News for the Week Ended July 20, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Senators Discuss Marriage Equality
Today, Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony on the Respect for Marriage Act, the measure to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. What can we call this bill? RFMA doesn’t cut it. REMA might work. REFMA? RESMA? Oh, hell I don’t know.
Despite the fact that support for same-sex marriage is expanding at a nice accelerating rate, there’s little chance that our repeal will make headway in Congress anytime soon. The political system just doesn’t work that way these days, as illustrated by the difficulty in repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell even as something like 80 percent of the American public opposed the gay military ban.
Plus, a Congressional fight over repealing DOMA is not a simple matter of progay lawmakers versus antigay lawmakers. Most politicians are in the middle and don’t care that much about our civil rights. Without an incentive to take a stand, their lethargy will be more than enough to prevent forward movement.
Here’s something interesting. My Word spelling software tells me that “antigay” is a legitimate word, correctly spelled. “Progay,” however, attracts the little red line, suggesting, perhaps, that the people who hate us have cemented themselves into the lexicon. That’s positive news! “Progay” should be assumed, a redundant expression. It’s the antigay forces who distinguish themselves from the mass of society and therefore deserve their own official adjective.
But back to the REMA hearing. The other day, President Obama endorsed the proposal to roll back DOMA, prompting all our major gay groups to issue grateful press releases.
“BREAKING. Obama endorses Respect for Marriage Act!” crowed one. “Freedom to Marry Applauds President Obama’s Endorsement of Respect for Marriage Act,” said another.
Hey, that’s fine. But Obama has been on record in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act from the start of his 2008 campaign. In February, his administration announced that DOMA was unconstitutional. Then, two weeks ago, his Justice Department filed a 30-something page legal brief in federal court ripping DOMA into teeny tiny little shreds. I’m just saying; the President is not making news here.
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Court Reinstates Part of Don’t Ask
The President did make news this week, however, but on the wrong side of history. In an emergency motion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Obama and company asked the court to reinstate Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in order to allow the government to complete the repeal process on its own terms.
You remember of course (it was less than two weeks ago!) that the Ninth Circuit released its stay on a previous injunction against the military ban, effectively telling the U.S. to stop enforcing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell right this minute. The court also asked the government to explain why it continues to champion the ban, in view of the fact that the Justice Department now believes sexual orientation discrimination is unconstitutional.
In response, the Justice Department explained that while Don’t Ask may well be unconstitutional, the repeal process for Don’t Ask is perfectly legal and should be allowed to run its course over the next couple of months. Obama and company reminded the panel that Congress and the President are owed great deference from the courts, particularly when it comes to matters of national security.
The court agreed in part, temporarily restoring the stay on the injunction but ordering the U.S. to cease hunting and discharging gay soldiers while it considers its options. Given that such discharges have basically been suspended for months, the decision has little practical effect. Indeed, the whole affair is moot on many levels, as the law will be formally dissolved by September or October.
That said, it will be interesting to see if the Ninth Circuit eventually dismisses the whole case, or whether the panel pursues a ruling on the merits. It’s possible that discharged gay soldiers will have grounds for civil suits if a federal appellate court opines that Don’t Ask was unconstitutional from the start.
Moreover, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell does not mean that gay and lesbian soldiers will be protected against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Surprised? Well, it’s true. The repeal ends the relentless investigations and witch hunts. It allows out gay individuals to join the military and be open during their service. But it does not create a structure to prevent, discourage or punish gay bias.
Nor does it allow for recognition of gay couples. Thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act, even married gay soldiers will be ineligible for benefits, and obviously unmarried gay servicemembers with partners will also be left in the lurch. I would assume that these problems will be rectified down the line, but still. How many destitute war widows or widowers will have to parade through the media and the courts before the military recognizes gay soldiers as equal? We shall see.
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Murdoch Schmurdoch
For some reason I just can’t get excited about the Murdoch scandal, even though I usually love conservative misdeeds and tales of the powerful brought low.
Perhaps I was spoiled by the Maxwell scandal, back in the day, a sordid collection of financial shenanigans that included raiding the pension fund of the Mirror in order to fund sleazy deals and cover up shortsighted business fiascos. I worked briefly for Maxwell and found him monstrous. Murdoch, by contrast, looks like a pussycat.
I also don’t quite understand how the News of the World’s telephone hacking and bribery will “jump the pond” and undermine News Corp.’s U.S. businesses. Have reporters at the Wall Street Journal been tapping phones? Has Fox News been bribing the FBI? Maybe. Maybe not.
Of course as a good progressive Democrat, I’d love to see Fox News come crashing down. I just haven’t seen any evidence that they’ve done anything more than broadcast misleading far right polemics to the American people for the last couple of decades, not that there’s anything (criminally) wrong with that.
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Plus Ca Change, Plus Ca Change
So, the Senate confirmed an openly gay federal judge, J. Paul Oetken, on an 80-13 vote with little comment. That’s a step in the right direction considering how an openly gay judicial nominee might have been greeted just ten years ago. Oetken is the second out gay federal judge and the first man to pass Senate inspection. And no, we’re not counting Judge Walker and all the others who may have been confirmed under the radar.
For years, New York’s Deborah Batts has held the distinction of being the only gay federal judge. Judge Batts doesn’t know it, but she and I are closely connected on the extensive web of lesbian ex-lovers that place all lesbians in this country within six degrees of separation. I’m not explaining further.
Speaking of change in the Senate, I just watched some of the hearings on the Respect for Marriage Act. I mention it only because I remember watching the 1996 hearings on the Defense of Marriage Act, and I remember cringing as HRC chief Elizabeth Birch insisted that gays did not care about marriage and that the Defense of Marriage Act was therefore “not necessary.”
That was our argument at the time, just 15 years ago. Not a plea for equality. Not a condemnation of marriage discrimination. But a weak capitulation to bigotry in the name of pragmatic politics.
I have nothing against pragmatic politics. But pragmatism never demands that we completely abandon our principles as we did back in 1996. The Human Rights Campaign exchanged a stand-alone vote on DOMA (which won) for a stand-alone vote on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (which lost by one vote), and then proceeded to pat itself on the back for the close call on ENDA.
How nice it was today to see HRC, in the persona of Joe Solmonese, stand up for marriage rights in contrast to the sick performance of fifteen years ago. I’m not a big fan of HRC. But I am a big fan of progress.
And make no mistake about it, that progress has not been led by HRC or any other political activists. It’s been led by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, by Lambda, by the ACLU and by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The rest of us have tagged along for the ride behind our able lawyers.
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Religious Freedom Upheld in Austria
So, it took him over two years, but an Austrian man has finally obtained a driving license that depicts him wearing a kitchen strainer. Niko Alm told authorities that the strainer was religious headgear and could not be prohibited on his ID shot. Alm is a Pastafarian, a member of the American-based Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
According to CotFSM beliefs, the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the Earth as it now appears a few thousand years ago. However, the FSM made it seem as if the Earth began billions of years ago and that life evolved here over time. This duality allows adherents to embrace both intelligent design and Darwinian evolution.
The earliest adherents to the Church were pirates, who were subsequently marginalized by Christians, jealous of their faith. Pastafarians have set aside Friday as a day of worship; they wear pirate gear on important religious occasions, and enjoy beer.
Although the faith has been around for “millions, if not thousands, of years,” the CotFSM gained some national prominence in 2005, when one of its leaders wrote a letter to the Kansas Board of Education wanting to make sure that the tenets of the Church would be included in any curricular discussions of intelligent design in the state public schools.
For several years I had a bumper attachment of His Noodly Appendages on my car, but I traded it in. The car, not the attachment.
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A Jerk is a Jerk is a Jerk
The Spaghetti Monster reminded me of something interesting I just saw. The Church website includes a chart illustrating the relationship between rising global warming and the decline of worldwide pirates over the last 200 years. Note: it’s a direct correlation!
That reminded me of the chart comparing the decline in American national traffic fatalities to the increase in lemon imports from Mexico to the United States that I saw on a link from some legal website. Again, the correlation is perfect.
I mean, think about it. How many charts have you seen purporting to “prove” that phenomenon X is related, or even caused, by phenomenon Y? The fact is, we have little tolerance for complexity, gray areas, and ideas that require more than two sentences to explain. Further, we accept virtually anything as conclusive evidence without examination. Witness our national debt and deficit discussion.
Don’t worry! I’m not rehashing that subject in this issue.
Finally, I just read the amazing story of two women who were told to stop holding hands…wait for it…at a Gertrude Stein exhibit in San Francisco!
According to the Daily Mail, an eyewitness at the Contemporary Jewish Museum said the women refused to follow instructions from the apparently unbalanced security guard last Sunday. A small crowd formed to watch the goings on and shortly, the manager was called, and sanity returned.
Museum director Connie Wolf told the press later on that the guard (who worked for a private company) was reprimanded.
“Please let me be crystal clear that the CJM has a zero tolerance concerning any kind of prejudiced or racist word or action, whether it be directed at CJM visitors or staff.”
My apologies if San Francisco readers have already heard this story. But it’s worth repeating just for its surreal aspects. Also, it just proves that the British tabloids are still alive and well.
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