News for the Week Ended May 11, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Don’t Ask Repeal Gets Sticky
Something happened this week involving same-sex marriages in the military, but it seems strange in several respects.
First, the head of the Navy Chaplains wrote a memo that said same-sex marriages could be conducted by military chaplains in states where same-sex marriage is legal.
That seems logical.
True, the ban on open gay military service is not yet officially dead. We are still going through some vague training period, although it’s not clear why people have to be trained to refrain from discharging a gay soldier. After this training, we have to wait for President Obama and Secretary Gates to certify that national security will not be compromised by the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. And finally, we have to wait two months after the certification, again for no particular reason. More training?
At any rate, the point is that once the gay ban is officially ended, gay servicemembers based in Massachusetts or Connecticut or DC should be able to marry on base, right?
Wrong. Conservatives flipped out over the chaplain’s memo, and several dozen House Republicans wrote an outraged letter to the Secretary of the Navy, or “SecNav” as they call him on NCIS. The policy was promptly suspended “pending additional legal and policy review.”
Republicans claimed that the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits military marriages regardless of the status of gay soldiers. But no one was attacking the Defense of Marriage Act in this context. Gay soldiers living in one of the marriage equality states surely have the right to marry. And whether or not they marry at the local church or at the base chapel has nothing to do with federal law.
Meanwhile, House Republicans continue to hold pointless hearings on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in an effort to further stall repeal. Since nothing they do will pass muster in the Senate, we don’t have anything to worry about. But then again, we thought this battle was won by the lame ducks last Christmas. When are we going to tie up the loose ends?
According to the administration, the process should be complete before the end of this year. At that rate, however, it’s possible that the federal courts will have yet another say in the matter. The challenge to Don’t Ask that made headlines last fall is continuing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where Obama has asked the panel to suspend the litigation during the repeal transition. But the court has thus far declined to toss the case, which is called Log Cabin Republicans v U.S..
This whole mess obscures a key issue in the debate over gays in the military. When we repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, we simply removed the rule that banned openly gay soldiers. What we did not do was to insist that gay and lesbians soldiers be treated equally. That’s right. There is no specific language that bans sexual orientation discrimination in the military, so in theory, you could have all kinds of double standards, ranging from unequal marriage laws to, I don’t know, extra KP duty for lesbians.
That said, I think most Americans who favored an end to Don’t Ask assumed that discrimination would be banished along with the antigay law. So, like many of our communal problems, the solution is a matter of time.
--
Meow!
I don’t mean to be catty, but Newt Gingrich’s latest wife looks like something out of a horror movie. Tight stretched skin. Razor sharp makeup. Weird crazy look in her eyes. I don’t know.
I’ve been reluctant to ridicule the GOP presidential lineup, simply because I am assuming that a bunch of mainstream-ish conservative politicians are about to toss their hats into the ring. After all, it’s only, um, May. But this is getting serious. Of all the announced candidates, the pudgy hypocrite appears to have the best credentials of the bunch even though he hasn’t done anything of note for over a decade.
Oh, I suppose I forgot about Tim Pawlenty. But that’s the problem with Tim Pawlenty, isn’t it?
Anyway, the man is nicknamed after a small, legless, salamander, so I’m thinking his uphill climb to the White House might be a bit of a stretch.
I’m also wondering whether some of the possible GOP candidates will rethink their timing given that Obama looks far less beatable this week than he did ten days ago.
Will Christie and Daniels let someone else sacrifice themselves on the altar of 2012 while they sit back and wait for 2016? It definitely looks as if the two Mormons are going to enter the race, but I have no idea what Huckabee plans to do. As for Palin, I think she’s too thin-skinned to put herself through the crucible of another national campaign.
All in all, I’m still betting on some fresh face popping out of the woodwork at the end of the summer.
--
Porn! The New White Meat
I have MSNBC on in the background as is my wont these days. I’m not paying much attention, but I’m paying enough to inform you that the station has delivered the same six pieces of news over and over again for the last five hours.
Oh. Here’s a new one coming up after the next break: “Porn, kids and the Internet. Just a typo away.”
While we wait for typo instructions, you should know that the Presbyterian USA church has finally approved ordination for gay men and lesbians in committed relationships. Yay! I’ve been covering gay ordination for the last fifteen years, so it’s a pleasure to be able to report this breakthrough. That said, I basically got bored with the subject a couple years back so I have ignored the topic completely.
As for porn, MSNBC just showed an anti-porn commercial featuring a couple of eight year old boys who try to look up “pork” and hit the “n” instead of the “k.” At once the doorbell rings, and the kids find several beautiful women at their doorstep. I suppose it’s meant to be a warning to parents, because it certainly wouldn’t discourage your average eight-year-old boy. Quite the contrary.
--
‘Til The Board of Immigration Us Do Part
So here’s a big story. Last Thursday, the Justice Department formally stepped in to block a deportation hearing for a civil union partner from Ireland, who lives in New Jersey with his quasi-spouse. Attorney General Eric Holder said the case should be referred back to the Board of Immigration to see whether or not a civil union partner might be treated as a spouse or qualifying relative under immigration law.
On the following day, an immigration judge in Newark seemed to take the hint, postponing deportation for a Venezuelan man who married his American husband in Connecticut. The judge indicated that the men should be given time, at least until December, to see how the immigration status of married gays is addressed by the courts and the Justice Department.
These cases came a month or so after a government lawyer agreed to shelve proceedings against a New York-based bi-national couple, again to give the women time to pursue a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act.
Under the circumstances, it seems likely that other binational couples will have a reprieve as well, as the government tries to balance its stated opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act with the fact that DOMA remains federal law for the moment.
As you know, Attorney General Holder announced in February that sexual orientation should be considered a constitutionally protected class. As such, the Justice Department decided it could no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court. Nonetheless, Holder made clear that the Obama administration would uphold the law until a court could weigh in on its constitutional status.
This appears to be easier said than done in the case of binational couples. And although the Justice Department can’t come right out and tell immigration judges to ignore DOMA when it comes to foreign gay spouses, they seem to be finding a middle ground—a six to twelve month stalling tactic that could keep couples together while the courts sort out the future of the federal ban on same-sex marriage.
Good. This seems to be working, although I’m sure that one of these days we’ll come face to face with a mean immigration judge who will tell the Justice Department to jump in a lake. Until then, it’s good news for the international couples in our midst.
---
Don’t Kill Me Bro
And speaking of international couples, the European Court of Justice has ruled in favor of a retired German couple who got hitched under Germany’s version of a civil union. After they tied the knot, one of the men applied for an increase in his pension from the city of Hamburg. But even though such an increase is routine for a single person who subsequently gets married, his request was denied. The man petitioned the local labor court, which referred the matter to the ECJ. In its ruling, the European Court of Justice said that registered partners are entitled to equal pay under principles of European law, and that pensions are considered part of one’s pay.
Before you start lamenting about the backward state of gay rights law in the United States, you can compare us to Uganda, where lawmakers are still intent on passing the so-called “kill the gays” bill that carries a life sentence for active homosexuals, and a death sentence for having gay sex with a minor.
The bill, proposed a couple of years ago, was back on schedule for a vote this week, but was pulled off the table at the last minute. I don’t pretend to understand Ugandan politics. But it seems as if someone with a modicum of power wants to avoid the international backlash that would accompany passage of this barbaric legislation.
Much like the ordination of gay priests, the “kill the gays” bill is another news story that I have stopped following in recent months. I assumed the bill had sort of died, so I was most astonished when a raft of “Ugandans want to kill us!” headlines hit my email this week, followed by another onslaught of “Maybe not yet.”
Regardless, I’m not going to Uganda anytime soon.
--
F is For Apple
Back in the USA, the Minnesota senate has voted to put an antigay marriage amendment on the 2012 ballot. I’d give you more details but something is happening to my aging Mac laptop and simple operations, like searching for “Minnesota gay,” are taking whole minutes.
While it “waits” to respond to these basic requests, the computer makes an annoying little buzzing sound, like background radiation from the Big Bang.
The whole frustrating process makes me want to take the machine outside onto the porch and smash its little machine guts all over the slate floor. Nor am I in the least bit mollified by the fact that the little “I’m thinking!” revolving ball has a gay rainbow theme.
There’s nothing inherently gay about a lackadaisical piece of junk that would rather sit around complacently buzzing and flashing rainbow colors for seconds on end while my racing mind screams in silent anguish. Gay, to me, means fun and competent! A gay computer is fast and eager to work with you. Quick off the mark. Back to you in less time than it takes to click a mouse!
No, this is something quite different. Homophobic even. Oh, I’m sure it would deny it if you asked it. It has plenty of gay friends, it would insist. For heaven’s sake, its owner is a lesbian! Well, considering its recent performance I believe that makes my case.
And for the record, we still have to wait for the Minnesota House to pass the marriage amendment, but there’s no reason to suppose it won’t do just that. As for the Badger or Gopher State electorate, it will be interesting. I think they’re gophers, and I think Wisconsin people are badgers. But who knows for sure? I’m not going to waste five minutes or so trying to research mascot animals in the Midwest.
--
arostow@aol.com
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Let’s Celebrate
News for the Week Ended May 3, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Let’s Celebrate
What do you think of the mass rejoicing over Bin Laden’s death? Is there anything unseemly about it?
I don’t think so personally. The rejoicing was about so much more than the death of one man. It was about achieving a kind of justice for the victims of September 11 that we didn’t even realize we were missing until it arrived.
It was an overdue answer to the unspoken question of whether America, for all its strength, is an overblown military behemoth, rendered impotent by the complications of geopolitics and bureaucracy. The answer is no.
It’s a defeat for the carnival barkers, as Obama put it, and the game players and the sound biters. Presidential leadership is a serious business, and the job may require you to manage a natural disaster one day, put on your tails and deliver a comic address to the Washington press corps the next, and conduct a special operations raid in a foreign country the next. Sarah Palin? Donald Trump? Tim Pawlenty? Mike Huckabee? Mitt Romney?
Really?
A large part of my rejoicing was out of loyalty to Obama, who has returned permanently to the top of my favorite people list ever since February, when he decided sexual orientation should be a protected class under the Constitution. I ranted for two years about the fact that Obama declined to do the little things that would advance gay rights without costing him any political capital. In February, he did the single biggest thing within his power to advance our cause. Case closed. He has my vote.
But back to Bin Laden. His death vastly improves our position in what has seemed like a Whack-a-Mole fight to disrupt and fracture Al Qaeda. It’s hard to specify exactly how victory in such a fight can be determined, but certainly, killing Bin Laden was a necessary element. There will always be subgroups calling themselves Al Qaeda. And the threat of “terror” will always be with us, just as tornados will always storm the plains, hurricanes will always smash our coasts and rogue psychopaths will continue to pull out their AK47s for impromptu shooting sprees. But this is a turning point.
Finally, I celebrate the incredible strategic courage of the President and those who supported this raid rather than the idea of dropping a big bomb. Those special forces troops put their lives on the line to give us, not just the satisfaction of killing Bin Laden, but to recover the intelligence on site that may allow us to reset our relationship with Pakistan and further undermine
Al Qaeda.
Our relationship with Pakistan must be solidified. And it can’t work unless the Pakistani government weeds out the Al Qaeda sympathizers in the military and perhaps in its own ranks. Perhaps there are only a few bad apples, perhaps there’s a small network. But that government must be cleansed and strengthened. This is a nuclear power. It must remain our ally and we must be able to trust their leaders.
Dropping a big bomb, killing everyone in the area, and possibly not knowing who was in the complex, would have been a mess. And yet, the alternative was so dangerous, so risky, and so uncertain. By picking that alternative, Obama risked his political life without hesitation in the national interest just as those Navy Seals risked their physical lives without hesitation for our country.
We celebrate for all of these reasons. Not for the death of one man, who arguably was little more than a symbolic figurehead, but for a moment of tangible victory in the seemingly endless struggle towards the amorphous (and ultimately unreachable) objective of securing the nation.
--
Free For A Day
I’m writing my column a day early, which means that some huge breaking GLBT news story will hit the wires on Wednesday. Look for it. I’m serious. It never fails.
Meanwhile, the GLBT news this week is tepid at best. We all spent two days oohing and ahhing over the Royal Wedding. (I heard Kate’s brother was gay, did you?) We had hundreds of people killed by giant tornadoes with winds of 200 mph. Then came Bin Laden.
I mean, was this week real? Or did we all just get abducted by aliens and have our memories replaced by a series of B-movies? “The Girl Who Would Be Queen,” followed by “Winds From Hell,” capped off by “Fire Over Abbottabad.”
Time out. I just learned that today is “World Press Freedom Day,” which means that I have the “freedom” to write about whatever comes to mind, right? Well, as I just mentioned, I don’t have any major GLBT news to report, so today’s lack of restrictions are particularly welcome.
Have you seen the McDonald’s commercial with the African American couple sitting at the table over a hamburger? The woman says that some other guy told her friend that “Sundays are just for football.” Then she asks her boyfriend to comment, suggesting by her tone that the sentiment was not one she shared.
During a lengthy pause, the narrator reminds the boyfriend that he’s smart. He can handle the situation! He ordered a value meal, so he knows what he’s doing. Bolstered by the voice over, the guy tells his girlfriend that the football fan is “a jerk,” and his girlfriend smiles in satisfaction.
I profoundly hate this ad. It’s another one on the lengthy list that depicts African American women as tyrannical or semi-tyrannical control freaks.
But worse, since we know by the context that the boyfriend actually likes football, it recommends that smart boyfriends simply lie to their girlfriends and tell them whatever they want to hear.
How long do you think this relationship going to last? Can you see the boyfriend getting a call from his buddy next fall?
“Hey Derrick. Want to come by and watch the game tomorrow? Sheila’s welcome to come too. Candice is making ribs!”
“Um. Let me get back to you. We’re supposed to go to some church thing and then Sheila said something about the art show….”
“What? We’ve got two screens going. Redskins inside and the Saints on the porch TV. C’mon man!”
“Let me call you back.”
Later, after he tells Sheila that he has to drive to Albuquerque because his aunt is sick, Derrick calls back:
“Hey Calvin! I’m on for tomorrow! Sheila can’t make it.”
And this is the smart approach? For God’s sake, tell Sheila right off the bat that most Sundays in the fall should revolve around football and if she doesn’t like it, she should find someone more compatible. How hard is that?
It’s not just Black women, many wives and girlfriends on commercials are cast as the enemy who has to be placated, lied to, manipulated or outwitted by hapless husbands and boyfriends. I know I’ve written about this before, but you never see an abusive husband laying down the law while the sneaky wife goes behind his back, now do you? Yet some of these women are horrible! And the spineless men just take it and everyone laughs. Who writes this stuff?
Now I’m reading on the TV scroll that the fat removed by liposuction reappears in other places on the body. In a separate news line that ran under the MSNBC screen a few minutes earlier, I read that people with belly fat are more likely to have heart problems than people with other fat. Why not have liposuction on your belly? Then you can be healthy, even though you might develop thunder thighs.
--
Gay Stuff (Sigh)
OK. Gay news. I’m really not in the mood for this, but here we go.
In Minnesota, the house has passed an antigay marriage amendment that now goes to the senate.
In Rhode Island, plans for a marriage equality bill have been dropped in the face of opposition, but some lawmakers may push for a civil union bill even though our side has vehemently said that civil unions are not enough in this New England state.
New Yorkers are advocating for a marriage equality bill, even though the legislature is back under GOP control. You know, I have to admit that New York is getting a lot of optimistic gay marriage press these days, and there’s even talk of passing a bill this summer. But personally, I’ve written thousands of words, in breathless prose, about marriage bills being on the verge of passing in New York, in New Jersey, recently in Maryland, only to sum things up in the oft-quoted words of Rosanne Rosannadanna. “Never mind!” This time, I’m watching and waiting.
And in Washington D.C., we seem to have the votes to pass the Respect for Marriage Act through the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill-- I’m calling it REFMA—is the attempt to repeal DOMA, and so far it has not been scheduled for any hearings whatsoever. But we’re ready!
Donald Trump has been trying to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage, which he says just “doesn’t feel right” to him. He likened this sensation to how he feels when he sees golfers using long putters or belly putters. They just look awkward and it rubs him the wrong way.
By the way, which looks better to you? A golfer holing a 30-foot putt with a belly putter? Or a golfer missing a two-footer with a three-foot Ping? Just sayin’.
--
Fait Triste Bouche
Now, I’m officially giving up on gay news and just spent half an hour watching a slideshow of “unexpected table manners around the world.” I learned that Koreans spit the bones of their fish out of their mouths and onto the plate or floor. And Zambians sometimes begin their meal with a small dried mouse, that must be eaten head first. The tail, which is not eaten, can be used as a toothpick.
Still on the same website, I moved on to “The Ten Most Pointless Salad Ingredients,” but my computer froze while I was trying to bring up the story. I don’t like weird unidentified little pellets of something in my salad. I also don’t like giant cubes of toast, or random things that get tossed in for no real reason like crunchy pea things. So you can see why my attention was drawn to this provocative headline.
Eventually, I googled “ten most pointless salad ingredients” and found the list: cucumbers, croutons, iceberg lettuce, onions, cheese, green beans, alfalfa sprouts, chow mein noodles, corn and bacon bits.
Pointless? What’s “pointless” about bacon bits, onions or cucumbers? The list reflects only the author’s taste, and I felt tricked into reading it.
Hey! My word-count is standing at a patriotic 1776, even though it went to 1797 after I wrote this sentence. There was something metaphysical about seeing 1776, and realizing that I couldn’t capture the moment in print without destroying it. Much like the impossible act of determining the location of an electron by hitting it with a photon, that shifts its position in the process.
Because, is it not true that whenever you put an idea into words you alter the essential thought that put the idea in your head to begin with?
--
arostow@aol.com
BY ANN ROSTOW
Let’s Celebrate
What do you think of the mass rejoicing over Bin Laden’s death? Is there anything unseemly about it?
I don’t think so personally. The rejoicing was about so much more than the death of one man. It was about achieving a kind of justice for the victims of September 11 that we didn’t even realize we were missing until it arrived.
It was an overdue answer to the unspoken question of whether America, for all its strength, is an overblown military behemoth, rendered impotent by the complications of geopolitics and bureaucracy. The answer is no.
It’s a defeat for the carnival barkers, as Obama put it, and the game players and the sound biters. Presidential leadership is a serious business, and the job may require you to manage a natural disaster one day, put on your tails and deliver a comic address to the Washington press corps the next, and conduct a special operations raid in a foreign country the next. Sarah Palin? Donald Trump? Tim Pawlenty? Mike Huckabee? Mitt Romney?
Really?
A large part of my rejoicing was out of loyalty to Obama, who has returned permanently to the top of my favorite people list ever since February, when he decided sexual orientation should be a protected class under the Constitution. I ranted for two years about the fact that Obama declined to do the little things that would advance gay rights without costing him any political capital. In February, he did the single biggest thing within his power to advance our cause. Case closed. He has my vote.
But back to Bin Laden. His death vastly improves our position in what has seemed like a Whack-a-Mole fight to disrupt and fracture Al Qaeda. It’s hard to specify exactly how victory in such a fight can be determined, but certainly, killing Bin Laden was a necessary element. There will always be subgroups calling themselves Al Qaeda. And the threat of “terror” will always be with us, just as tornados will always storm the plains, hurricanes will always smash our coasts and rogue psychopaths will continue to pull out their AK47s for impromptu shooting sprees. But this is a turning point.
Finally, I celebrate the incredible strategic courage of the President and those who supported this raid rather than the idea of dropping a big bomb. Those special forces troops put their lives on the line to give us, not just the satisfaction of killing Bin Laden, but to recover the intelligence on site that may allow us to reset our relationship with Pakistan and further undermine
Al Qaeda.
Our relationship with Pakistan must be solidified. And it can’t work unless the Pakistani government weeds out the Al Qaeda sympathizers in the military and perhaps in its own ranks. Perhaps there are only a few bad apples, perhaps there’s a small network. But that government must be cleansed and strengthened. This is a nuclear power. It must remain our ally and we must be able to trust their leaders.
Dropping a big bomb, killing everyone in the area, and possibly not knowing who was in the complex, would have been a mess. And yet, the alternative was so dangerous, so risky, and so uncertain. By picking that alternative, Obama risked his political life without hesitation in the national interest just as those Navy Seals risked their physical lives without hesitation for our country.
We celebrate for all of these reasons. Not for the death of one man, who arguably was little more than a symbolic figurehead, but for a moment of tangible victory in the seemingly endless struggle towards the amorphous (and ultimately unreachable) objective of securing the nation.
--
Free For A Day
I’m writing my column a day early, which means that some huge breaking GLBT news story will hit the wires on Wednesday. Look for it. I’m serious. It never fails.
Meanwhile, the GLBT news this week is tepid at best. We all spent two days oohing and ahhing over the Royal Wedding. (I heard Kate’s brother was gay, did you?) We had hundreds of people killed by giant tornadoes with winds of 200 mph. Then came Bin Laden.
I mean, was this week real? Or did we all just get abducted by aliens and have our memories replaced by a series of B-movies? “The Girl Who Would Be Queen,” followed by “Winds From Hell,” capped off by “Fire Over Abbottabad.”
Time out. I just learned that today is “World Press Freedom Day,” which means that I have the “freedom” to write about whatever comes to mind, right? Well, as I just mentioned, I don’t have any major GLBT news to report, so today’s lack of restrictions are particularly welcome.
Have you seen the McDonald’s commercial with the African American couple sitting at the table over a hamburger? The woman says that some other guy told her friend that “Sundays are just for football.” Then she asks her boyfriend to comment, suggesting by her tone that the sentiment was not one she shared.
During a lengthy pause, the narrator reminds the boyfriend that he’s smart. He can handle the situation! He ordered a value meal, so he knows what he’s doing. Bolstered by the voice over, the guy tells his girlfriend that the football fan is “a jerk,” and his girlfriend smiles in satisfaction.
I profoundly hate this ad. It’s another one on the lengthy list that depicts African American women as tyrannical or semi-tyrannical control freaks.
But worse, since we know by the context that the boyfriend actually likes football, it recommends that smart boyfriends simply lie to their girlfriends and tell them whatever they want to hear.
How long do you think this relationship going to last? Can you see the boyfriend getting a call from his buddy next fall?
“Hey Derrick. Want to come by and watch the game tomorrow? Sheila’s welcome to come too. Candice is making ribs!”
“Um. Let me get back to you. We’re supposed to go to some church thing and then Sheila said something about the art show….”
“What? We’ve got two screens going. Redskins inside and the Saints on the porch TV. C’mon man!”
“Let me call you back.”
Later, after he tells Sheila that he has to drive to Albuquerque because his aunt is sick, Derrick calls back:
“Hey Calvin! I’m on for tomorrow! Sheila can’t make it.”
And this is the smart approach? For God’s sake, tell Sheila right off the bat that most Sundays in the fall should revolve around football and if she doesn’t like it, she should find someone more compatible. How hard is that?
It’s not just Black women, many wives and girlfriends on commercials are cast as the enemy who has to be placated, lied to, manipulated or outwitted by hapless husbands and boyfriends. I know I’ve written about this before, but you never see an abusive husband laying down the law while the sneaky wife goes behind his back, now do you? Yet some of these women are horrible! And the spineless men just take it and everyone laughs. Who writes this stuff?
Now I’m reading on the TV scroll that the fat removed by liposuction reappears in other places on the body. In a separate news line that ran under the MSNBC screen a few minutes earlier, I read that people with belly fat are more likely to have heart problems than people with other fat. Why not have liposuction on your belly? Then you can be healthy, even though you might develop thunder thighs.
--
Gay Stuff (Sigh)
OK. Gay news. I’m really not in the mood for this, but here we go.
In Minnesota, the house has passed an antigay marriage amendment that now goes to the senate.
In Rhode Island, plans for a marriage equality bill have been dropped in the face of opposition, but some lawmakers may push for a civil union bill even though our side has vehemently said that civil unions are not enough in this New England state.
New Yorkers are advocating for a marriage equality bill, even though the legislature is back under GOP control. You know, I have to admit that New York is getting a lot of optimistic gay marriage press these days, and there’s even talk of passing a bill this summer. But personally, I’ve written thousands of words, in breathless prose, about marriage bills being on the verge of passing in New York, in New Jersey, recently in Maryland, only to sum things up in the oft-quoted words of Rosanne Rosannadanna. “Never mind!” This time, I’m watching and waiting.
And in Washington D.C., we seem to have the votes to pass the Respect for Marriage Act through the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill-- I’m calling it REFMA—is the attempt to repeal DOMA, and so far it has not been scheduled for any hearings whatsoever. But we’re ready!
Donald Trump has been trying to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage, which he says just “doesn’t feel right” to him. He likened this sensation to how he feels when he sees golfers using long putters or belly putters. They just look awkward and it rubs him the wrong way.
By the way, which looks better to you? A golfer holing a 30-foot putt with a belly putter? Or a golfer missing a two-footer with a three-foot Ping? Just sayin’.
--
Fait Triste Bouche
Now, I’m officially giving up on gay news and just spent half an hour watching a slideshow of “unexpected table manners around the world.” I learned that Koreans spit the bones of their fish out of their mouths and onto the plate or floor. And Zambians sometimes begin their meal with a small dried mouse, that must be eaten head first. The tail, which is not eaten, can be used as a toothpick.
Still on the same website, I moved on to “The Ten Most Pointless Salad Ingredients,” but my computer froze while I was trying to bring up the story. I don’t like weird unidentified little pellets of something in my salad. I also don’t like giant cubes of toast, or random things that get tossed in for no real reason like crunchy pea things. So you can see why my attention was drawn to this provocative headline.
Eventually, I googled “ten most pointless salad ingredients” and found the list: cucumbers, croutons, iceberg lettuce, onions, cheese, green beans, alfalfa sprouts, chow mein noodles, corn and bacon bits.
Pointless? What’s “pointless” about bacon bits, onions or cucumbers? The list reflects only the author’s taste, and I felt tricked into reading it.
Hey! My word-count is standing at a patriotic 1776, even though it went to 1797 after I wrote this sentence. There was something metaphysical about seeing 1776, and realizing that I couldn’t capture the moment in print without destroying it. Much like the impossible act of determining the location of an electron by hitting it with a photon, that shifts its position in the process.
Because, is it not true that whenever you put an idea into words you alter the essential thought that put the idea in your head to begin with?
--
arostow@aol.com
DOMA Defenders Change Their Minds
News for the Week Ended April 27, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
DOMA Defenders Change Their Minds
Well, I’ve been procrastinating this morning, and in the course of aimless web surfing, I discovered that Judgment Day is going to be May 21 and after six months of judgments the world will end on October 21. So says a California-based Biblical scholar who has figured out the schedule from his reading of Scripture.
In view of this pending apocalypse, I feel a certain complacency about our concerted communal struggle for equality. DOMA? Do we really care under the circumstances whether we’ll be ripped off by estate taxes if our spouse somehow manages to die before the October deadline? Does it matter if gay couples can adopt in Virginia given that we’ll all be shedding the mortal coil before the end of baseball season, babies and parents alike?
On the off chance that the man’s dates are off, I will pretend that the Earth survives for a few more decades and that the news of this week carries some significance.
And here’s the big news, which you’ve probably read about already. On Monday, the law firm of King & Spalding reversed course and decided not to defend DOMA on behalf of House Republicans. Lead counsel Paul Clement resigned from the firm, and took the DOMA contract over to a new firm, Bancroft, a small and conservative DC-based outfit that appears to have only a handful of attorneys available for the task.
King & Spalding’s chairman, Robert Hays, took responsibility for the about face, explaining vaguely that “the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate.” His firm was soon buried in scathing critiques from the legal community, which generally felt that King & Spalding should not have agreed to the contract in the first place if they weren’t going to see it through.
King & Spalding were also accused of caving to political pressure, levied by the Human Rights Campaign and other gay groups. Indeed, HRC had started a campaign against the firm, calling other K&S clients, riling up law students and planning a protest. The firm, which has a good reputation for diversity and promoting respect, may have been caught off guard by the backlash. Rumor had it as well that Coca Cola, a major K&S client, had expressed dismay at the idea of its law firm riding to the defense of the antigay statute.
No one knows exactly what transpired at King & Spalding during the ten days between when the contract was signed and when the firm filed a motion to withdraw from the defense of DOMA in the New York case of Windsor v United States.
But it seems pretty obvious that the decision to work on the antigay side was made by a few people at a high level, and that the announcement caused a stir within the firm. Under the terms of contract, no employee of King & Spalding would have been allowed to speak on behalf of same-sex couples rights for the duration of the litigation, up to two years.
Further, although principles of the legal profession embrace the tenets that cold-blooded murderers deserve a defense and that good lawyers may well fight for unpopular causes, the decision to defend DOMA transcends those ideals. Who wants to be employed by the firm that defends the Board of Education against Brown? Who wants to be Bryan rather than Darrow? The Defense of Marriage Act is probably the most clearly discriminatory law on the books of the United States, and the fight against it is at the core of the gay civil rights movement. This is not just another client.
The Human Rights Campaign would like to take full credit for King & Spalding’s reversal, and I’m sure their nascent campaign had an impact on the decision to bag the case. But basically, it was all of the above. It was everything, and I take Hays at his word that the original decision to take the case was not “properly vetted.” In the end, they got out so fast, basically in a matter of one week, that little damage was done.
Plus, the House still has super-lawyer Paul Clement, and Clement now has another firm’s resources at his disposal. No harm, no foul in my book.
So, will HRC go pester the people at Bancroft? Not likely. While King & Spalding had over 800 lawyers, Bancroft only has a few. Plus, they’re all conservative and presumably knew exactly what they were getting into by taking on DOMA.
Finally, someone has to defend DOMA, just as someone defended the Board of Education and just as William Jennings Bryan stood up for Adam and Eve and the State of Tennessee. We can’t defeat the law in court without an adversary. I’m guessing as well that a conservative legal group will not hesitate to present the antigay case for DOMA, so we may be in for some stark contrasts between the briefs.
--
This Bud’s For Us
In other legal news, I should write a long section on the latest development in the Prop 8 case, where the bad guys have asked the Ninth Circuit to toss out the entire case on the basis of Judge Vaughn Walker’s sexual orientation. Judge Walker, who remained in the glass closet during the Prop 8 trial, has since retired and made public statements confirming that he is gay and has a partner of ten years. According to the Prop 8 people, this means he had a personal stake in the trial, and that the outcome was biased.
But this absurd motion is going nowhere, so it’s not worth the ink. If you follow that rationale, women can’t rule on abortion cases and Blacks can’t rule on affirmative action, etc. etc.. Indeed, even heterosexual judges could be accused of bias by our side, since they have a personal stake in maintaining their preferential marital rights.
By the way, I just saw a Budweiser commercial online that may or may not be directed at the gay community, according to reports.
May or may not? There is nothing ambiguous about this ad, which is pretty damn gay and even ends with the tag “Proudly serving those who serve” or something like that. Well, it uses the word “proudly” anyway.
The ad shows a soldier talking to his male friend (split screen) and telling him “I’m coming home.”
We then see scenes of the soldier on a plane and in a bus, mixed in with scenes of the friend cleaning out the barn, buying a lot of bud, and setting up a big welcome home party. Mom and Dad are involved, which could indicate that the other man is a brother. But not really. The ad ends with the two men in an extended embrace. And as I said, there’s the giveaway tagline. Plus, it’s almost pride season!
--
Was Obama’s Left Foot Amputated? Have You Ever Seen It?
I’m watching MSNBC with the sound off this afternoon, and I can report that up to 80 percent of today’s coverage has concerned Obama’s long form birth certificate, which he presented to the media this morning with an air of disgust. Obama made clear that he dug out the paper in order to move the media onto another topic. So far, the plan has failed, since the gesture has only served to make the birth certificate Topic Number One all day long. That said, maybe it will slowly go away.
But really. Did we actually need to see this document in order to be convinced that Obama was born in Hawaii, the state where his parents met and lived and studied and got married? And more to the point, why should this certificate have the slightest meaning to people who seem to think that the Obamas traveled to Africa in order for Mrs. Obama to give birth, and then went back to Hawaii to continue their studies?
I’m assuming that’s how they think he managed to be born in Kenya. But for all I know these people may think the whole family lived in Kenya to begin with. Because his father was Kenyan! At any rate, when you have no contact with reality and no need for facts, why should the actual birth certificate make a dent in your delusions?
Now I’m hearing that Trump doesn’t necessarily believe the President got into Columbia or Harvard, because he “heard” that Obama had bad grades. So are we to assume Harvard is in on the scam and the whole bit about being head of the Law Review and graduating magna cum laude is another fabrication? And someone ghost wrote all those books?
What’s next, I wonder? Do we really know that Barack and Michelle are married? Have we seen a license? Wedding pictures? Are the girls really his kids? Why won’t he take a simple DNA test so we can know for sure and put the issue to rest? Oh, and where was Michelle born anyway? Maybe in Africa as well! She looks African.
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Tennessee House Passes Useless Antigay Bill
There’s a really nasty bill making progress in the Tennessee legislature, two of them actually. The one I really loathe would ban local entities from passing laws that protect against GLBT bias, and indeed would revoke any such laws that are currently in effect. Nashville just expanded its laws to mandate that city contracts be reserved for those with GLBT protections in place, so that would be gone.
If this sounds suspiciously unconstitutional it’s because it was this kind of charter amendment that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Romer v Evans back in 1996. I am assuming that the Tennessee lawmakers have found a way to preempt gay rights laws without running afoul of Romer, but maybe not. Maybe they’re just thumbing their noses at the whole crazy theory that gays and transpeople should have a role in the political process.
The other Volunteer State bill would ban the discussion of gay sexual orientation in elementary or middle school, where to my knowledge, we don’t have sexual discussions in the classroom to begin with. The law, however, puts a taboo sign on any reference to gay people whatsoever, even for middle school kids up to 12 or 13 years old.
Although the bill’s author says the measure is “neutral,” it’s not much different from a bill that mandates teaching that being gay is bad and being straight is good. Because that’s exactly what it does.
Oh, we’ve also got a new anti-marriage amendment up for debate in Minnesota. And the Rhode Island legislature will not be passing marriage equality, because too many GOP lawmakers stand in the way.
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Grotesque Attack Kills Gay Man’s Horses
I just have a general sense of bad news around the country this week. I can hardly bear to tell you about the arsonist who set a barn on fire in rural Ohio, killing eight beloved horses including a pregnant mare and a one-week old colt. The barn’s ruins were defaced by anti-gay slurs directed at the man who owed the farm, who was devastated. The man had rushed out and tried to save his horses, but the fire—which melted a tractor—was too hot. He could hear them trying to escape, but could do nothing.
Isn’t that excruciatingly sad?
I’m sorry to spring it on you like that. It makes you wonder why the far right continues, not just to oppose gay rights, but to encourage bigotry. Those bills in Tennessee, for example. Who cares if Nashville holds its contractors to high standards of fair play? Tennessee already has strict rules about what can be said in a classroom, so why go further and erect a wall of silent disapproval around the word “gay” and the human beings that word represents?
And why, in a country where thriving gay families can be found in every state and in every town, why go out of your way to make sure those families are seen as inferior?
This arsonist was a madman. But his hatred isn’t so rare. I read quite a few conservative blog entries this week about the King & Spalding story, and I read several hundred comments that followed and after a while the venom leaches off the screen and makes me feel a little sick. Then I read about this horse murderer and as is the case with any good hate crime, I feel a bit as if those were my horses, or maybe my dogs, because I’m just as gay as that guy in Ohio and there are people out there, sane or not, who hate me just as much.
Wonder how that guy will be judged on May 21.
--
arostow@aol.com
BY ANN ROSTOW
DOMA Defenders Change Their Minds
Well, I’ve been procrastinating this morning, and in the course of aimless web surfing, I discovered that Judgment Day is going to be May 21 and after six months of judgments the world will end on October 21. So says a California-based Biblical scholar who has figured out the schedule from his reading of Scripture.
In view of this pending apocalypse, I feel a certain complacency about our concerted communal struggle for equality. DOMA? Do we really care under the circumstances whether we’ll be ripped off by estate taxes if our spouse somehow manages to die before the October deadline? Does it matter if gay couples can adopt in Virginia given that we’ll all be shedding the mortal coil before the end of baseball season, babies and parents alike?
On the off chance that the man’s dates are off, I will pretend that the Earth survives for a few more decades and that the news of this week carries some significance.
And here’s the big news, which you’ve probably read about already. On Monday, the law firm of King & Spalding reversed course and decided not to defend DOMA on behalf of House Republicans. Lead counsel Paul Clement resigned from the firm, and took the DOMA contract over to a new firm, Bancroft, a small and conservative DC-based outfit that appears to have only a handful of attorneys available for the task.
King & Spalding’s chairman, Robert Hays, took responsibility for the about face, explaining vaguely that “the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate.” His firm was soon buried in scathing critiques from the legal community, which generally felt that King & Spalding should not have agreed to the contract in the first place if they weren’t going to see it through.
King & Spalding were also accused of caving to political pressure, levied by the Human Rights Campaign and other gay groups. Indeed, HRC had started a campaign against the firm, calling other K&S clients, riling up law students and planning a protest. The firm, which has a good reputation for diversity and promoting respect, may have been caught off guard by the backlash. Rumor had it as well that Coca Cola, a major K&S client, had expressed dismay at the idea of its law firm riding to the defense of the antigay statute.
No one knows exactly what transpired at King & Spalding during the ten days between when the contract was signed and when the firm filed a motion to withdraw from the defense of DOMA in the New York case of Windsor v United States.
But it seems pretty obvious that the decision to work on the antigay side was made by a few people at a high level, and that the announcement caused a stir within the firm. Under the terms of contract, no employee of King & Spalding would have been allowed to speak on behalf of same-sex couples rights for the duration of the litigation, up to two years.
Further, although principles of the legal profession embrace the tenets that cold-blooded murderers deserve a defense and that good lawyers may well fight for unpopular causes, the decision to defend DOMA transcends those ideals. Who wants to be employed by the firm that defends the Board of Education against Brown? Who wants to be Bryan rather than Darrow? The Defense of Marriage Act is probably the most clearly discriminatory law on the books of the United States, and the fight against it is at the core of the gay civil rights movement. This is not just another client.
The Human Rights Campaign would like to take full credit for King & Spalding’s reversal, and I’m sure their nascent campaign had an impact on the decision to bag the case. But basically, it was all of the above. It was everything, and I take Hays at his word that the original decision to take the case was not “properly vetted.” In the end, they got out so fast, basically in a matter of one week, that little damage was done.
Plus, the House still has super-lawyer Paul Clement, and Clement now has another firm’s resources at his disposal. No harm, no foul in my book.
So, will HRC go pester the people at Bancroft? Not likely. While King & Spalding had over 800 lawyers, Bancroft only has a few. Plus, they’re all conservative and presumably knew exactly what they were getting into by taking on DOMA.
Finally, someone has to defend DOMA, just as someone defended the Board of Education and just as William Jennings Bryan stood up for Adam and Eve and the State of Tennessee. We can’t defeat the law in court without an adversary. I’m guessing as well that a conservative legal group will not hesitate to present the antigay case for DOMA, so we may be in for some stark contrasts between the briefs.
--
This Bud’s For Us
In other legal news, I should write a long section on the latest development in the Prop 8 case, where the bad guys have asked the Ninth Circuit to toss out the entire case on the basis of Judge Vaughn Walker’s sexual orientation. Judge Walker, who remained in the glass closet during the Prop 8 trial, has since retired and made public statements confirming that he is gay and has a partner of ten years. According to the Prop 8 people, this means he had a personal stake in the trial, and that the outcome was biased.
But this absurd motion is going nowhere, so it’s not worth the ink. If you follow that rationale, women can’t rule on abortion cases and Blacks can’t rule on affirmative action, etc. etc.. Indeed, even heterosexual judges could be accused of bias by our side, since they have a personal stake in maintaining their preferential marital rights.
By the way, I just saw a Budweiser commercial online that may or may not be directed at the gay community, according to reports.
May or may not? There is nothing ambiguous about this ad, which is pretty damn gay and even ends with the tag “Proudly serving those who serve” or something like that. Well, it uses the word “proudly” anyway.
The ad shows a soldier talking to his male friend (split screen) and telling him “I’m coming home.”
We then see scenes of the soldier on a plane and in a bus, mixed in with scenes of the friend cleaning out the barn, buying a lot of bud, and setting up a big welcome home party. Mom and Dad are involved, which could indicate that the other man is a brother. But not really. The ad ends with the two men in an extended embrace. And as I said, there’s the giveaway tagline. Plus, it’s almost pride season!
--
Was Obama’s Left Foot Amputated? Have You Ever Seen It?
I’m watching MSNBC with the sound off this afternoon, and I can report that up to 80 percent of today’s coverage has concerned Obama’s long form birth certificate, which he presented to the media this morning with an air of disgust. Obama made clear that he dug out the paper in order to move the media onto another topic. So far, the plan has failed, since the gesture has only served to make the birth certificate Topic Number One all day long. That said, maybe it will slowly go away.
But really. Did we actually need to see this document in order to be convinced that Obama was born in Hawaii, the state where his parents met and lived and studied and got married? And more to the point, why should this certificate have the slightest meaning to people who seem to think that the Obamas traveled to Africa in order for Mrs. Obama to give birth, and then went back to Hawaii to continue their studies?
I’m assuming that’s how they think he managed to be born in Kenya. But for all I know these people may think the whole family lived in Kenya to begin with. Because his father was Kenyan! At any rate, when you have no contact with reality and no need for facts, why should the actual birth certificate make a dent in your delusions?
Now I’m hearing that Trump doesn’t necessarily believe the President got into Columbia or Harvard, because he “heard” that Obama had bad grades. So are we to assume Harvard is in on the scam and the whole bit about being head of the Law Review and graduating magna cum laude is another fabrication? And someone ghost wrote all those books?
What’s next, I wonder? Do we really know that Barack and Michelle are married? Have we seen a license? Wedding pictures? Are the girls really his kids? Why won’t he take a simple DNA test so we can know for sure and put the issue to rest? Oh, and where was Michelle born anyway? Maybe in Africa as well! She looks African.
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Tennessee House Passes Useless Antigay Bill
There’s a really nasty bill making progress in the Tennessee legislature, two of them actually. The one I really loathe would ban local entities from passing laws that protect against GLBT bias, and indeed would revoke any such laws that are currently in effect. Nashville just expanded its laws to mandate that city contracts be reserved for those with GLBT protections in place, so that would be gone.
If this sounds suspiciously unconstitutional it’s because it was this kind of charter amendment that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Romer v Evans back in 1996. I am assuming that the Tennessee lawmakers have found a way to preempt gay rights laws without running afoul of Romer, but maybe not. Maybe they’re just thumbing their noses at the whole crazy theory that gays and transpeople should have a role in the political process.
The other Volunteer State bill would ban the discussion of gay sexual orientation in elementary or middle school, where to my knowledge, we don’t have sexual discussions in the classroom to begin with. The law, however, puts a taboo sign on any reference to gay people whatsoever, even for middle school kids up to 12 or 13 years old.
Although the bill’s author says the measure is “neutral,” it’s not much different from a bill that mandates teaching that being gay is bad and being straight is good. Because that’s exactly what it does.
Oh, we’ve also got a new anti-marriage amendment up for debate in Minnesota. And the Rhode Island legislature will not be passing marriage equality, because too many GOP lawmakers stand in the way.
--
Grotesque Attack Kills Gay Man’s Horses
I just have a general sense of bad news around the country this week. I can hardly bear to tell you about the arsonist who set a barn on fire in rural Ohio, killing eight beloved horses including a pregnant mare and a one-week old colt. The barn’s ruins were defaced by anti-gay slurs directed at the man who owed the farm, who was devastated. The man had rushed out and tried to save his horses, but the fire—which melted a tractor—was too hot. He could hear them trying to escape, but could do nothing.
Isn’t that excruciatingly sad?
I’m sorry to spring it on you like that. It makes you wonder why the far right continues, not just to oppose gay rights, but to encourage bigotry. Those bills in Tennessee, for example. Who cares if Nashville holds its contractors to high standards of fair play? Tennessee already has strict rules about what can be said in a classroom, so why go further and erect a wall of silent disapproval around the word “gay” and the human beings that word represents?
And why, in a country where thriving gay families can be found in every state and in every town, why go out of your way to make sure those families are seen as inferior?
This arsonist was a madman. But his hatred isn’t so rare. I read quite a few conservative blog entries this week about the King & Spalding story, and I read several hundred comments that followed and after a while the venom leaches off the screen and makes me feel a little sick. Then I read about this horse murderer and as is the case with any good hate crime, I feel a bit as if those were my horses, or maybe my dogs, because I’m just as gay as that guy in Ohio and there are people out there, sane or not, who hate me just as much.
Wonder how that guy will be judged on May 21.
--
arostow@aol.com
Friday, April 22, 2011
House Picks Paul Clement to Champion DOMA
News for the Week Ended April 20, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
House Picks Paul Clement to Champion DOMA
We finally got some actual answers to the critical questions surrounding the federal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. You know, of course, that the President and the Justice Department decided to stop defending the insidious ban on federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Thank you again, President and Justice Department. We profoundly appreciate your decision, particularly since we are in the middle of six, or maybe even twelve federal “Gay People v. United States” type court cases.
With the United States vacating the defendants’ chair, the House of Representatives picked up the sword to defend DOMA, but for two months we’ve received no details. Who is acting on behalf of the House? Which lawsuits will they litigate? Will they intervene as actual defendants, or simply write briefs as friends of the court? And finally, how will they argue? Will they rely on antigay stereotypes, or will they try to thread legal needles and defend the statute without ripping our community to shreds?
Here’s what we learned on Monday. The House “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Commission” (BLAG) has hired the international corporate law firm King & Spalding, and has signed a contract to pay the firm’s lawyers an average of $520 an hour up to a maximum of $500,000 through April of 2013 if necessary. The contract covers work on any and all DOMA litigation, but does not specify exactly which cases will be defended. Also, the half million dollar cap can be lifted if more money is needed. Considering the work ahead, we’ll be hitting the DOMA debt ceiling in no time.
Leading the charge will be GW Bush’s former Solicitor General, Paul Clement, who will presumably handle any oral arguments. On Monday, Clement and company filed a motion in a New York federal court, asking permission to intervene in the ACLU’s case on behalf of lesbian widow, Edith Windsor, who is forced by DOMA to pay estate taxes on her own property.
In an entertaining sideshow, gay allies in Congress and elsewhere are now making hay about the cost of the DOMA defense, which to be honest, is nothing. Even if the final figure triples and triples again, this is not a significant “taxpayer expense.” Nonetheless, Speaker Boehner is trying to get the Justice Department to pay the bill, reasoning that since they were the ones who would usually defend a federal law in court, they must have saved some money by abandoning the fight. Attorney General Eric Holder, in turn, said the salaried lawyers under his roof have plenty of work and have not set aside special DOMA funds.
So here’s what we don’t know, going forward.
We don’t know what Paul Clement is going to do about the other DOMA cases.
In addition to the Windsor case, there are two cases now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; The Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) case on behalf of same-sex couples married in Massachusetts, and the State of Massachusetts’ states rights case against the United States.
Then there’s another GLAD case in lower federal court in Connecticut, filed on behalf of same-sex couples from New England, but not from Massachusetts.
Then there’s the case of California-based federal lawyer Karen Golinski, asking for spousal benefits in a federal court in San Francisco.
Over the bay in Oakland, married gay federal workers are seeking long-term care benefits in another federal DOMA case. That’s six off the top of my head, and I’ve read articles that say up to twelve cases are pending in federal court. I plan to research these other cases later. Note that the Prop 8 case does not involve the U.S. government, since it was filed against the state of California. And another federal gay couples case, now in the Ninth Circuit, pits Arizona state workers against the Dry Heat State.
Anyway, there are a lot of cases out there in various stages. All of them involve different facts and to some extent, different legal issues. Paul Clement isn’t going to be able to send boilerplate briefs all over the country although there should be some overlap. But for example, the states rights case in the First Circuit would seem to require a unique set of arguments. This is a ton of work.
Nor will Clement be able to defend DOMA in just one or maybe two cases. If the mission is to defend DOMA, you have to defend it everywhere, in every case, in every federal court. Our side has a whole array of legal groups and partner firms, working more or less in concert across the country. Their side has Paul Clement and his colleagues.
Finally, we don’t yet know which arguments Clement will use to attack our marriages. In his motion to intervene in the Windsor case, he did not include any kind of actual legal pleading on the merits. Such pleadings are usually included in a motion to intervene, but they’re not required.
Since Clement represents the House Republicans, it will be difficult (I think) for him to fall back on antigay strategies. If he condemns gay parents or suggests that gay men and women are unfit to form families, the outrage will be intense, not just from us, but from our allies.
We do know that Clement will have to argue that sexual orientation should not be considered a suspect class worthy of constitutional protection on the level of, say, race or religion. He can make this argument in an innocuous way, by pointing out that no federal court has hitherto awarded such status to gays or lesbians. But that’s not a powerful rationale. In addition, he will probably have to insist that sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice and that gays have a great deal of political power and don’t need protection.
It was exactly this conundrum that led Obama and Holder to drop their defense of DOMA last February, so it will be interesting to see how Clement handles the hot potato.
Basically, there’s no way to make the legal case for DOMA without descending into antigay muck. Unlike a legislative fight filled with vague talk of mom and dad and religious scripture, a legal case involves specific individuals and (in theory) logical reasoning.
For example, in the Windsor case (where the judge ordered Congress to intervene by a specific date) House Republicans will not just be spouting off about “traditional marriage,” they’ll be insisting that an elderly New York woman who lived with her partner for 40 years and married her wife in Canada should be treated as a legal stranger to her own estate, forced to pay over $300,000 in taxes that would never be levied on a heterosexual widow.
Makes you wonder, have they thought this through?
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Half The Toothpaste Is Out Of The Tube
I usually don’t cover polls, because poll headlines, like “51 percent of Americans Support Same-Sex Marriage” are meaningless unless you know the exact question asked, the number of respondents, and the way the poll was conducted. Ask a hundred people at the pride parade and you’ll get one answer. Call a thousand land lines and you’ll get another.
But when poll analyst extraordinaire Nate Silver writes an assessment of the latest marriage surveys, that’s news.
Silver, who crunches numbers on a wide range of social and political matters, reports that the ongoing increase in support for same-sex marriage has risen from about one to two points a year, to four points a year in each of the last two years. Four credible polls in the last eight months show a slim majority now in favor of same-sex marriage, a slim minority opposed, and only a small percentage undecided. The trend lines of marriage polling over the last two decades show a steady and solid improvement that seems to lead inexorably to a popular consensus in favor of marriage equality.
This is great, of course. But one thing polls don’t show is the intensity of the response. And this is why marriage remains a political third rail even as we add to our support. The fact is that the hard line conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage hate us with such a passion that they can overwhelm the people who sort of like us but don’t really care. We have passion on our side too. But we’re five percent of the population, and the violently antigay crowd is maybe 20 or 25 percent. I’m not sure.
Until our allies pump up the volume and more people on their side decide it’s not worth the fuss, we’ll still have trouble getting a Presidential nominee to come out in favor of marriage equality. To me, by the way, that will be the signal that the popular sentiment has really shifted--- when the Democratic party nominee comes in favor of equality, period. Not civil unions and not “the rights of marriage” blah blah blah. But marriage equality
That day may or may not have arrived. But the erosion of opposition to same-sex marriage is still significant. It’s pretty clear that Republicans don’t want to be associated with the subject, or with the toxic cloud that now surrounds the defenders of tradition.
It was fine to be against marriage equality when a 70 percent majority stood by your side and when most of those people were just regular folks who thought this is the way it’s always been.
But now, the people who ardently fight against marriage equality are no longer the regular folks. They’re the crazy gay bashers and they’re out there all by themselves, screaming into the wind about sickness and Jesus. So, um, no wonder the GOP is trying to keep a low profile and no wonder the defense of DOMA promises to be a circus.
The other noteworthy aspect of the poll story is the ongoing collapse of the middle ground as people realize that either they have to be for equality or against it. The idea that civil unions could ever be a permanent compromise is less and less credible. And although some embrace it as a stepping stone or an incremental move towards progress, it doesn’t seem as if many fence sitters now see it as a long term institution.
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I Object!
Well, I see I’ve managed to ramble on about marriage and polls and such for nearly the entire column. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! However, in view of this extended coverage, I will skip the story about whether or not the Ninth Circuit will release the court tapes from the Prop 8 trial. Okay with you? Good.
I was also going to write about the gatekeepers at YouTube and Facebook, who both removed gay content because, I suppose, someone had clicked on the button that indicates they found it offensive.
YouTube deleted an excellent, compelling video, posted by GLBT Apple employees as part of the “It Gets Better” project. The video urged teens to tough it out, and remember that they’re not alone. After a few hours, the site put the video back up and apologized.
Likewise, Facebook removed a photo of two men kissing, for reasons unclear. The photo was reposted, also with an apology, but not before quite a few people had posted their own gay kissing shots to make a point.
Clearly, the censors at YouTube and Facebook have a lot on their plates, and rightly so. We don’t want animal snuff films or racist tirades befouling our cyberspace. But still! I imagine that most of the things flagged down by puritanical or homophobic users fall into the category of objectionable objections. How did these images fall through the cracks and get deleted by an actual employee?
Finally, there’s a lot of news out of the states, but it looks like we’re out of space! (Cue: loud noise of moaning crowd.) Delaware sent a civil union bill to the governor. Yay! Arizona and Virginia are attacking gay adoptive parents. Hiss. Hawaii passed a trans workplace bill. Yay! And there’s much talk about a push for marriage equality in New York this summer. I’m not sure how Governor Cuomo plans to strong arm the GOP leaders in the legislature, but I wish everyone luck.
BY ANN ROSTOW
House Picks Paul Clement to Champion DOMA
We finally got some actual answers to the critical questions surrounding the federal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. You know, of course, that the President and the Justice Department decided to stop defending the insidious ban on federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Thank you again, President and Justice Department. We profoundly appreciate your decision, particularly since we are in the middle of six, or maybe even twelve federal “Gay People v. United States” type court cases.
With the United States vacating the defendants’ chair, the House of Representatives picked up the sword to defend DOMA, but for two months we’ve received no details. Who is acting on behalf of the House? Which lawsuits will they litigate? Will they intervene as actual defendants, or simply write briefs as friends of the court? And finally, how will they argue? Will they rely on antigay stereotypes, or will they try to thread legal needles and defend the statute without ripping our community to shreds?
Here’s what we learned on Monday. The House “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Commission” (BLAG) has hired the international corporate law firm King & Spalding, and has signed a contract to pay the firm’s lawyers an average of $520 an hour up to a maximum of $500,000 through April of 2013 if necessary. The contract covers work on any and all DOMA litigation, but does not specify exactly which cases will be defended. Also, the half million dollar cap can be lifted if more money is needed. Considering the work ahead, we’ll be hitting the DOMA debt ceiling in no time.
Leading the charge will be GW Bush’s former Solicitor General, Paul Clement, who will presumably handle any oral arguments. On Monday, Clement and company filed a motion in a New York federal court, asking permission to intervene in the ACLU’s case on behalf of lesbian widow, Edith Windsor, who is forced by DOMA to pay estate taxes on her own property.
In an entertaining sideshow, gay allies in Congress and elsewhere are now making hay about the cost of the DOMA defense, which to be honest, is nothing. Even if the final figure triples and triples again, this is not a significant “taxpayer expense.” Nonetheless, Speaker Boehner is trying to get the Justice Department to pay the bill, reasoning that since they were the ones who would usually defend a federal law in court, they must have saved some money by abandoning the fight. Attorney General Eric Holder, in turn, said the salaried lawyers under his roof have plenty of work and have not set aside special DOMA funds.
So here’s what we don’t know, going forward.
We don’t know what Paul Clement is going to do about the other DOMA cases.
In addition to the Windsor case, there are two cases now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; The Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) case on behalf of same-sex couples married in Massachusetts, and the State of Massachusetts’ states rights case against the United States.
Then there’s another GLAD case in lower federal court in Connecticut, filed on behalf of same-sex couples from New England, but not from Massachusetts.
Then there’s the case of California-based federal lawyer Karen Golinski, asking for spousal benefits in a federal court in San Francisco.
Over the bay in Oakland, married gay federal workers are seeking long-term care benefits in another federal DOMA case. That’s six off the top of my head, and I’ve read articles that say up to twelve cases are pending in federal court. I plan to research these other cases later. Note that the Prop 8 case does not involve the U.S. government, since it was filed against the state of California. And another federal gay couples case, now in the Ninth Circuit, pits Arizona state workers against the Dry Heat State.
Anyway, there are a lot of cases out there in various stages. All of them involve different facts and to some extent, different legal issues. Paul Clement isn’t going to be able to send boilerplate briefs all over the country although there should be some overlap. But for example, the states rights case in the First Circuit would seem to require a unique set of arguments. This is a ton of work.
Nor will Clement be able to defend DOMA in just one or maybe two cases. If the mission is to defend DOMA, you have to defend it everywhere, in every case, in every federal court. Our side has a whole array of legal groups and partner firms, working more or less in concert across the country. Their side has Paul Clement and his colleagues.
Finally, we don’t yet know which arguments Clement will use to attack our marriages. In his motion to intervene in the Windsor case, he did not include any kind of actual legal pleading on the merits. Such pleadings are usually included in a motion to intervene, but they’re not required.
Since Clement represents the House Republicans, it will be difficult (I think) for him to fall back on antigay strategies. If he condemns gay parents or suggests that gay men and women are unfit to form families, the outrage will be intense, not just from us, but from our allies.
We do know that Clement will have to argue that sexual orientation should not be considered a suspect class worthy of constitutional protection on the level of, say, race or religion. He can make this argument in an innocuous way, by pointing out that no federal court has hitherto awarded such status to gays or lesbians. But that’s not a powerful rationale. In addition, he will probably have to insist that sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice and that gays have a great deal of political power and don’t need protection.
It was exactly this conundrum that led Obama and Holder to drop their defense of DOMA last February, so it will be interesting to see how Clement handles the hot potato.
Basically, there’s no way to make the legal case for DOMA without descending into antigay muck. Unlike a legislative fight filled with vague talk of mom and dad and religious scripture, a legal case involves specific individuals and (in theory) logical reasoning.
For example, in the Windsor case (where the judge ordered Congress to intervene by a specific date) House Republicans will not just be spouting off about “traditional marriage,” they’ll be insisting that an elderly New York woman who lived with her partner for 40 years and married her wife in Canada should be treated as a legal stranger to her own estate, forced to pay over $300,000 in taxes that would never be levied on a heterosexual widow.
Makes you wonder, have they thought this through?
--
Half The Toothpaste Is Out Of The Tube
I usually don’t cover polls, because poll headlines, like “51 percent of Americans Support Same-Sex Marriage” are meaningless unless you know the exact question asked, the number of respondents, and the way the poll was conducted. Ask a hundred people at the pride parade and you’ll get one answer. Call a thousand land lines and you’ll get another.
But when poll analyst extraordinaire Nate Silver writes an assessment of the latest marriage surveys, that’s news.
Silver, who crunches numbers on a wide range of social and political matters, reports that the ongoing increase in support for same-sex marriage has risen from about one to two points a year, to four points a year in each of the last two years. Four credible polls in the last eight months show a slim majority now in favor of same-sex marriage, a slim minority opposed, and only a small percentage undecided. The trend lines of marriage polling over the last two decades show a steady and solid improvement that seems to lead inexorably to a popular consensus in favor of marriage equality.
This is great, of course. But one thing polls don’t show is the intensity of the response. And this is why marriage remains a political third rail even as we add to our support. The fact is that the hard line conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage hate us with such a passion that they can overwhelm the people who sort of like us but don’t really care. We have passion on our side too. But we’re five percent of the population, and the violently antigay crowd is maybe 20 or 25 percent. I’m not sure.
Until our allies pump up the volume and more people on their side decide it’s not worth the fuss, we’ll still have trouble getting a Presidential nominee to come out in favor of marriage equality. To me, by the way, that will be the signal that the popular sentiment has really shifted--- when the Democratic party nominee comes in favor of equality, period. Not civil unions and not “the rights of marriage” blah blah blah. But marriage equality
That day may or may not have arrived. But the erosion of opposition to same-sex marriage is still significant. It’s pretty clear that Republicans don’t want to be associated with the subject, or with the toxic cloud that now surrounds the defenders of tradition.
It was fine to be against marriage equality when a 70 percent majority stood by your side and when most of those people were just regular folks who thought this is the way it’s always been.
But now, the people who ardently fight against marriage equality are no longer the regular folks. They’re the crazy gay bashers and they’re out there all by themselves, screaming into the wind about sickness and Jesus. So, um, no wonder the GOP is trying to keep a low profile and no wonder the defense of DOMA promises to be a circus.
The other noteworthy aspect of the poll story is the ongoing collapse of the middle ground as people realize that either they have to be for equality or against it. The idea that civil unions could ever be a permanent compromise is less and less credible. And although some embrace it as a stepping stone or an incremental move towards progress, it doesn’t seem as if many fence sitters now see it as a long term institution.
--
I Object!
Well, I see I’ve managed to ramble on about marriage and polls and such for nearly the entire column. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! However, in view of this extended coverage, I will skip the story about whether or not the Ninth Circuit will release the court tapes from the Prop 8 trial. Okay with you? Good.
I was also going to write about the gatekeepers at YouTube and Facebook, who both removed gay content because, I suppose, someone had clicked on the button that indicates they found it offensive.
YouTube deleted an excellent, compelling video, posted by GLBT Apple employees as part of the “It Gets Better” project. The video urged teens to tough it out, and remember that they’re not alone. After a few hours, the site put the video back up and apologized.
Likewise, Facebook removed a photo of two men kissing, for reasons unclear. The photo was reposted, also with an apology, but not before quite a few people had posted their own gay kissing shots to make a point.
Clearly, the censors at YouTube and Facebook have a lot on their plates, and rightly so. We don’t want animal snuff films or racist tirades befouling our cyberspace. But still! I imagine that most of the things flagged down by puritanical or homophobic users fall into the category of objectionable objections. How did these images fall through the cracks and get deleted by an actual employee?
Finally, there’s a lot of news out of the states, but it looks like we’re out of space! (Cue: loud noise of moaning crowd.) Delaware sent a civil union bill to the governor. Yay! Arizona and Virginia are attacking gay adoptive parents. Hiss. Hawaii passed a trans workplace bill. Yay! And there’s much talk about a push for marriage equality in New York this summer. I’m not sure how Governor Cuomo plans to strong arm the GOP leaders in the legislature, but I wish everyone luck.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Full Fifth Circuit Says Louisiana Can Ignore Gay Fathers
News for the Week Ended April 13, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Full Fifth Circuit Says Louisiana Can Ignore Gay Fathers
My jaw is on the floor after reading one of the most egregiously antigay federal appellate opinions of the last decade.
That’s significant because these last ten years have seen a steady, and rapid, improvement in judicial consideration of gay rights cases, mainly due to a realization that gay litigants are regular human beings like everyone else---and also due to the layers of pro-gay precedent laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal tribunals.
Now comes the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a conservative court according to conventional wisdom, but still! In an 11-5 decision released Tuesday, the court basically ignored the text and spirit of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, ruling that the Louisiana state registrar had every right to withhold a corrected birth certificate from the adopted son of two gay men from out of state.
Oh, there was no direct antigay language in the opinion. Instead, the majority tied itself in knots trying to insist that the refusal to issue a birth certificate did not in any way indicate that the state of Louisiana was refusing to give full faith and credit to the out of state adoption.
Of course Louisiana “recognized” the adoption! It’s just that the registrar didn’t want to put both fathers’ names on this little certificate thingy because Louisiana prefers adoptions by married families or singles. But, hey! It’s not as if the registrar undid the adoption. In fact, the registrar even offered to put one of the father’s names on the birth certificate! Heads or tails?
Tell that to the father who’s name would not appear on his son’s birth certificate. Tell that to the bureaucrats and passport officers and school authorities and everyone else who will be relying on this paperwork over the next 80 years or so, assuming the five-year-old has a long life.
As for the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Article IV of the Constitution which requires that states respect the public acts, records and judgments of sister states, the court ruled that individuals can’t sue state actors in federal court under the Clause. Their only option is to sue in state court for the withheld recognition, and then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose.
That’s simply not the case! And no amount of citations to pre-war (and even 19th century) precedent will make it true. To be clear, Louisiana law requires the state to issue a revised birth certificate, listing the names of the legal parents of a child born in the state and later adopted. There’s no gay exception. There’s no public policy exception. It is mandatory.
Now what? Lambda Legal Defense is presumably considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If they appeal, I bet the High Court would accept the case.
First, because the Fifth Circuit decision is in direct opposition to an Oklahoma case, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit struck the Sooner law against issuing revised certificates to the adopted progeny of gay parents. As you know, the High Court exists in part to resolve disputes among the federal appellate courts.
Second, because at least four members of the Supreme Court will probably want to clarify the jurisdictional scope of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
But meanwhile, this case is amazing. And it serves as a depressing reminder --- to me at least – that for all our progress, we still have a long way to go.
You’ll be pleased to know that I skipped an entire discussion about the Equal Protection claim that was also rejected by the court, even though the issue was set aside by both the trial court and the three-judge panel. Normally, a reviewing court does not meddle in claims that have not been addressed by the lower courts, but hey. This is Louisiana, and this is the Fifth Circuit (which also governs my home state of Texas).
Anyway, keep on eye on this case, because it may be the next major gay rights claim to hit the High Court.
--
Pause For the President
I’m about to turn on the TV and watch Obama wrestle with the deficit, which has somehow emerged as the Number One Priority of the United States, even as the economy struggles to recover, joblessness remains above 9 percent and three wars continue in various stages.
Fine! Cut the deficit. But stop with the crazy talk about how America is broke. We’re not.
And stop with the inane analogy to the average family cutting costs around the kitchen table. The average family lives with long-term debt, mortgages and loans of all sorts. They don’t plan to pay off the house in ten years. And the average family doesn’t take a voluntary pay cut, which America has done thanks to the Bush tax cuts. And no, America’s millionaires are not “creating jobs” with their tax savings. They’re setting up trust funds for their kids. And finally, when the average family does sit down at the kitchen table, they cut restaurant dinners, not the kids’ textbooks or annual medical checkups.
I’m back.
That was a remarkable speech. I almost cried. That’s all I’ll say, since I hear the siren song of GLBT news calling me back.
--
Congress For Dummies
You may recall that the House Armed Services Committee recently held two hearings on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a subject that frankly, has started to exhaust me.
So I saw an audio link to some Q and A from a Republican House member Austin Scott of Georgia to Vice Admiral William Gortney and I reluctantly clicked.
Apparently, Congressman Scott was under the impression that gay men and women were usually discharged for violating the military code, in other words for having illicit sexcapades. Admiral Gortney patiently explained that no, gay servicemembers rarely violate the code. They are simply discharged for being gay. Scott seemed perplexed and confused by this new information.
Can you believe that? A member of the House Armed Services Committee, conducting a hearing on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, with not the slightest clue about how the law operates or how it’s been enforced?
By the way, those hearings did nothing to stall the schedule for repealing the military ban, since all the military mucky mucks said the training for repeal was going fine and there were no anticipated problems.
And while we’re on the subject of Congress, there’s a hearing on the legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act set for Friday in the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on the Constitution. Presumably, this conclave will examine exactly how and when Congress will attempt to intervene in some or all of the DOMA challenges now advancing in the federal courts.
So far, they seem to have done next to nothing, which is fine by me. With the Justice Department backing away from the marriage cases, Congress is theoretically supposed to fill the breach in two cases now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, as well as a case in federal court in New York and another in Connecticut. There’s also a federal DOMA challenge in Oakland, and there’s about to be one in San Francisco.
I would love to be a fly on the wall in that subcommittee room.
Think about it. The bill for defending one case, or even two, could be explained away as a necessity to protect Congressional integrity—or something. I don’t know. But the cost and continued publicity of fighting six or seven or a dozen cases? John Boehner and the House republicans are trying to present themselves as hard charging deficit hawks. The last thing they need is to be seen leading an ongoing, and expensive, attack on gay couples in courts around the country.
And you know, this isn’t an abstract political posture. In the New York case, for example, Mr. Boehner and company will be arguing that a little old lady should pay estate taxes of over $300,000 on the house she owned for decades due to the death of her longtime partner and legal wife. That will look really good.
True, the “cost” of litigation will be miniscule compared to the budget deficit. But the media and the pundits enjoy blathering about “millions” being spent on this or that, as if “millions” had the slightest impact on the national deficit. So I hope down the road we’ll be hearing about the “hundreds of thousands” wasted on this exercise.
--
Former Foe Now Fights For Marriage
I was happy to read that the guy who dreamed up that traditional marriage bus tour has had a change of heart and now recognizes that same-sex couples should have the right to marry.
It’s not often you witness such a 180 degree turnaround, but Louis J Marinelli has not only turned around, he has written a fund raising email for the Courage Campaign in an effort to undo some of the damage he caused by his antigay activism.
Marinelli conceived of the cross-country bus tour, and presented the idea to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which jumped on the plan. For months, the little band of antigay activists drove around from town to town, invariably greeted by a handful of conservatives (if any) and a large crowd of gay marriage supporters, waving banners and chanting.
Marinelli also set up a traditional marriage web page, and became disturbed by the level of antigay hatred it attracted. After talking to the gay activists he met on the bus tour, and seeing first hand the venom spewing from the other side, Marinelli became convinced that civil marriage was not a Christian issue, and that the fight against gay couples was a dehumanizing mistake.
After coming out publicly last week, NOM announced that Marinelli was little more than an independent “bus driver” who had no real connection to the organization. Hmmmm.
I can’t count the number of essays and statements I’ve read from people who once opposed marriage equality to a greater or lesser degree, but who now support our right to wed. Politicians, activists, pundits, ex-presidents, and soon perhaps, a current president.
But I have never encountered a gay marriage supporter who thought about the issue and decided that when all is said and done, it’s probably best that gay couples be denied the right to marry. The fight for marriage equality may be slow, but it only moves in one direction.
--
Unanimous Victory For Arkansas Parents
Five pm eastern standard time. Cocktail hour! I only have 200 words left so what harm can it do?
Indeed, cocktail in hand (actually a glass of rose), I am now prepared to tackle the Arkansas Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to strike the state ban on adoption or foster parenting by unmarried cohabiting couples. The Hog state has a long history of trying to outlaw gay adoptions, and after agency regulations to that effect were struck by successive courts (on technicalities) the voters got together to pass their own adoption ban in November of 2008.
Now, after skirting the core issues in a previous case, the state high court has finally and definitively weighed in on the subject, ruling that fundamental due process rights do not allow the state to put marital restrictions on parenting.
Adoptions and foster parents are selected on a case-by-case basis after a home study and so forth. In this case, the idea of preemptively barring a huge category of prospective households did not pass the smell test, otherwise known as strict scrutiny. Note that Arkansas’s law banned any unmarried couple, straight or gay, from applying to become adoptive or foster parents. And it did so for no reason save vague references to an ideal home. This, said the court, was a violation of privacy rights under the Due Process Clause, forcing people to pick and choose between their intimate relationships and their desire to adopt or foster.
Yay Arkansas Supreme Court! Boo Fifth Circuit.
BY ANN ROSTOW
Full Fifth Circuit Says Louisiana Can Ignore Gay Fathers
My jaw is on the floor after reading one of the most egregiously antigay federal appellate opinions of the last decade.
That’s significant because these last ten years have seen a steady, and rapid, improvement in judicial consideration of gay rights cases, mainly due to a realization that gay litigants are regular human beings like everyone else---and also due to the layers of pro-gay precedent laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal tribunals.
Now comes the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a conservative court according to conventional wisdom, but still! In an 11-5 decision released Tuesday, the court basically ignored the text and spirit of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, ruling that the Louisiana state registrar had every right to withhold a corrected birth certificate from the adopted son of two gay men from out of state.
Oh, there was no direct antigay language in the opinion. Instead, the majority tied itself in knots trying to insist that the refusal to issue a birth certificate did not in any way indicate that the state of Louisiana was refusing to give full faith and credit to the out of state adoption.
Of course Louisiana “recognized” the adoption! It’s just that the registrar didn’t want to put both fathers’ names on this little certificate thingy because Louisiana prefers adoptions by married families or singles. But, hey! It’s not as if the registrar undid the adoption. In fact, the registrar even offered to put one of the father’s names on the birth certificate! Heads or tails?
Tell that to the father who’s name would not appear on his son’s birth certificate. Tell that to the bureaucrats and passport officers and school authorities and everyone else who will be relying on this paperwork over the next 80 years or so, assuming the five-year-old has a long life.
As for the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Article IV of the Constitution which requires that states respect the public acts, records and judgments of sister states, the court ruled that individuals can’t sue state actors in federal court under the Clause. Their only option is to sue in state court for the withheld recognition, and then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose.
That’s simply not the case! And no amount of citations to pre-war (and even 19th century) precedent will make it true. To be clear, Louisiana law requires the state to issue a revised birth certificate, listing the names of the legal parents of a child born in the state and later adopted. There’s no gay exception. There’s no public policy exception. It is mandatory.
Now what? Lambda Legal Defense is presumably considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If they appeal, I bet the High Court would accept the case.
First, because the Fifth Circuit decision is in direct opposition to an Oklahoma case, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit struck the Sooner law against issuing revised certificates to the adopted progeny of gay parents. As you know, the High Court exists in part to resolve disputes among the federal appellate courts.
Second, because at least four members of the Supreme Court will probably want to clarify the jurisdictional scope of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
But meanwhile, this case is amazing. And it serves as a depressing reminder --- to me at least – that for all our progress, we still have a long way to go.
You’ll be pleased to know that I skipped an entire discussion about the Equal Protection claim that was also rejected by the court, even though the issue was set aside by both the trial court and the three-judge panel. Normally, a reviewing court does not meddle in claims that have not been addressed by the lower courts, but hey. This is Louisiana, and this is the Fifth Circuit (which also governs my home state of Texas).
Anyway, keep on eye on this case, because it may be the next major gay rights claim to hit the High Court.
--
Pause For the President
I’m about to turn on the TV and watch Obama wrestle with the deficit, which has somehow emerged as the Number One Priority of the United States, even as the economy struggles to recover, joblessness remains above 9 percent and three wars continue in various stages.
Fine! Cut the deficit. But stop with the crazy talk about how America is broke. We’re not.
And stop with the inane analogy to the average family cutting costs around the kitchen table. The average family lives with long-term debt, mortgages and loans of all sorts. They don’t plan to pay off the house in ten years. And the average family doesn’t take a voluntary pay cut, which America has done thanks to the Bush tax cuts. And no, America’s millionaires are not “creating jobs” with their tax savings. They’re setting up trust funds for their kids. And finally, when the average family does sit down at the kitchen table, they cut restaurant dinners, not the kids’ textbooks or annual medical checkups.
I’m back.
That was a remarkable speech. I almost cried. That’s all I’ll say, since I hear the siren song of GLBT news calling me back.
--
Congress For Dummies
You may recall that the House Armed Services Committee recently held two hearings on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a subject that frankly, has started to exhaust me.
So I saw an audio link to some Q and A from a Republican House member Austin Scott of Georgia to Vice Admiral William Gortney and I reluctantly clicked.
Apparently, Congressman Scott was under the impression that gay men and women were usually discharged for violating the military code, in other words for having illicit sexcapades. Admiral Gortney patiently explained that no, gay servicemembers rarely violate the code. They are simply discharged for being gay. Scott seemed perplexed and confused by this new information.
Can you believe that? A member of the House Armed Services Committee, conducting a hearing on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, with not the slightest clue about how the law operates or how it’s been enforced?
By the way, those hearings did nothing to stall the schedule for repealing the military ban, since all the military mucky mucks said the training for repeal was going fine and there were no anticipated problems.
And while we’re on the subject of Congress, there’s a hearing on the legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act set for Friday in the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on the Constitution. Presumably, this conclave will examine exactly how and when Congress will attempt to intervene in some or all of the DOMA challenges now advancing in the federal courts.
So far, they seem to have done next to nothing, which is fine by me. With the Justice Department backing away from the marriage cases, Congress is theoretically supposed to fill the breach in two cases now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, as well as a case in federal court in New York and another in Connecticut. There’s also a federal DOMA challenge in Oakland, and there’s about to be one in San Francisco.
I would love to be a fly on the wall in that subcommittee room.
Think about it. The bill for defending one case, or even two, could be explained away as a necessity to protect Congressional integrity—or something. I don’t know. But the cost and continued publicity of fighting six or seven or a dozen cases? John Boehner and the House republicans are trying to present themselves as hard charging deficit hawks. The last thing they need is to be seen leading an ongoing, and expensive, attack on gay couples in courts around the country.
And you know, this isn’t an abstract political posture. In the New York case, for example, Mr. Boehner and company will be arguing that a little old lady should pay estate taxes of over $300,000 on the house she owned for decades due to the death of her longtime partner and legal wife. That will look really good.
True, the “cost” of litigation will be miniscule compared to the budget deficit. But the media and the pundits enjoy blathering about “millions” being spent on this or that, as if “millions” had the slightest impact on the national deficit. So I hope down the road we’ll be hearing about the “hundreds of thousands” wasted on this exercise.
--
Former Foe Now Fights For Marriage
I was happy to read that the guy who dreamed up that traditional marriage bus tour has had a change of heart and now recognizes that same-sex couples should have the right to marry.
It’s not often you witness such a 180 degree turnaround, but Louis J Marinelli has not only turned around, he has written a fund raising email for the Courage Campaign in an effort to undo some of the damage he caused by his antigay activism.
Marinelli conceived of the cross-country bus tour, and presented the idea to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which jumped on the plan. For months, the little band of antigay activists drove around from town to town, invariably greeted by a handful of conservatives (if any) and a large crowd of gay marriage supporters, waving banners and chanting.
Marinelli also set up a traditional marriage web page, and became disturbed by the level of antigay hatred it attracted. After talking to the gay activists he met on the bus tour, and seeing first hand the venom spewing from the other side, Marinelli became convinced that civil marriage was not a Christian issue, and that the fight against gay couples was a dehumanizing mistake.
After coming out publicly last week, NOM announced that Marinelli was little more than an independent “bus driver” who had no real connection to the organization. Hmmmm.
I can’t count the number of essays and statements I’ve read from people who once opposed marriage equality to a greater or lesser degree, but who now support our right to wed. Politicians, activists, pundits, ex-presidents, and soon perhaps, a current president.
But I have never encountered a gay marriage supporter who thought about the issue and decided that when all is said and done, it’s probably best that gay couples be denied the right to marry. The fight for marriage equality may be slow, but it only moves in one direction.
--
Unanimous Victory For Arkansas Parents
Five pm eastern standard time. Cocktail hour! I only have 200 words left so what harm can it do?
Indeed, cocktail in hand (actually a glass of rose), I am now prepared to tackle the Arkansas Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to strike the state ban on adoption or foster parenting by unmarried cohabiting couples. The Hog state has a long history of trying to outlaw gay adoptions, and after agency regulations to that effect were struck by successive courts (on technicalities) the voters got together to pass their own adoption ban in November of 2008.
Now, after skirting the core issues in a previous case, the state high court has finally and definitively weighed in on the subject, ruling that fundamental due process rights do not allow the state to put marital restrictions on parenting.
Adoptions and foster parents are selected on a case-by-case basis after a home study and so forth. In this case, the idea of preemptively barring a huge category of prospective households did not pass the smell test, otherwise known as strict scrutiny. Note that Arkansas’s law banned any unmarried couple, straight or gay, from applying to become adoptive or foster parents. And it did so for no reason save vague references to an ideal home. This, said the court, was a violation of privacy rights under the Due Process Clause, forcing people to pick and choose between their intimate relationships and their desire to adopt or foster.
Yay Arkansas Supreme Court! Boo Fifth Circuit.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Messing with the IRS
News for the Week Ended April 6, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Messing With The IRS
There’s a grassroots effort underway to get married gay couples to file joint tax returns in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act. I have to confess, as a married lesbian, that the idea has some appeal.
On the other hand, as a tax phobe who dreads the annual bureaucracy and headache of filing taxes, the notion of deliberately screwing up my tax forms to make a political point is not attractive. Worse, I gather we’re supposed to go through a complex process as follows. First, file our taxes as single. Then, file a revised tax return as a married couple. Finally, wait six months to see how the IRS responds, and then file suit to collect any extra refund from the second set of tax returns.
To my brothers and sisters in the Struggle, I’m sorry. I just can’t handle it. The additional prospect of ending up with penalties, fees, interest, and having to spend extra bucks on professional tax assistance just adds to the horror of it all.
Finally, I’ve received my share of those scary envelopes from the IRS, informing me that I’ve made a mistake of some sort. I’m familiar with the unpleasant sensation of rifling through the mail and finding the kind of letter you just want to stuff under a pile of newspapers and forget about. But you can’t do that for long, and at last you tell yourself that not opening the damn thing will not actually change the reality of the situation. So you open it, take a deep breath, and check out the bottom line. Usually, it’s easier to pay it rather than hunt through your disorganized tax papers and make a challenge. But still. The whole process is best avoided.
--
Go Kloppenburg!
So, I stayed up until two in the morning watching the results from the Wisconsin Supreme Court election where the hardcore conservatives who are trying to drive out unions confronted the outraged progressives who are trying to save their state. The avatars for these two factions, David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg, ended up neck and neck and will likely face a recount. With all districts reporting, Kloppenburg led by about 200 out of about 1.5 million votes.
And before I move on, I have a confession. After pooh-poohing the radiation fears from the Japanese nuclear disaster, I was finally brought up short by the idea of radioactive fish. Put me the group of those who will be avoiding imports of fish from Japan, although I’m not sure how you figure out which little fishy came from which country. Maybe I’ll just stick to river trout.
I’m in a mood to ramble rather than report, so let me get a couple of actual news items out of the way. Remember the civil union bill in Colorado? You can forget about it now, since it got killed in a house committee.
There’s another Congressional hearing on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell set for Thursday before the full House Armed Services Committee. I’m still unclear on the Republican agenda, and I assume there’s little they can do to derail the repeal process. But it’s still annoying to watch them try.
Even though DADT is technically still in effect, there have been no discharges this year. Last week, the Navy dropped proceedings against a gay sailor, basically accepting the de facto change in policy.
And Equality California is again wondering whether or not to start a petition drive to put a repeal of Prop 8 on the 2012 ballot. Now that it seems the legal battle to end Prop 8 will stretch well into next year, if not beyond, we may be back to square one—or whatever square we were on two years ago. What do you think? I think it sounds exhausting, but perhaps necessary.
--
Where’s the House DOMA Defense?
Speaking of legal battles, the House leadership has yet to announce the details of their new legal role in defending the Defense of Marriage Act. Weeks have gone by since a Congressional task force voted to defend the law in court in view of the Justice Department’s decision to stop arguing in favor of the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriage, and yet we’ve heard noting more about it. Indeed, a group of gay allies in the House just sent a letter to Speaker Boehner asking for some explanations.
Will the House general counsel defend DOMA? Will they hire outside lawyers? How much will this cost? Will the House ask to intervene in the various pending DOMA cases? Or will they just file briefs as friends of the court?
Given that one of the judges in one of those pending cases has set an April 18 deadline for a House motion to intervene, one would think that some people are working on the issue, but to date we don’t know who that might be or what they might be doing. It’s interesting as well that John Boehner does not seem to welcome his new role as the leader of the culture war. Indeed, John Boehner does not seem particularly happy about his professional life in general at this point, evincing a level of discomfort that sort of speaks well of him.
--
Monkey Business
Here’s a disappointing development. A few months back I bookmarked a story about gay monkeys, and when I tried to retrieve it just now, it was gone. I forget what it said, and my only clue is the bookmark title: “reat for gay monkeys.”
Oh, good news! I found it. “Special Valentine treat for gay monkeys” was the actual headline, and although it’s no longer timely, it’s still a lovely account of two spider monkeys named Elton and David, who live at the Drayton Manor Theme Park in Staffordshire. They reportedly became a couple about a year ago. Or at least, that’s when keepers noticed them hugging and fooling around. Sadly, I can’t find out what the special treat was. I’m guessing bananas.
By the way, as usual I’m watching MSNBC in the background. It turns out that Japanese fish is safe, as long as it’s not from the nuclear plant area. Plus, food safety people are checking imports for radiation just in case.
Wonder whether those government food safety people will be on the job next week? Aw. Who needs government? We’ll just police our own sushi, thank you very much. All we need is a lab and Abby from NCIS. Or maybe there’s an iPhone ap we can use.
--
Queer As Mice
In other gay animal news, I was struck by a Dallas Voice article about the connection between serotonin levels and same-sex attraction in male mice. Turns out that if you take away serotonin receptors and put a bunch of male mice together, they are all over each other. Once you give them back their receptors, they’re straight as arrows.
“Do we care” asked the gay weekly? After all, we’ve been debating the nature versus nurture question for decades, with our side usually insisting that we are not “gay by choice.”
This debate seems animated in part by the idea that if a characteristic is congenital and unchanging, discrimination on the basis of that characteristic is somehow worse than discrimination based on something more fluid. Indeed, “immutability” is one consideration courts have used to increase the level of scrutiny for laws that target a particular group.
But the question of gay immutability is a distraction from the real issue. Should you have to change or hide your sexual orientation in order to be treated equally? Of course not. Even if a simple shot of some chemical could someday turn us all into heterosexuals, such a notion is as repellent as the idea of forcing people to change their faith in order to suit a majority view.
And what if we could change our sexual orientation as easily as we change our hair color? Would it be wrong for some people to elect such a procedure? I guess I’d say that if they’re that unhappy, who am I to tell them what to do about it? But before we can assume that breezy attitude, we must create a society where being gay is easy, accepted and respected.
By the way, isn’t serotonin a happy thingy? I’d think that you’d be more gay if you had more serotonin. We all know that being gay is inherently more fun. The piano bars, the Pride parades, the glamour, the Fight for Equality!
--
Gauguin Gets Gay Bashed
So, did you hear about the 50-something woman who attacked “Two Tahitian Women,” a painting by Paul Gauguin, at the National Gallery? The woman tried to pull the $80 million painting off the wall, and then tried to punch it, screaming “This is evil!” the Associated Press reports.
She later explained: “I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned.”
She also said she was from the CIA, had a radio in her head, and was planning to kill the police. I gather that she is being held without bail pending a psych evaluation.
The painting wasn’t damaged in Friday’s incident, and it’s expected back on the wall by Tuesday. That’s assuming that the staff of the National Gallery is working next week.
--
Maintaining Self Control
Let’s see what else we can discuss this afternoon. (And you should know that these random items are my attempt to finish this column without going into an enraged diatribe against the House of Representatives. If I start I won’t be able to stop.)
So anyway, there’s a fight over whether or not gay couples should have the chance to adopt in Virginia, but I’ll save that for another week.
There’s some gay bashing news, but I find that subject depressing. And I think I cruised by a story out of Australia, where a maniac murdered his possibly gay ex-roommate in a violent knife attack. The killer told his pals that he once drank blood during a cannibal ritual. I don’t remember the exact details, but if you’re interested, try googling “Brisbane cannibal.”
And I was happy to read that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that Wal-Mart was within its legal rights when it fired an employee who directed a homophobic rant at several of her colleagues. The fired worker had tried to claim that her termination was a case of religious discrimination. But the court didn’t buy it
Look. You can’t be fired just because you’re Christian. You can’t be fired because you take a personal day on Yom Kippur. But you certainly can be fired if you launch a full blown screaming verbal attack at the expense of a minority group, whether Black or gay or whatever. And you can’t say the Bible made you do it. Good for the 7th Circuit.
Here’s another interesting story to wind down our column. Archeologists in Prague have discovered a gay caveman or trans cavewoman, a male who was buried in a fashion usually reserved for females.
The skeleton was facing east, and surrounded by urns and jugs. During this period, around 2900 to 2500 BC, men were buried facing west, and their graves were stocked with weapons and food. Women were laid to rest facing east, with pots and jewelry. Experts said that since burial rites were taken seriously, the male skeleton’s grave suggested not only that he was either gay or trans, but that the community respected his (or her) identity.
Don’t tell me that society was more advanced in 2900 BC than it is now.
Oh, and let’s give credit for a pretty good joke to the decadent egomaniac who runs Italy, and who is now defending himself in court against charges that he had sex with an underage prostitute (along with dozens of other hired women).
Silvio Berlusconi announced that a national survey firm had asked Italian women if they would like to sleep with him. According to the 70-something prime minister, 30 percent said “Yes,” and 70 percent said: “What? Again?”
Don’t get me wrong. The man’s still a fool. Much like the members of the GOP majority in the House of Representatives.
--
arostow@aol.com
BY ANN ROSTOW
Messing With The IRS
There’s a grassroots effort underway to get married gay couples to file joint tax returns in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act. I have to confess, as a married lesbian, that the idea has some appeal.
On the other hand, as a tax phobe who dreads the annual bureaucracy and headache of filing taxes, the notion of deliberately screwing up my tax forms to make a political point is not attractive. Worse, I gather we’re supposed to go through a complex process as follows. First, file our taxes as single. Then, file a revised tax return as a married couple. Finally, wait six months to see how the IRS responds, and then file suit to collect any extra refund from the second set of tax returns.
To my brothers and sisters in the Struggle, I’m sorry. I just can’t handle it. The additional prospect of ending up with penalties, fees, interest, and having to spend extra bucks on professional tax assistance just adds to the horror of it all.
Finally, I’ve received my share of those scary envelopes from the IRS, informing me that I’ve made a mistake of some sort. I’m familiar with the unpleasant sensation of rifling through the mail and finding the kind of letter you just want to stuff under a pile of newspapers and forget about. But you can’t do that for long, and at last you tell yourself that not opening the damn thing will not actually change the reality of the situation. So you open it, take a deep breath, and check out the bottom line. Usually, it’s easier to pay it rather than hunt through your disorganized tax papers and make a challenge. But still. The whole process is best avoided.
--
Go Kloppenburg!
So, I stayed up until two in the morning watching the results from the Wisconsin Supreme Court election where the hardcore conservatives who are trying to drive out unions confronted the outraged progressives who are trying to save their state. The avatars for these two factions, David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg, ended up neck and neck and will likely face a recount. With all districts reporting, Kloppenburg led by about 200 out of about 1.5 million votes.
And before I move on, I have a confession. After pooh-poohing the radiation fears from the Japanese nuclear disaster, I was finally brought up short by the idea of radioactive fish. Put me the group of those who will be avoiding imports of fish from Japan, although I’m not sure how you figure out which little fishy came from which country. Maybe I’ll just stick to river trout.
I’m in a mood to ramble rather than report, so let me get a couple of actual news items out of the way. Remember the civil union bill in Colorado? You can forget about it now, since it got killed in a house committee.
There’s another Congressional hearing on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell set for Thursday before the full House Armed Services Committee. I’m still unclear on the Republican agenda, and I assume there’s little they can do to derail the repeal process. But it’s still annoying to watch them try.
Even though DADT is technically still in effect, there have been no discharges this year. Last week, the Navy dropped proceedings against a gay sailor, basically accepting the de facto change in policy.
And Equality California is again wondering whether or not to start a petition drive to put a repeal of Prop 8 on the 2012 ballot. Now that it seems the legal battle to end Prop 8 will stretch well into next year, if not beyond, we may be back to square one—or whatever square we were on two years ago. What do you think? I think it sounds exhausting, but perhaps necessary.
--
Where’s the House DOMA Defense?
Speaking of legal battles, the House leadership has yet to announce the details of their new legal role in defending the Defense of Marriage Act. Weeks have gone by since a Congressional task force voted to defend the law in court in view of the Justice Department’s decision to stop arguing in favor of the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriage, and yet we’ve heard noting more about it. Indeed, a group of gay allies in the House just sent a letter to Speaker Boehner asking for some explanations.
Will the House general counsel defend DOMA? Will they hire outside lawyers? How much will this cost? Will the House ask to intervene in the various pending DOMA cases? Or will they just file briefs as friends of the court?
Given that one of the judges in one of those pending cases has set an April 18 deadline for a House motion to intervene, one would think that some people are working on the issue, but to date we don’t know who that might be or what they might be doing. It’s interesting as well that John Boehner does not seem to welcome his new role as the leader of the culture war. Indeed, John Boehner does not seem particularly happy about his professional life in general at this point, evincing a level of discomfort that sort of speaks well of him.
--
Monkey Business
Here’s a disappointing development. A few months back I bookmarked a story about gay monkeys, and when I tried to retrieve it just now, it was gone. I forget what it said, and my only clue is the bookmark title: “reat for gay monkeys.”
Oh, good news! I found it. “Special Valentine treat for gay monkeys” was the actual headline, and although it’s no longer timely, it’s still a lovely account of two spider monkeys named Elton and David, who live at the Drayton Manor Theme Park in Staffordshire. They reportedly became a couple about a year ago. Or at least, that’s when keepers noticed them hugging and fooling around. Sadly, I can’t find out what the special treat was. I’m guessing bananas.
By the way, as usual I’m watching MSNBC in the background. It turns out that Japanese fish is safe, as long as it’s not from the nuclear plant area. Plus, food safety people are checking imports for radiation just in case.
Wonder whether those government food safety people will be on the job next week? Aw. Who needs government? We’ll just police our own sushi, thank you very much. All we need is a lab and Abby from NCIS. Or maybe there’s an iPhone ap we can use.
--
Queer As Mice
In other gay animal news, I was struck by a Dallas Voice article about the connection between serotonin levels and same-sex attraction in male mice. Turns out that if you take away serotonin receptors and put a bunch of male mice together, they are all over each other. Once you give them back their receptors, they’re straight as arrows.
“Do we care” asked the gay weekly? After all, we’ve been debating the nature versus nurture question for decades, with our side usually insisting that we are not “gay by choice.”
This debate seems animated in part by the idea that if a characteristic is congenital and unchanging, discrimination on the basis of that characteristic is somehow worse than discrimination based on something more fluid. Indeed, “immutability” is one consideration courts have used to increase the level of scrutiny for laws that target a particular group.
But the question of gay immutability is a distraction from the real issue. Should you have to change or hide your sexual orientation in order to be treated equally? Of course not. Even if a simple shot of some chemical could someday turn us all into heterosexuals, such a notion is as repellent as the idea of forcing people to change their faith in order to suit a majority view.
And what if we could change our sexual orientation as easily as we change our hair color? Would it be wrong for some people to elect such a procedure? I guess I’d say that if they’re that unhappy, who am I to tell them what to do about it? But before we can assume that breezy attitude, we must create a society where being gay is easy, accepted and respected.
By the way, isn’t serotonin a happy thingy? I’d think that you’d be more gay if you had more serotonin. We all know that being gay is inherently more fun. The piano bars, the Pride parades, the glamour, the Fight for Equality!
--
Gauguin Gets Gay Bashed
So, did you hear about the 50-something woman who attacked “Two Tahitian Women,” a painting by Paul Gauguin, at the National Gallery? The woman tried to pull the $80 million painting off the wall, and then tried to punch it, screaming “This is evil!” the Associated Press reports.
She later explained: “I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned.”
She also said she was from the CIA, had a radio in her head, and was planning to kill the police. I gather that she is being held without bail pending a psych evaluation.
The painting wasn’t damaged in Friday’s incident, and it’s expected back on the wall by Tuesday. That’s assuming that the staff of the National Gallery is working next week.
--
Maintaining Self Control
Let’s see what else we can discuss this afternoon. (And you should know that these random items are my attempt to finish this column without going into an enraged diatribe against the House of Representatives. If I start I won’t be able to stop.)
So anyway, there’s a fight over whether or not gay couples should have the chance to adopt in Virginia, but I’ll save that for another week.
There’s some gay bashing news, but I find that subject depressing. And I think I cruised by a story out of Australia, where a maniac murdered his possibly gay ex-roommate in a violent knife attack. The killer told his pals that he once drank blood during a cannibal ritual. I don’t remember the exact details, but if you’re interested, try googling “Brisbane cannibal.”
And I was happy to read that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that Wal-Mart was within its legal rights when it fired an employee who directed a homophobic rant at several of her colleagues. The fired worker had tried to claim that her termination was a case of religious discrimination. But the court didn’t buy it
Look. You can’t be fired just because you’re Christian. You can’t be fired because you take a personal day on Yom Kippur. But you certainly can be fired if you launch a full blown screaming verbal attack at the expense of a minority group, whether Black or gay or whatever. And you can’t say the Bible made you do it. Good for the 7th Circuit.
Here’s another interesting story to wind down our column. Archeologists in Prague have discovered a gay caveman or trans cavewoman, a male who was buried in a fashion usually reserved for females.
The skeleton was facing east, and surrounded by urns and jugs. During this period, around 2900 to 2500 BC, men were buried facing west, and their graves were stocked with weapons and food. Women were laid to rest facing east, with pots and jewelry. Experts said that since burial rites were taken seriously, the male skeleton’s grave suggested not only that he was either gay or trans, but that the community respected his (or her) identity.
Don’t tell me that society was more advanced in 2900 BC than it is now.
Oh, and let’s give credit for a pretty good joke to the decadent egomaniac who runs Italy, and who is now defending himself in court against charges that he had sex with an underage prostitute (along with dozens of other hired women).
Silvio Berlusconi announced that a national survey firm had asked Italian women if they would like to sleep with him. According to the 70-something prime minister, 30 percent said “Yes,” and 70 percent said: “What? Again?”
Don’t get me wrong. The man’s still a fool. Much like the members of the GOP majority in the House of Representatives.
--
arostow@aol.com
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Yet Another Doomed Version of ENDA Hits Congress
News for the Week Ended March 30, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Yet Another Doomed Version of ENDA Hits Congress
My email is now full of breathless headlines from all the various GLBT organizations and pundits, announcing that the Employment Nondiscrimination Act has been introduced in the House. Loyal readers are familiar with my opinion of this dubious effort, so I will forego much of my usual rant.
But not all of it.
We have introduced this stand-alone gay workplace discrimination bill to no avail in every Congress save one since 1994.
Prior to that, as far back as 1974, we introduced a bill that would have added “sexual orientation” to the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII covers workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin and religion, and it is reinforced with the steel of almost half a century of case-law. In short, Title VII offers the only real protection against gay bias on the job, period.
If we had kept working on a revision to Title VII, we might be close to victory by now. Instead, we decided that was too difficult, and contrived a separate bill, ENDA, riddled with loopholes to satisfy homophobic lawmakers. Small businesses are exempt from ENDA, as are religious employers. Along with its many inadequacies, ENDA does not provide an avenue for collecting civil damages. Worse, although many modern courts have found a way to rule on gay bias using Title VII, that strategy would be foreclosed should Congress create a separate law that specifically covers GLBT workers.
Perhaps fighting for a separate gay bill made sense in 1994. But nearly two decades later, it makes no sense. Do any of you California readers remember when gay workplace bias was covered under a special provision of the Labor Code rather than included in California’s main human rights act? Hint: it didn’t work and eventually sexual orientation was added to the law that protects every other Californian.
Oh, you say. But it would still be easier to pass ENDA as a first step and then go back and revise Title VII!
I have news for you. ENDA’s not going to pass this Congress. Even Barney Frank called the bill “an organizing tool” that is not likely to reach the House floor. And even if we did manage to pass ENDA after, let’s say, 25 or 30 years of trying, does anyone really think we could pass a stronger gay rights bill on its heels?
I for one am tired, year after year, of getting letters and emails asking for cash to “help pass ENDA.” This bill is a counterproductive legislative artifact from an earlier age, and if all we need an “organizing tool,” why not introduce a revision to Title VII? It would have the same chance of passage as ENDA.
--
Ninth Circuit Citation A Mystery (To Me)
Moving on, I tried to check up on the Alaskan case that was cited in the one-paragraph Prop 8 announcement by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week. The three-judge panel informed us that they were not going to lift the stay on Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision last August to strike Prop 8 and re-legalize same-sex marriage in California.
Since their only explanation was a reference to Southeast Alaska Conservation Council v U.S. Corps of Army Engineers, I thought I’d look up the details. But all I found was a (kind of astonishing) lawsuit involving a gold mine that was planning to dump all its waste into a large lake. The gold mine admitted that the plan would raise the bottom of the lake by 50 feet, triple its surface area, and kill off virtually all aquatic life.
The mine received permission from the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers to go ahead with its dastardly scheme, deftly relying on an ambiguity in the Clean Water Act. A lower court thought that destroying the lake was just fine, but the Ninth Circuit disagreed in a 2007 opinion. I tried my best to find the “principle of vacatur” that applied to the Prop 8 case, but I failed, possibly due my lack of legal training (an educational deficit that normally doesn’t stop me from pontificating on all areas of the law). If any attorneys out there can help me, I’d be grateful. I’m guessing that the principle was articulated in a different opinion, but I couldn’t find it.
By the way, you’ll be interested to know that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit in 2009 in a 6-3 decision, so I’m guessing that by now our pretty little lake is officially an industrial waste site. And here’s a coincidence! Ted Olsen argued on behalf of the gold mine and the state of Alaska.
--
Gay Spouses in Limbo
Last week, we covered the bi-national lesbian couple from New York, who were given a reprieve from deportation while they pursue a Green Card in court. Even the government lawyer in the immigration hearing agreed that drastic action should be postponed while the women challenged the law that ostensibly keeps them apart—the Defense of Marriage Act.
Given that the Executive Branch officially views the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, it was not hard to infer that the U.S. will slow or cease deporting gay and lesbian spouses until the court verdict is in on the constitutional status of DOMA. This inference was bolstered by a statement a few days ago from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, saying that indeed, deportations would be suspended for foreign gay spouses pending a legal review by Homeland Security.
Cue: Theme from Final Jeopardy. Time’s up! The legal review is over and the government confirmed that it will continue deportations as usual. You recall that the Obama administration made clear that they would still enforce the Defense of Marriage Act despite any constitutional reservations, and I suppose this sad decision reflects that pledge. I’m not sure whether this will have an impact on the girls from New York, but we all hope not.
Of all the hazardous side effects of the Defense of Marriage Act, I think the deportation of bi-national couples has to be the worst, don’t you?
--
Gandhi Was What?
I kind of lost my train of thought after a ramble through cyberspace. I clicked on so many things that I completely forgot what I was originally seeking, and I can’t remember it even now. Ah, technology.
Speaking of technology, my wife was reading the paper the other day and she had her hand on her computer mouse and found herself trying to scroll down her article. And, speak of the devil, she just came home three hours early from work. Poor thing doesn’t feel well, and here I am stuck writing rather than tending to her. I’ll send the housemaid in to see if she needs anything.
Oh yes. I was going to find out why people are saying Gandhi was gay, or had a gay fling, or wanted to have a gay fling. It was something like that. I’m no longer interested, however. Instead I am fuming over the incessant talk about how President Obama needs to “clarify” our mission in Libya, and the media’s pointless insistence on knowing exactly what will happen if we end up in a “stalemate.”
Look. The man could not have been more clear. Clinton has been clear. The mission is clear! Enforce a no-fly zone through NATO. Prevent civilian deaths and encourage Gadhafi’s departure through all means short of sending in US ground forces.
But but but sputter sputter sputter! I thought he said he wanted to get rid of Gadhafi! And now he doesn’t? It’s so confusing! What if Gadhafi doesn’t leave? What specifically will we do in that hypothetical situation? Um, what if the Canadian government started attacking civilians? Would America intervene?
Then there’s the ongoing hysteria over what would happen if, say, the nuclear plant in New York had a massive total meltdown. Could we evacuate Manhattan?
I seriously watched a segment on that very possibility. And the answer? No. In fact we can’t evacuate Manhattan, and you know what? We won’t have to because the nuclear reactor on Indian Point isn’t going to have a meltdown.
There’s no radiation poisoning in LA, no great white sharks in your bathtub and while we’re at it, the sun isn’t going to explode next Tuesday. These people are driving me crazy!
I know what you’re thinking. No one is forcing me to sit around reading simplistic articles or watching cable news. And yet, I continue to torture myself.
While surfing, I did learn some of the many alternate spellings of “Gadhafi.” In addition to the AP spelling used here, the strange looking tyrant is also spelled “Gaddafi,” “Qaddafi,” “Al-Qadhafi” “El-Qaddafi” and “Kadafi.” His first name has numerous variations as well, but I won’t indulge myself further on this topic.
--
Sodomy Bans Alive and Well
What else is new, you ask? There are several state legislatures considering whether or not to repeal their anti-sodomy laws. Obviously, such laws are unenforceable in the wake of Lawrence v Texas, but some of them are still on the books, including the books of Kansas, Montana, and here in Texas. It looks like all three of these states are going to keep their sodomy laws intact, presumably just to remind their gay and lesbian citizens that they still consider us damnable perverts.
Hey. Remember it took Alabama until the 2000 election to repeal its symbolic ban on interracial marriage. At this rate, we’ll have those sodomy laws gone by 2036.
In other state news, the Colorado senate passed a civil union bill that now goes to the house. And the Indiana senate passed an amendment that bans both same-sex marriage and civil unions. The amendment has to pass in the next session of the legislature, and after that, it would go to a popular vote in 2014 at the earliest. I will withhold my pain and anguish until the Hoosier voters condemn me three years hence.
--
Another Law That Won’t Die
Perhaps some of you are wondering how our brave gay men and women in uniform are doing now that Don’t Ask has been repealed.
I suppose they’re all fine, but they’re still in the closet. The repeal of Don’t Ask won’t take effect until two months after President Obama and Secretary Gates sign off on some statement that the change in policy will not affect military readiness. Or something like that.
Gates, meanwhile, won’t sign the statement until the military completes some kind of training on how to implement the new rules. I’m not sure why that would be so complicated. I mean, how hard is it not to discharge someone? At any rate, I just read that a subgroup of the House Armed Services Committee has decided to hold hearings next week in order to provide Congressional oversight for these implementation procedures. If that makes no sense to you, join the club. It appears to be a way for House Republicans to stall the eventual end of the military ban.
And do you remember the federal lawsuit back in October, when Judge Virginia Phillips struck Don’t Ask as unconstitutional? Her ruling was stayed pending appeal, and the suit rose to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. There, the Obama administration asked the court to basically let the appeal slide while they went through the process of repealing the statute.
In a reply filed on Monday, the Log Cabin Republicans (who brought the suit) called the government’s request “absurd” and asked the court to strike Don’t Ask at once and let the chips fall where they may.
The bottom line is that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is still the law of the land, and will remain so throughout seemingly endless court filings, training programs, subcommittee hearings and certification procedures. I haven’t heard of anyone actually getting kicked out of the service recently, but it’s still irritating to see the military ban sticking around like old gum.
--
arostow@aol.com
BY ANN ROSTOW
Yet Another Doomed Version of ENDA Hits Congress
My email is now full of breathless headlines from all the various GLBT organizations and pundits, announcing that the Employment Nondiscrimination Act has been introduced in the House. Loyal readers are familiar with my opinion of this dubious effort, so I will forego much of my usual rant.
But not all of it.
We have introduced this stand-alone gay workplace discrimination bill to no avail in every Congress save one since 1994.
Prior to that, as far back as 1974, we introduced a bill that would have added “sexual orientation” to the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII covers workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin and religion, and it is reinforced with the steel of almost half a century of case-law. In short, Title VII offers the only real protection against gay bias on the job, period.
If we had kept working on a revision to Title VII, we might be close to victory by now. Instead, we decided that was too difficult, and contrived a separate bill, ENDA, riddled with loopholes to satisfy homophobic lawmakers. Small businesses are exempt from ENDA, as are religious employers. Along with its many inadequacies, ENDA does not provide an avenue for collecting civil damages. Worse, although many modern courts have found a way to rule on gay bias using Title VII, that strategy would be foreclosed should Congress create a separate law that specifically covers GLBT workers.
Perhaps fighting for a separate gay bill made sense in 1994. But nearly two decades later, it makes no sense. Do any of you California readers remember when gay workplace bias was covered under a special provision of the Labor Code rather than included in California’s main human rights act? Hint: it didn’t work and eventually sexual orientation was added to the law that protects every other Californian.
Oh, you say. But it would still be easier to pass ENDA as a first step and then go back and revise Title VII!
I have news for you. ENDA’s not going to pass this Congress. Even Barney Frank called the bill “an organizing tool” that is not likely to reach the House floor. And even if we did manage to pass ENDA after, let’s say, 25 or 30 years of trying, does anyone really think we could pass a stronger gay rights bill on its heels?
I for one am tired, year after year, of getting letters and emails asking for cash to “help pass ENDA.” This bill is a counterproductive legislative artifact from an earlier age, and if all we need an “organizing tool,” why not introduce a revision to Title VII? It would have the same chance of passage as ENDA.
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Ninth Circuit Citation A Mystery (To Me)
Moving on, I tried to check up on the Alaskan case that was cited in the one-paragraph Prop 8 announcement by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week. The three-judge panel informed us that they were not going to lift the stay on Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision last August to strike Prop 8 and re-legalize same-sex marriage in California.
Since their only explanation was a reference to Southeast Alaska Conservation Council v U.S. Corps of Army Engineers, I thought I’d look up the details. But all I found was a (kind of astonishing) lawsuit involving a gold mine that was planning to dump all its waste into a large lake. The gold mine admitted that the plan would raise the bottom of the lake by 50 feet, triple its surface area, and kill off virtually all aquatic life.
The mine received permission from the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers to go ahead with its dastardly scheme, deftly relying on an ambiguity in the Clean Water Act. A lower court thought that destroying the lake was just fine, but the Ninth Circuit disagreed in a 2007 opinion. I tried my best to find the “principle of vacatur” that applied to the Prop 8 case, but I failed, possibly due my lack of legal training (an educational deficit that normally doesn’t stop me from pontificating on all areas of the law). If any attorneys out there can help me, I’d be grateful. I’m guessing that the principle was articulated in a different opinion, but I couldn’t find it.
By the way, you’ll be interested to know that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit in 2009 in a 6-3 decision, so I’m guessing that by now our pretty little lake is officially an industrial waste site. And here’s a coincidence! Ted Olsen argued on behalf of the gold mine and the state of Alaska.
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Gay Spouses in Limbo
Last week, we covered the bi-national lesbian couple from New York, who were given a reprieve from deportation while they pursue a Green Card in court. Even the government lawyer in the immigration hearing agreed that drastic action should be postponed while the women challenged the law that ostensibly keeps them apart—the Defense of Marriage Act.
Given that the Executive Branch officially views the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, it was not hard to infer that the U.S. will slow or cease deporting gay and lesbian spouses until the court verdict is in on the constitutional status of DOMA. This inference was bolstered by a statement a few days ago from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, saying that indeed, deportations would be suspended for foreign gay spouses pending a legal review by Homeland Security.
Cue: Theme from Final Jeopardy. Time’s up! The legal review is over and the government confirmed that it will continue deportations as usual. You recall that the Obama administration made clear that they would still enforce the Defense of Marriage Act despite any constitutional reservations, and I suppose this sad decision reflects that pledge. I’m not sure whether this will have an impact on the girls from New York, but we all hope not.
Of all the hazardous side effects of the Defense of Marriage Act, I think the deportation of bi-national couples has to be the worst, don’t you?
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Gandhi Was What?
I kind of lost my train of thought after a ramble through cyberspace. I clicked on so many things that I completely forgot what I was originally seeking, and I can’t remember it even now. Ah, technology.
Speaking of technology, my wife was reading the paper the other day and she had her hand on her computer mouse and found herself trying to scroll down her article. And, speak of the devil, she just came home three hours early from work. Poor thing doesn’t feel well, and here I am stuck writing rather than tending to her. I’ll send the housemaid in to see if she needs anything.
Oh yes. I was going to find out why people are saying Gandhi was gay, or had a gay fling, or wanted to have a gay fling. It was something like that. I’m no longer interested, however. Instead I am fuming over the incessant talk about how President Obama needs to “clarify” our mission in Libya, and the media’s pointless insistence on knowing exactly what will happen if we end up in a “stalemate.”
Look. The man could not have been more clear. Clinton has been clear. The mission is clear! Enforce a no-fly zone through NATO. Prevent civilian deaths and encourage Gadhafi’s departure through all means short of sending in US ground forces.
But but but sputter sputter sputter! I thought he said he wanted to get rid of Gadhafi! And now he doesn’t? It’s so confusing! What if Gadhafi doesn’t leave? What specifically will we do in that hypothetical situation? Um, what if the Canadian government started attacking civilians? Would America intervene?
Then there’s the ongoing hysteria over what would happen if, say, the nuclear plant in New York had a massive total meltdown. Could we evacuate Manhattan?
I seriously watched a segment on that very possibility. And the answer? No. In fact we can’t evacuate Manhattan, and you know what? We won’t have to because the nuclear reactor on Indian Point isn’t going to have a meltdown.
There’s no radiation poisoning in LA, no great white sharks in your bathtub and while we’re at it, the sun isn’t going to explode next Tuesday. These people are driving me crazy!
I know what you’re thinking. No one is forcing me to sit around reading simplistic articles or watching cable news. And yet, I continue to torture myself.
While surfing, I did learn some of the many alternate spellings of “Gadhafi.” In addition to the AP spelling used here, the strange looking tyrant is also spelled “Gaddafi,” “Qaddafi,” “Al-Qadhafi” “El-Qaddafi” and “Kadafi.” His first name has numerous variations as well, but I won’t indulge myself further on this topic.
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Sodomy Bans Alive and Well
What else is new, you ask? There are several state legislatures considering whether or not to repeal their anti-sodomy laws. Obviously, such laws are unenforceable in the wake of Lawrence v Texas, but some of them are still on the books, including the books of Kansas, Montana, and here in Texas. It looks like all three of these states are going to keep their sodomy laws intact, presumably just to remind their gay and lesbian citizens that they still consider us damnable perverts.
Hey. Remember it took Alabama until the 2000 election to repeal its symbolic ban on interracial marriage. At this rate, we’ll have those sodomy laws gone by 2036.
In other state news, the Colorado senate passed a civil union bill that now goes to the house. And the Indiana senate passed an amendment that bans both same-sex marriage and civil unions. The amendment has to pass in the next session of the legislature, and after that, it would go to a popular vote in 2014 at the earliest. I will withhold my pain and anguish until the Hoosier voters condemn me three years hence.
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Another Law That Won’t Die
Perhaps some of you are wondering how our brave gay men and women in uniform are doing now that Don’t Ask has been repealed.
I suppose they’re all fine, but they’re still in the closet. The repeal of Don’t Ask won’t take effect until two months after President Obama and Secretary Gates sign off on some statement that the change in policy will not affect military readiness. Or something like that.
Gates, meanwhile, won’t sign the statement until the military completes some kind of training on how to implement the new rules. I’m not sure why that would be so complicated. I mean, how hard is it not to discharge someone? At any rate, I just read that a subgroup of the House Armed Services Committee has decided to hold hearings next week in order to provide Congressional oversight for these implementation procedures. If that makes no sense to you, join the club. It appears to be a way for House Republicans to stall the eventual end of the military ban.
And do you remember the federal lawsuit back in October, when Judge Virginia Phillips struck Don’t Ask as unconstitutional? Her ruling was stayed pending appeal, and the suit rose to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. There, the Obama administration asked the court to basically let the appeal slide while they went through the process of repealing the statute.
In a reply filed on Monday, the Log Cabin Republicans (who brought the suit) called the government’s request “absurd” and asked the court to strike Don’t Ask at once and let the chips fall where they may.
The bottom line is that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is still the law of the land, and will remain so throughout seemingly endless court filings, training programs, subcommittee hearings and certification procedures. I haven’t heard of anyone actually getting kicked out of the service recently, but it’s still irritating to see the military ban sticking around like old gum.
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arostow@aol.com
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