Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

GLBT Week in Review January 18, 2012
BY ANN ROSTOW



Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

The television machine just told me all about Winkleman, the pet squirrel who paints abstract art using water colors with a little brush that he holds in his teeth. It’s a sad commentary on my professional mindset that Winkleman can launch me into this column at the expense of interesting marriage developments in several state legislatures as well as thought provoking court cases and Supreme Court moves.

He was adorable! And the paintings were pretty good as well. I was reminded of the elephants I saw on YouTube who also painted. The elephants could actually paint elephants, so if Winkleman ever paints a squirrel—or any other rodent for that matter---I think I’ll devote the entire column to his amazing exploit.

I wonder if Winkleman is a gay squirrel. Who knows? His artwork looks sort of gay.

Chris Christie has replaced the charming Winkleman on the small screen, which reminds me of one of our lead stories, the status of marriage equality in New Jersey.

New Jersey lawmakers are considering a marriage rights bill, and while it could actually pass, Governor Christie has previously opposed legalizing our unions. I think he said something like “I’m not a fan of same-sex marriage,” which is sort of like saying “I’m not wild about the Dream Act,” or “Hey, how about those Italian bond auctions!” Last week, however, Christie said he’d wait and see if the bill passes and then make a decision, an interesting tea leaf for obsessed speculators among the GLBT punditry.

I thought “tea leaf” was two words, but my editing software says it’s just one. What do you do when your instincts conflict with the didactic elves that program Microsoft Word? Do I really know for sure how to spell “tea leaf?” Can I be so bold? Do I dare to eat a peach? Shall we move on?

Some New Jersey activists are considering the unorthodox move of promoting a constitutional amendment that would put marriage rights to a proactive public vote. I gather marriage equality has slim majority support in the Garden State, but we all know how that can go, don’t we?

There’s also another Lambda freedom-to-marry lawsuit making its way up the state court ladder, arguing that the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling a few years back guaranteed equality between straight and gay couples that has not been achieved through civil unions. I’ll bet you Mitt Romney’s ten grand that we’ll win that suit, but unfortunately we’re still on the bottom rung in the lower court.

In other state legislative news, Maryland’s anti-marriage Senate President has agreed to allow a marriage equality vote, which is nice of him. Thanks, Mike Miller. That said, we have yet to round up the last five votes we need to pass marriage through the House of Delegates, which is theoretically the more liberal body. Last year, we passed marriage equality in the senate, but had to pull the bill out of the house. Surely you remember me telling you all about this last week or the week before. At any rate, that senate vote is expected sooner rather than later. And of course, Governor O’Malley is on our side.

Finally, we’re going ahead full steam in Washington State, where Governor Gregoire has had an epiphany, in part thanks to her daughters, who pushed her off the civil union fence into the marriage pasture. A marriage bill was just introduced in the senate with 23 sponsors. We need 26 votes to pass the senate, so that sounds alright. I’m not sure if we have the votes we need in the Seahawk State house, but we’re reportedly very close.

Keep in mind that success in Maryland or Washington could well unleash the usual hordes of petitioners seeking a public vote.
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No Guts at SCOTUS?

It was disappointing to see the Supreme Court decline to review three cases involving students who got in trouble for posting stuff online. The High Court also ducked two cases of public prayer, although I didn’t have a problem with that since they left intact lower court rulings that reaffirmed the separation of church and state.

Still. I’m interested in the online cases because they test the tension between free speech and bullying. Two of the cases involved kids who made fun of the school administration on MySpace. (Yes, these cases were at least five or six years old.) Those cases were both decided at the appellate level in favor of the students.

The other case involved bullying MySpace posters who attacked another student and was decided in favor of the school district that took action.

I agree with the appellate courts in all three instances, but it still seems as if the High Court should lay out some ground rules. When does social networking have such a disruptive impact on the school environment that intervention would be justified? On the other hand, when are postings protected speech?

In the last decade, the Court has issued narrow and sometimes contradictory First Amendment rulings, and it frankly looks as if they’ve taken a pass on some major cases. Meanwhile, I can’t help but notice that they accepted a petition that seems to question whether or not the federal government was within bounds when it sent an email receipt to some guy that included the expiration date of his credit card.

OK OK. I’m not a lawyer and there may be some profound constitutional issues at the heart of this alleged security lapse. And who are we to question the decisions and priorities of the nine justices? Surely they know best.

Finally, we are approaching the anniversary of Citizens United, clearly one of the most counter productive Supreme Court rulings of recent vintage, but not without its silver linings. Even though I think it would easier for my man Barry to beat Newt than Mitten, I was still pleased to see Newt beaten back into the middle ranks thanks to Mitten’s SuperPac.

I love Stephen Colbert’s SuperPac, but I want to see him stretch the envelope even further. Why can’t some deep pocket on our side give him five million to blanket the airwaves with more insane ads like the ones that call Romney a serial killer? At present, it’s an instructive joke. But if Colbert’s SuperPac actually started to shape the GOP primary, don’t you think Congress or the courts would eventually step in?
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Ooops

Now here’s a bizarre, and hopefully short-lived development. According to New York law professor and movie maven Art Leonard, a Canadian government lawyer has argued in court briefs that same sex marriages conducted between non-residents are legally void.

And you know what? It was short-lived since the head of the Canadian Justice Department stepped up within 24 hours to confirm that all marriages conducted in Canada are legal, period. Never mind!

Having discovered the clarification only after I wrote four or five meaty paragraphs on the subject, I must now delete this whole section and search the Internet for additional material. I can only hope there is another Winkleman-level topic lurking in the cyberwaves.

I could just drop the whole Canada story all together, but the mix up caused a major stir for a few days, so it’s worth, well, it’s worth at least one or two vegan paragraphs.

The government lawyer was making a case against the proposed divorce of a non-Canadian couple. It’s clear that you cannot divorce in Canada unless you’ve lived in the country for one year. No one disputes this, but the government lawyer went further, suggesting that because the women in question were not citizens, their Canadian marriage was never valid in the first place.

Up until this unfortunate incident, no one has ever implied that non-resident marriages were suspect in any way, so you can imagine how the thousands of American gay and lesbian couples who got hitched above the border reacted to the notion that they might not be married after all. Now, they can all breath a sigh of relief.

That said, I can’t help but wonder whether or not the House of Representatives will use this discredited legal brief to cast doubt on the status of Edith Windsor in the New York challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. Windsor, the plaintiff in the ACLU’s DOMA suit, married her late partner in Canada and was subsequently charged $350,000 in estate taxes on her own property.

Art Leonard also writes about a ruling in favor of the women who tried to get married at a semi-public beach pavilion on the Jersey shore but were told no. My God, that was years ago. I had no idea the case was still alive. I’ve decided that because I can’t remember the details, I won’t delve into Professor Leonard’s erudite analysis. You should check out his blog yourself anyway. It’s called Leonard Link. Oh, and according to Art, we should all see “Margin Call,” but “The Artist” wasn’t that great.
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Trans Siren Led to Tragedy?

What else? ABC has canceled the trans-phobic sitcom “Work It” due to lack of interest. We’re still sparring against tennis has-been Margaret Court, the gay bashing Australian who has inspired various fans and players to don their rainbows in solidarity at Melbourne Park this week. Gay parents may be better than straight parents, some study says, as if studies actually measure such things. I gather our kids are more open-minded than their kids, not surprisingly.

I really want a gay animal or lesbian behaving badly this week. The squirrel doesn’t count since we really don’t know whether he’s gay or straight. I’d even take a rightwing politician taking a ride on the wild side as some of them are wont to do. But I have nothing. Nothing!

Well, I might have something. I was going to tell you that the craven captain who beached his cruise ship off the coast of Italy was showing off for a transgender waitress on a nearby island. It’s a good story, which I learned from Mel who heard it on NPR. Unfortunately, since I was unable to confirm the tale, by rights I can’t pass it along. So, I’ll pass it along by wrongs.

According to Mel (my wife for those new to this column) the captain and the headwaiter were both enamored of this waitress. It’s not clear if they knew she was MTF, but her allure was apparently such that she inspired the fatal maneuver that sunk the giant liner and killed at least 11 people.
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All Aboard!

I only have a couple of hundred words left, and I hate to end our weekly discussions with a serious news item. But I do feel guilty that I neglected to mention the pending vote to roll back marriage rights in New Hampshire. It was originally scheduled for January 18, but it has been postponed until February, so I decided to blow it off. Governor John Lynch has pledged to veto this horrid proposal, so the ultimate question is not whether it has the votes to pass, but whether it has the votes to override a veto, a possibility that is far too unpleasant to contemplate.

By the way, Mel and I are going on an Olivia cruise in about ten days, an extravagance justified by a birthday that ends in zero. The sky’s the limit for this festive event, which will be a first for both of us. I guess we’re supposed to put together a poster for our door that gives people in the hallway a sense of who we are. I am preparing a suitable collage using a Krug label, some shredded tobacco and a recipe for rack of lamb.
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Ann’s column is available every week on sfbaytimes.com. You can reach her at arostow@aol.com.