In a move that will likely prompt Virginia Attorney General Ken "Kookinell" Cuccinelli to follow suit Indiana Attorney General Gregg Zoeller (pictured at left) plans on filing an amicus brief with the U. S. Supreme Court in the Prop 8 appeal. Rather than admit that he's a gay hating bigot, Zoeller is using a smoke screen of claiming that as Attorney General he has responsibility to defend state's rights. It sounds like just the kind of bullshit excuse that would appeal to Kookineeli who never missing an opportunity to denigrate and undermine the rights of LGBT Virginians. It will be interesting to see whether Kookinelli jumps on this band wagon in the midst of his campaign for Governor. As noted in previous posts, unlike virtually every other attorney general to run for Governor over the last 30+ years, Kookinelli has not reigned from office so as to avoid the appearance of (i) politicizing the dispensation of justice in Virginia and (ii) forcing taxpayers to help underwrite his insidious campaign. Here are highlights from the Evansville Courier& Press:
Simply put, my legal obligation as attorney for my client, the Indiana Legislature, is to defend state laws legislators have passed. Indiana has a statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman. If the Supreme Court were to strike down a similar California law, Proposition 8, as unconstitutional, then it would put Indiana's statute at risk.
Under our system of justice, both sides in a case must be zealously represented. Although Indiana is not a plaintiff or defendant in either of the cases the Supreme Court will hear, our state and other states have an undeniable interest in asserting each state's legal authority to define marriage as it sees fit within its borders. That's why my office, representing Indiana, jointly filed a friend-of-the-court brief along with 14 other states that urged the Supreme Court to keep the marriage-definition legal authority at the state level.
In the two Supreme Court cases, we are not arguing to strike down the legal authority of other states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex partners, if those states so choose. Instead we defend the authority of each state to pass and enact its own traditional marriage-definition laws at the state level — either through its legislature or directly by voters if it has a referendum process.
Defining marriage is an intrinsic function of state government that ought not be stripped from states as happened to California in one of the cases now being appealed. This is an important question of our time and therefore we asked the U.S. Supreme Court to exercise its role in our constitutional process to provide answers. Representing Indiana's case is my responsibility as Attorney General, an obligation that I will do to the best of my skill and ability.
Apparently Zoeller is to stupid to realize that he has made pretty much the same case as was made by first those who claimed that states had the right to determine whether or not slavery would exist within their boundaries and later by those who supported anti-miscegenation laws. It goes without saying that Zoeller is an ignorance and bigotry embracing Republican.
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