we?
I’m still not clear which lawsuits are being completely abandoned by the United States government. They are certainly dropping their defense of two new suits filed last November in lower courts in Connecticut and New York under the jurisdiction of the Second Circuit. But I’m not exactly sure how Obama’s Justice Department is handling the two Massachusetts DOMA suits now before the U.S, Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
According to the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the Justice Department is continuing to participate in those cases. But they have informed the court that they will argue that Section Three of DOMA is unconstitutional under a high legal standard. Although the Justice Department has not written a second letter to Speaker Boehner concerning the First Circuit cases, I assume that Congress will be able to step into these cases as well in order to put on a more rigorous defense.
We’re still waiting for a DOMA-related ruling out of Northern California federal court that should arrive any day in the Golinsky spousal benefits case. That should be good for a lead story in this column.
And finally, as I wrote last week, the Prop 8 case could come roaring back if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decides to lift the stay on Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling, and allow marriages to resume in California while the case continues. Our side has petitioned the three-judge panel to reconsider the stay based on the lengthy delays that loom ahead for the litigation.
Needless to say, if the panel decides to lift the stay it would be a huge development. And that decision would likely be routed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a quick, and extremely revealing, review.
--
Honorary Lesbians Behaving Badly
So that’s it for hard news. Now, Ladies? Please join me in conferring honorary lesbian status on Craig Munro of Ipswich, a Brisbane suburb, who has managed to assemble the four essential elements of a classic Lesbians Behaving Badly news item.
First, he is British and/or living in part of the old British realm. You know. The one where the sun never sets.
Second, he is a substance abuser, in this case a pill popper rather than a boozer.
Third, he attacked his ex-lover in a bizarre and obsessive fashion, surely the prime signature of the genre.
And finally, his murder attempt did virtually no damage to the hapless ex, one Brendon Gannaway, a fellow cleaner at the Brassall Shopping Centre.
According to the Brisbane Times, Munro spied his former boy toy kissing a female friend in late 2009. Enraged and unbalanced, Munro overdosed on pills of some sort and was briefly hospitalized. He then fired off 49 text messages, including:
“I’m going to dance on your grave,” “[I’m] out for blood and I promise it will be yours,” and “You shouldn’t have crossed me and you will pay.”
He then waited in his car for Gannaway to ride by on his bike, and slammed into the man at about 45 miles an hour, at the same time texting: “Ha Ha!” Gannaway was knocked out of his shoes, hit Munro’s windshield and then landed on the road. Luckily, he only suffered abrasions, and it probably helped that Munro, in keeping with the traditional Bad Lesbian scenario, called an ambulance.
Munro turned himself in at the scene, telling officers “I just wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. That’s why I ran him over… I just put my foot down and hit him.” In the end, he pled guilty to malicious intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to sixteen months in the clink.
Anyway, congratulations to Craig from his new lesbian sisters, and welcome to the club!
--
Christian Patriots Behaving Even More Badly
Since we’re not seeing the usual blockbusting news headlines this week, I think we can breath a sigh of relief and check out some of the stories that I was obliged to spike during the heady days of February.
For example, did you read about Grant Storms? Storms is a 53-year-old antigay “Christian patriot” from New Orleans, who became known for leading a crusade through the French Quarter during the annual Southern Decadence party, yelling at gay men through a bullhorn and waving his Bible.
Well, Grant was arrested the other day for masturbating in public at a local playground!
Hmmm.
The father of four explained that he had been watching porn earlier and presumably was unable to control his subsequent reaction. He also insisted he was not a pedophile, and was instead suffering from a sex addiction that was causing problems in his marriage.
Touchingly, Storms offered a word of apology to his erstwhile targets in the gay community, telling the press “I was very proudful [sic], arrogant. I have been vicious at times in my condemnation of others.”
You know, Grant. We understand. Perhaps we didn’t masturbate in front of the kids, but still. We were out there in the French Quarter wearing tight pants, buying drinks and, I don’t know, throwing beads at each other. Who are we to judge!
--
Other Stuff in the News
So I should probably mention a marriage case in a Minnesota state court, where the judge just ruled against several same-sex couples, who will no doubt appeal.
As New York law professor Art Leonard pointed out, the trial court based its decision on the decades old case of Baker v Nelson, where the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected marriage rights out of hand, and where the U.S. Supreme Court wrote that marriage law was not a federal issue. The only problem here is that Baker was a federal case, and these same-sex couples were suing under state law so Baker shouldn’t even apply.
But you know what? With all our high profile lawsuits in action all over the country, I find it hard to focus on a state court ruling out of Minnesota. So let’s not.
Professor Leonard, who has inadvertently been sending me spam messages for the last week in what I assume is a snafu on his AOL account, also reviewed an interesting ruling out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in favor of a gay plaintiff.
Here’s the issue. If your employer sends you out into the field where you encounter relentless homophobic attacks at a client’s workplace, do you have a case for discrimination against your boss?
The answer is probably yes, assuming you told your own employer and they did nothing to protect you or resolve the situation. The case is interesting as well because the plaintiff is suing under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a federal law against workplace discrimination that does not specifically cover sexual orientation. And yet! Many courts have found a way to apply this vital law to protect victims of gay bashing, particularly when they are harassed due to gender non-conformity, a variety of sex discrimination that is indeed covered under Title VII.
And here’s the bottom line. If more courts could agree that Title VII covers discrimination against gays and lesbians, we would not need the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which stands alone as a very flawed half-assed untested weak-kneed second class substitute for the powerful law that protects everyone else.
As long as ENDA is not enacted, courts continue to try and fit our cases into the rubric of Title VII. But if the damn thing becomes law, we would automatically be blocked from Title VII protections, because obviously, our cases would then fall under our own personal gay workplace bill.
ENDA was a fine idea back in the early 1990s. In 2011 however, we should be working either to add sexual orientation to Title VII, or increase court precedents that effectively achieve the same goal. Passing ENDA would arguably be a step in the wrong direction.
I hate to end on a serious note. I promise it won’t happen again.
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