Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church Turn HIV Into Heterosexual Epidemic

Throughout Russia's history the Russian Orthodox Church has typically been on the side of autocracy, has fought any and every progressive idea, and worried more than anything else about its own wealth and power.  Indeed, the Church opposed even small moderate changes that might have helped Russia avoid the horrific 1917 revolutions.  Now, Putin, like some of the most insidious tsars from Russia's past has allied himself with the Russian Orthodox Church to bolster his base of power .  In exchange for such support, Putin has given the Church free reign to push its archaic, anti-modernity, anti-knowledge based agendas.  Adding to the toxic mix has been the efforts of American Christofascists to export their anti-gay animus and contempt for modern democratic norms.  In Russia, this embrace of ignorance is fueling a HIV epidemic that is rapidly ravaging the heterosexual population.  Unlike other modern nations that are seeing their rate of increase of HIV cases drop, Russia is seeing explosive increases that rival those of sub-Saharan Africa, an area known for its lack of education and susceptibility to Christofascist propaganda.  A piece in Politico looks at the disaster taking place in Russia.  Here are excerpts:   

The Kremlin and its allies are pushing a socially conservative, hands-off, and often church-influenced approach to sexual and reproductive health, as well as drug policy. Fueling an epidemic, state policies and inaction have led to more cases than ever of Russians contracting or dying from HIV/AIDS.

At least 14,631 Russians died from AIDS-related symptoms in the first half of 2017—an increase of more than 13 percent from the year earlier. Russia now hosts the largest HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which, along with the Middle East and North Africa, make up the world’s only two regions where the rate of HIV cases is rising. “It’s explosive,” says Christopher Beyrer, an epidemiologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University who previously served as president of the International AIDS Society and helped run an anonymous HIV testing facility here in Moscow before pulling out due to Russian policy hostile to U.S. funding. “The policies that they have been sticking to in the Russian Federation and attempting to impose in countries they seek to control are clearly not evidence-based,” he adds, calling the shocking rise in HIV rates a clear “failure of policy and practice.” In January 2016, Russia registered its millionth HIV-positive person, a 26-year-old woman. Actual numbers are likely much higher, according to health experts. Across much of the world, including the United States, the rate of HIV is declining, thanks to strategic programs like clean needle exchanges, increased awareness and better access to antiretroviral therapy. In the U.S., for example, the annual number of overall HIV diagnoses decreased by 5 percent between 2011 and 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that’s not the case in Russia: Here, the rate of HIV infections is rising faster than in sub-Saharan Africa, host to the world’s largest HIV epidemic, where an international effort has slashed the rate of new HIV infections. Russia’s growing HIV crisis is seemingly no match for the Orthodox Church, which preaches faith and family values as the cure-all for the virus. A burgeoning alliance between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the church in recent years has fueled an environment where sexual education in schools is forbidden, clean needle programs are shunned as sinful and attacks on women’s and gay rights are state-sanctioned. Further blocking access to health care and resources, Putin signed a controversial church-backed bill into law in 2013 that criminalized the dissemination of information about homosexuality to minors—or, in government terms, “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.” But it wasn’t just the Russian Orthodox Church: U.S. evangelical funding and influence have also fueled the conservative tide in Russia, says Dr. Breyer. “The [anti-gay law] language was in some cases lifted whole from legislation passed in Nigeria and Uganda,” he says, referring to the U.S. Christian right’s influence on anti-gay legislation in parts of Africa. Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has deemed Putin’s presidency a “miracle from God,” has called for the “establishment of family values, ideals of chastity and marital fidelity” and a focus on “moral education”—not sexual education. The church’s presence on social issues is so suffocating that one researcher working on issues of HIV in Russia quipped that he saw “more Orthodox priests than condoms” at a recent HIV conference in Moscow. Despite the rising number of new HIV infections, Russia is not increasing the amount of HIV medication accessible to the public or ramping up health education efforts. Instead, parents are expected to educate their children at home on the risks of unsafe sex and drug use. HIV experts say that’s largely still not happening, and a generation of children are growing up without life-saving knowledge of HIV and its risks.

Meanwhile, top Russian officials cast doubt on the need to combat the disease. Deputy Director Tatyana Guzenkova of RISS, for example, has said that the HIV epidemic is merely an “information war” waged by the West on Russia.

In the past, most HIV positive Russians contracted the virus through intravenous drug use. That’s changing: The number of people contracting HIV from heterosexual sex will soon overtake new HIV infections from drug use, according to experts. And an increasing number of newly infected Russians—some 38 percent in 2015—are women. As Russia’s decades-long HIV crisis takes on a different shape, experts say more and more Russians like Ivanova—non drug-using Russians who are part of mainstream society—are becoming infected, although drug-use is still a leading factor fueling the country’s HIV epidemic.

Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose GOP "Bathroom Bills"

Time and time again I have noted my shock that today's GOP continues to chase after a shrinking right wing white voter pool even as poll after pool suggests that the majority of voters do not support what the GOP/Christofascists are peddling.  With all Hell breaking loose around North Carolina's HB2 which was passed by the North Carolina GOP to supposedly rally North Carolina Christofascists to the voting booths in November, CNN commissioned a poll that found that nearly 3 out of 5 Americans oppose the GOP's "bathroom bills" and anti-LGBT agenda.  As I have noted before, the modern day Pharisees and political whores who now control the GOP have no long term plan for the Party's survival.  Perhaps it is a God send that Donald Trump has appeared on the scene to accelerate the death of the GOP and perhaps minimize the death throes.  Here are highlights from The Advocate on the CNN poll findings:

Most Americans support LGBT rights in some measure and oppose anti-transgender bathroom laws, such as the one passed in North Carolina, according to a poll released by CNN on Monday.

The survey found 57 percent of respondents were against laws which would require transgender people to use bathrooms that did not correspond with their gender identity. A law passed in North Carolina in March requires transgender people to use bathrooms matching the gender listed on their birth certificates, regardless of gender identity. Only 38 percent said of those polled by CNN they support such legislation.

Additionally, strong opposition outweighed strong support for these anti-LGBT laws, with 39 percent strongly opposed to 25 percent strongly supporting such efforts. Democrats and independents were more likely to oppose the transphobic laws than Republicans, but Republicans were evenly split on the matter, according to the survey.

About 75 percent of respondents favored laws guaranteeing equal protection for transgender people in jobs, housing, and public accommodations, while 80 percent were in favor of such protections for gay and lesbian people. 

I truly believe that today's GOP and its Christofascist supporters make the Pharisees of the Bible look like nice and decent people in comparison.

Based on States’ Records, Supreme Court Should Decide Marriage

In eight days the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the appeal from the 6th Circuit ruling that upheld animus inspired anti-gay marriage bans.  Fifteen attorneys general and their counterpart in the District of Columbia have filed an amicus brief arguing that the Court must strike down such bans and point to the abysmal failure of too many of the states in protecting the rights of minorities as why, despite the calls for "states' rights" - a euphemism for allowing discrimination - the Court must act to stop bigotry and grant equality under the law.  The Washington Post looks at the filing.  Here are highlights:

First by statute and then by amending the commonwealth’s constitution, Virginia forbade same-sex marriage, civil unions, adoptions by gay parents, and, just to be perfectly clear, the creation or recognition of any “union, partnership or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities or effects of marriage.”

Both states [Virginia and Maryland] now have liberal Democratic attorneys general. And as the Supreme Court considers whether the Constitution requires states to allow gay couples to marry, both lawyers are aggressively arguing that the history of their states show why the matter cannot be left to the democratic process.

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, elected last fall, released a report this month concluding that “the states have sometimes been poor custodians of the rights of minorities.” It surveyed the political experiences of jurisdictions with laws prohibiting and permitting gay marriages.

“It is clear that the deference traditionally accorded to states with respect to the institution of marriage is not proper when in so many states the democratic process leading to these bans has been compromised by animus, fear, prejudice, and hate,” the report said.

The Supreme Court on April 28 will consider whether the Constitution forbids states to limit marriage to a man and a woman and whether states are required to recognize same-sex marriages performed where they are legal.

Four federal appeals courts have answered those questions affirmatively. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the restrictions in the four states for which it is responsible: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Maryland has joined 15 states and the District of Columbia in an amicus brief asking the court to find the restrictions unconstitutional. But Frosh said the lawyers in his department wanted to do more to flesh out the arguments used in the brief.

“There hasn’t been a review of different state laws that clearly shows animus played a role in their passage,” Frosh said in an interview. “The lawyers in the office were passionate about it; they wanted to make a statement on marriage equality.”

In Virginia, opponents of same-sex marriage say the democratic process was hijacked. Attorney General Mark R. Herring has drawn widespread criticism and threats of impeachment since he announced in early 2014 that he believed Virginia’s restrictions were unconstitutional and that he would work to overturn them.

[Herring] said, Virginia has been on the wrong side of history in previous landmark Supreme Court cases: opposing desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education; defending its ban on interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia; trying to retain Virginia Military Institute’s exclusion of female cadets in United States v. Virginia.  “The arguments offered to defend those unjust laws are the same arguments offered by marriage equality opponents today,” Herring wrote.

[C]ouples are allowed to marry in Virginia only because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit struck down the commonwealth’s restrictions in 2014, and the Supreme Court declined to review it.
 

An adverse ruling would have consequences, Herring told the court. Since that decision in October through January of this year, he reported, 1,289 gay couples married, and “same-sex weddings account for between 6% and 8% of all marriages celebrated in Virginia.”

Religious based animus does not magically make a discriminatory law constitutional.  Let's hope five or more of the justices agree.

Quote of the Day: AL.com Slams Alabama Supreme Court

As noted in a post last night, the Alabama Supreme Court in a move reminiscent of the 1950's and 1960's issued a ruling ordering state court judges to ignore a federal court ruling invalidating Alabama's ban on same sex marriage.  The Alabama Supreme Court took this move despite the fact that the U. S. Supreme Court had refused to stay the lower federal court ruling thereby signally that a high court ruling striking down same sex marriage bans is likely towards the end of June this year.   AL.com - which disseminates stories from Alabama's largest newspapers - seems to be over Alabama ALWAYS being on the wrong side of history and took the Alabama Supreme Court to task over its insane ruling.  Here are the money quotes:

The Alabama Supreme Court has ordered Alabama's probate justices to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

In doing so, the state's highest court has muddied the legal waters of Alabama, contradicting U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade's ruling that the Alabama Marriage Protection Act is unconstitutional and that Alabama's probate system should license same-sex marriages.

Our state leaders have argued that the federal court system's decision subverts the will of the majority, that an unelected federal judge should not holder greater authority over Alabama than her elected state judges or be able to overturn an Alabama law.

We feel compelled here to reiterate that the point of Granade's ruling is the U.S. Constitutional guarantee that in no state can the majority impose its will on minorities when it comes to unalienable rights.

Yesterday's decision does not change the definition of equal or unalienable in Alabama. It only delays the state's recognition of it.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to provide the final word on same-sex marriage in June; and we believe that Alabama's Supreme Court will find its decision does not hold legal weight.  . . . the [U.S.] Supreme Court denied Alabama's request for a stay, and that should have been the final word on the matter. History has demonstrated that, in constitutional matters, federal courts trump state courts. 

We continue to believe that, in June, the Supreme Court will rightly hold that the unalienable rights of Americans include the right to marry, for all. 

So how does one explain the action of the Alabama Supreme Court?  Two words - elected judges.  Sadly, in Alabama, the Christofascist have largely hijacked much of state government and justices on the Court fear having to face the knuckle dragging Christofascists come the next time they must stand for reelection.  Virginia's appointed judiciary has its problems, but compared to an elected judiciary, it looks pretty remarkable. 

Alabama Supreme Court Orders Stop To Same-Sex Marriages

 Raging bigots or legal mental midgets?

It would seem that Alabama has learned nothing from its history of being on the wrong side of history just about every time an opportunity has presented itself.  Be it supporting slavery, participating in the rise of the Jim Crow laws, turning a blind eye to the lynching of blacks, banning interracial marriage, maintaining sodomy laws, and now banning same sex marriage, Alabama has been in the wrong.  Now, in a testament to the shortcomings of elected judges, the Alabama Supreme Court has issued a ruling barring state court judges from issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.  Never mind that (i) a federal court ruled to the contrary, and (ii) the United States Supreme Court refused to block same sex marriages by extending a stay of the lower court order.  Seemingly, like Ken Cuccinelli and his cohorts here in Virginia, the Alabama justices are too stupid to grasp the concept that the U.S. Federal Constitution as interpreted by the federal courts ALWAYS trumps state law.  These justices apparently want their names remembered by history in the same vein as those on the Virginia Supreme Court when it twice upheld Virginia's ban on interracial marriage.  Here are highlights from AL.com:

Weeks after a United States District Court judge in Mobile ordered a probate judge there to issue same-sex marriage licenses, the Alabama Supreme Court has ordered a halt to same-sex marriages in the state. 

"As it has done for approximately two centuries, Alabama law allows for 'marriage' between only one man and one woman," the order said. "Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to this law. Nothing in the United States Constitution alters or overrides this duty."

The order gives probate judges five days to submit responses if they want to show cause why they should be able to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. 

The order also gives Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis until Thursday to argue why he should not be bound by the order. Davis has asked the court to dismiss him from the lawsuit because he had been ordered by the federal district court to issue licenses to same-sex couples. 

Only Justice Greg Shaw dissented from the order, but he made clear that he did so because he thought the case had been filed incorrectly and the court did not yet have jurisdiction to hear it. In his dissent, Shaw argued that the federal court should have issued a stay against same-sex marriages until the U.S. Supreme Court had settled the matter.

David Kennedy, one of the lawyers who represented the Mobile couple who successfully challenged Alabama's same-sex marriage ban, said he does not think the ruling would survive a challenge in federal court.

"I don't really think that they can do that. I'm not surprised, but I'm somewhat appalled," he said. "The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the stay (on the order striking down the gay marriage ban) would expire on Feb. 9. On Feb. 9, same-sex marriage effectively became legal in Alabama."

Kennedy said he believes that probate judges act "at their own peril" if they choose to obey state courts instead of federal court. He said any couple denied a marriage license could sue in the federal district where they live.

He said the outcome should be clear.  "Whenever state law conflicts with federal law, federal law wins," he said.  

"The state is going to take such a black eye on this," said University of Alabama Law Professor Ron Krotoszynski, Jr.. "I think it's going to play very badly in the national media," he said, citing shows  like Bill Maher, John Oliver and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

"They're rejecting Judge Grenade's reasoning lock stock and barrel," Krotoszynski said.  Granade's reasoning is in line with more than 60 federal district judges who have ruled on the same issue since the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a port of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA) in 2013, Krotoszynski said.

The next likely step is for one of the probate judges to file an emergency stay with the U.S. Supreme Court, Krotoszynski said. The situation could be "chaotic" between now and June when the U.S. Supreme Court is to rule on the issue anyway in a 6th Circuit case, he said.

"The Alabama state Supreme Court does not have the authority to interfere with a federal court order," said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. "This order is outrageous and baffling, and no amount of legalese can hide the bare animus that forms the foundation of this extralegal ruling."

Lesbian Couple Registers First Same-Sex Marriage in Russia

While Russian authorities are dismissing it and claiming that it doesn't count because one of the women comprising the couple is transgender, a lesbian couple has registered the same marriage in Russia.  A young Russian LGBT activist friend posted photos - he's in the photos - from the wedding on Facebook (see one of the images above).  The Raw Story has details.  Here are highlights:

A lesbian couple tied the knot in Russia in a quiet ceremony seen as the first such marriage in the country where gay unions are illegal, activists told AFP Sunday.

The marriage on Friday went through because one of the women was born male but is now transgender and undergoing hormone therapy, said Anna Anisimova, an activist working with Vykhod, an LGBT rights group in Saint-Petersburg.

“The official registration by two women happened because one of them is a man according to the documents,” she said. “Formally it was a wedding between a man and a woman but de-facto it was between two women.”  Both brides wore white dresses.”

Online pictures from the wedding showed the smiling pair, one blonde, the other brunette, sporting lacy wedding gowns and holding bouquets as they signed official paperwork at a Russian civil registry office.

Officials at the registry did not attempt to stop the wedding, but a local lawmaker fumed that he will contest it.  “It’s an insult against thousands of Russian families. I intend to call for its annulment,” Vitaliy Milonov told AFP.

Milonov, a local lawmaker in the city, has been the most ardent lobbyist of Russia’s notorious “gay propaganda” law before it went into effect.

The 2013 anti-gay law, which makes it illegal to distribute information about homosexuality to children, has been decried by the United Nations and seen by homosexuals as de-facto criminalisation of their orientation.

Russia has launched an offensive against the LGBT community, with the country’s official rhetoric increasingly extolling “traditional” values and the Orthodox church.

What's an insult to Russian families is the fact that Russia was in many ways more cultured and enlightened under the last tsars compared to the corrupt dictatorship of Vladimir Putin.  What's also an insult is that once again the Russian Orthodox Church is aligning itself with a tyrant so that senior church leaders can live the good life at the expense of the Russian people.  Sadly, this has been the behavior of the Russian Orthodox Church throughout most of its history.  It goes without saying that I worry about the safety of the brave LGBT activists in Russia.

6th Circuit Issues Batshit Crazy Opinion Upholding Marriage Ban

6th Circuit Panel - Judge Daughtrey is at left.  Assholes are at center and right

Because the Supreme Court left intact rulings by the 4th Circuit, 7th Circuit and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals striking down same-sex marriage bans in those five states, those appeals courts’ decisions applied to six other states in those three circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. In a ruling that ought to terrify minorities of all stripes, by a 2 to one ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held that minority rights can in effect be granted or denied based on the vote of the majority through the "democratic process."  Under the Court's reasoning, state constitutions - and by extension, the Federal Constitution - can be amended to strip the rights of minorities.  Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, and so forth all should be very concerned by the reasoning of the Court.  Their rights, like gay rights are according to the majority ruling subject to the whims and prejudices of the majority of voters.  While the Christofascists are jumping for joy at the ruling - hate merchants Brian Brown and Tony Perkins seemingly are near orgasm - longer term they should be quaking: the day is coming when whites and Christian (certainly conservative Christians) will be in the minority.  Applied to its logical limits, the 6th Circuit ruling would allow the non-white, non-Christofascist majority of the future to strip the "godly folk" of their civil rights and treat them as they have so foully treated others (talk about Karma being a bitch). The ruling is so insane that it's hard to know if the majority wanted to be remembered in the same category as those judges that decided the Dred Scott ruling in the 1800's or if they are seeking to force the U.S. Supreme Court to make marriage equality nationwide.  Metro Weekly looks at the bizarre ruling.  Here are highlights:

In a 2-1 decision, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that same-sex marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee are constitutional. The decision reverses rulings by federal district courts striking down same-sex marriage bans in those four states.

“In just eleven years, nineteen States and a conspicuous District, accounting for nearly forty-five percent of the population, have exercised their sovereign powers to expand a definition of marriage that until recently was universally followed going back to the earliest days of human history. That is a difficult timeline to criticize as unworthy of further debate and voting,” wrote Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton for the majority. “When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.”

Under Judge Sutton's reasoning, schools would perhaps still be segregated and interracial marriage bans might still exist.   One judge dissented and called out the majority for their closed mindedness and, I would argue, bigotry.  Here's more from Metro Weekly:

Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey dissented.

“The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy,” Daughtrey wrote in her dissent. “But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise—that the question before us is “who should decide?”—and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it. “

“The legacies of Judges Deborah Cook and Jeffrey Sutton will forever be cemented on the wrong side of history,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin in a statement.

The decision by the 6th Circuit marks the first time a federal appeals court has upheld a state ban on same-sex marriage and presents a split among the circuit courts, which could encourage the Supreme Court to once again take up the issue of same-sex marriage and decide whether the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in September that if the 6th Circuit allowed same-sex marriage bans to stand “there will be some urgency” for the Supreme Court to step in.

Because the Supreme Court left intact rulings by the 4th Circuit, 7th Circuit and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals striking down same-sex marriage bans in those five states, those appeals courts’ decisions applied to six other states in those three circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. 

Whack Job Clerk Michele McQuigg to Appeal 4th Circuit Marriage Ruling

Michelle McQuigg - the face of anti-gay hate

My impression of Prince William County Circuit Court Clerk Michelle McQuigg (pictured above) to date is that she's a Maggie Gallagher or Victoria Cobb want to be.  The fact that she is being represented by the grossly inappropriately named Christofascists group The Alliance Defending Freedom speaks volumes about her extremism and Christofascist agenda.  In this regard, it is noteworthy that unlike McQuigg, Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk, George Schaefer has been represented by a legitimate law firm and sane legal counsel even if such counsel has argued in defense of mob majority rule and an amendment that at its heart was motivated solely by anti-gay animus.  Now, BuzzFeed reports that McQuigg and her hate merchant/batshit crazy counsel plan on appealing the ruling of the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals which held that Virginia's same sex marriage bans are unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.  They have also filed a motion asking the 4th Circuit to stay its ruling. Apparently, McQuigg wants to go in the annals of history side by side with the proponents of segregation and opponents of interracial marriage.  Here are highlights from BuzzFeed:

A Virginia county court clerk plans to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case challenging Virginia’s ban on same-sex couples’ marriages, her lawyers informed a federal appeals court Friday.

On July 28, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a trial court ruling that Virginia’s ban violated the Constitution.

Prince William County Clerk of Circuit Court Michèle McQuigg — represented by a conservative legal organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom — informed the 4th Circuit Court appeals that she “intends to file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court within the ninety days permitted.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, meanwhile, said that she believes the court won’t “duck[]” the issue if it comes back to the justices, telling the Associated Press, “If a case is properly before the court, they will take it.”


As such, she asked the 4th Circuit to issue a stay of the mandate in the case — which would put the ruling in effect — pending the filing of the petition and, then, until the “Supreme Court’s final disposition” of the case.

Utah officials previously have said that they will be filing a certiorari petition with the Supreme Court seeking to defend their state’s ban.
Once a certiorari petition is filed by one party, it is possible that other parties could filed a petition for certiorari before judgment in order to give the justices more options to find the “perfect” case — but also so that the various lawsuits’ lawyers and supporting organizations can claim the title of defending the case at the Supreme Court.

McQuigg, for her part, has been a party to the Virginia case, and her lawyer was one of the two attorneys defending the ban before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal when it heard arguments over the ban in May.

As such, she asked the 4th Circuit to issue a stay of the mandate in the case — which would put the ruling in effect — pending the filing of the petition and, then, until the “Supreme Court’s final disposition” of the case.

Like Victoria Cobb, McQuigg must be a truly miserable, bitter and foul individual if she can only feel justified in her life by striving to deny civil rights to others.  Like Cobb, I suspect she congratulates herself on her piety and "godliness" even as she seethes hatred and hypocrisy.   Once again, I also wonder what the Hell is in the water in Prince William County that a repressed, neurotic individual like McQuigg was elected as Clerk of the Circuit Court in the first place.

Susan Collins: Fourth Republican Senator To Support Same-Sex Marriage

While most Congressional Republicans remain utter pandering political whores to the Christofascists base of the GOP, some Republican members of Congress seemingly seem to see the hand writing on the wall and are shifting their support to advocates of gay marriage.  As noted yesterday Republican Senator Johnson of Minnesota has urged the GOP to drop its opposition to marriage equality.  Now Susan Collins of Maine (pictured above) has joined Johnson and two other GOP Senators in calling for marriage equality.  It goes without saying that NOM and the "godly Christian" hate merchants will be most unhappy with Collins.  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

Susan Collins became the fourth Republican senator to support marriage equality on Wednesday, announcing her position in a questionnaire from Maine’s Bangor Daily News. “A number of states, including my home state of Maine, have now legalized same-sex marriage, and I agree with that decision,” Collins wrote. Voters in Maine outlawed same-sex marriage in 2009, but legalized it in 2012.

Collins’ spokesperson clarified that the senator had previously remained silent on marriage equality because “she doesn’t want to get involved in state-level referendum issues.” “She’s a U.S. senator, and she stays within the purview of her office,” Lance Dutson told the paper. “But when asked [today] about her personal stance on this issue, she said she supports it.” Collins publicly announced her position after receiving the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization. HRC also endorsed the senator in 2008.

Despite remaining silent on marriage, Collins had long been acted as an ally of the LGBT community, sponsoring legislation to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — the military’s ban against openly gay servicemembers — and supporting a measure to prohibit employers from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

With twenty states now allowing same-sex couples to marry, Republican lawmakers have steered clear of the matter in recent years. On Monday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) urged the party to avoid discussing social issues and Republican leaders have previously preached greater tolerance towards gay people.

Collins joins Republican senators Rob Portman (OH), Mark Kirk (IL) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) in supporting equal marriage rights. Almost all Democratic senators have evolved on the issue, with the exception of Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AR), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

It is a safe bet that as they become more and more of a backwater among normal Americans and as they lose their hold over the GOP, the Christofascists and the "profesional Christian" crowd will become even more shrill and extreme - all of which will hasten their much deserved banishment into the political wilderness.

Boston Globe Column: Opposition to Marriage Equality = Support for Jim Crow Laws

Brian Brown - professional hate merchant

If one knows accurate history - which sadly far too many black pastors seemingly do not - one will immediately see the parallels between those who oppose marriage equality for same sex couples and those who opposed desegregation in the 1950's and 1960's (indeed, some of those opponents STILL oppose desegregation).  Worse yet, if one knows the antecedents of today's "family values" organizations, many track directly back to some of the movements that were most vociferous in their opposition to desegregation and who often cited the Bible as justification for their deeply held hate and bigotry.  One need look no farther than FRC president Tony Perkins who has a documented history of supporting white supremacist organizations. These people were and are on the wrong side of history.  A column in the Boston Globe looks at these modern day descendants of segregationist who are yet again on the wrong side of history.  Here are some column highlights:

Americans will rally in Washington, D.C., at a March for Marriage on Thursday in support of “the simple and beautiful message,” to quote Brian Brown, that “marriage between one man and one woman is unique and critical for our society.” Brown is president of the National Organization for Marriage, the event’s lead sponsor.

Don’t he and his supporters know that they’re on the Wrong Side of History?

These days, of course, anyone who publicly opposes same-sex marriage can expect to be scorned in many quarters as a bigot or reviled as an ignoramus. No Democrat with serious political ambitions would dare to agree with Brown’s traditional point of view. In some places the same is increasingly true of Republicans.

Yet until about 10 minutes ago, in historical terms, the traditional understanding of marriage as the complementary union of male and female was anything but controversial. Brown’s “simple and beautiful message,” now seen as so threatened that it needs to be defended at Washington rallies, was about as mainstream a position as there was in American life.

 Same-sex marriage has gone from all-but-unthinkable to all-but-unstoppable. So what do those marchers in Washington think they’re going to accomplish? Don’t they have better things to do with their lives than fight for a cause that, if not yet entirely lost, is surely down for the count? Why don’t they wake up and smell the historical inevitability?

Then again, much the same could have been said a century ago to those who insisted — in the depths of Jim Crow — that the cause of civil rights and racial fairness was worth fighting for. They too must have heard with regularity that they were on the “wrong side of history.” The promise of Reconstruction was long gone. In much of the country, black enfranchisement was a dead letter. The Supreme Court had ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation — “separate but equal” — was constitutional.

History is littered with causes and beliefs that were thought at one point to be historically unstoppable, from the divine right of kings to worldwide Marxist revolution. In the relative blink of an eye, same-sex marriage has made extraordinary political and psychological gains. It is on a roll, winning hearts and minds as well as court cases. No wonder it seems to so many that history’s verdict is in, and same-sex marriage is here to stay.

I first moved to Virginia shortly after the ruling in Loving v. Virginia and, coming from New York State, was shocked to see separate restroom facilities for blacks and whites even in courthouses (somehow the whites always happened to have the far nicer facilities) and there were (and are) some who proclaimed segregation now, segregation forever.  History does not look kindly on such people and I am convinced that the anti-gay animus filled "family values" organizations of today will be equated with the KKK by future generations.  I can only wonder what the grandchildren of Tony Perkins and Maggie Gallagher, et al, will think of their ancestors.  I suspect that many will slink and hide and pretend they do not know who the hate merchants in their lineage even were.  I can't say that I would blame them.

Herring Defends Choice to Fight Gay Marriage Ban to State Bar Gathering

The Virginia State Bar is anything but what one would describe as gay friendly.  To date, its diversity initiatives have acted as if gays do not exist despite the efforts of many to open eyes and minds, Perhaps this will change as Kevin Martingayle takes the reins as State Bar president.  Kevin has a track record of being gay friendly and his sister-in-law is lesbian talk show host Doria Biddle.  Time will tell on this issue.  Meanwhile, at the Virginia State Bar annual meeting in Virginia Beach over the weekend, Attorney General Mark Herring addressed the gathering of attorneys and made the case as to why he was correct to reject his predecessor's anti-gay stance and instead shift to arguing that Virginia's same sex marriage ban is unconstitutional.  The Virginian Pilot reports on Herring's speech which received a standing ovation.  Here are excerpts:

Mark Herring evaluated his role as attorney general and did rigorous legal analysis before his decision not to defend the state’s same-sex marriage ban, he explained at the Virginia State Bar’s annual meeting Saturday.

Herring, a Democrat, announced in January his office would argue that the voter-approved ban was unconstitutional. The backlash was swift and severe.

Protesters marched outside the U.S. District Court in Norfolk in February during hearings on a lawsuit against the state’s 2006 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. A Virginia delegate called for Herring’s impeachment in May.

The atmosphere inside the Sheraton Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel was much friendlier Saturday.

Though he took an oath to defend the Virginia Constitution as well as the nation’s, he realized they were not in accord on this issue.

“As we all learned in law school, when the two of those conflict, the U.S. Constitution prevails,” he said.

The state’s chief public lawyer also studied several landmark court cases before his decision, including one involving the Alien and Sedition Act. Thomas Jefferson did not continue to prosecute violators of that law once he was elected because he said it violated freedom of speech. The act was later overturned.

“In Virginia, when you can cite Thomas Jefferson, that always helps,” Herring said, eliciting a laugh from the audience.

Herring noted that while the power to go against the state constitution should be used sparingly, he thought what he did was right.

“I was determined to show that Virginia has moved forward,” he said, referring to times like the civil rights movement when the state was “on the wrong side of history.”

Herring’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He walked out of the room quietly, shaking a few hands along the way.

No doubt Herring's speech would elicit the gnashing of teeth and spittle flecked eruptions from the hate merchants at The Family Foundation which has making life a living hell for LGBT Virginia's a number one priority.  That and demanding special rights for Christofascists.  

One of the proudest things that the husband and I have done was actively supporting Mark Herring's campaign, including hosting an event for him in our home.  This year, I suspect we will doing something similar for Senator Mark Warner.   Elections do matter and individuals can help make a difference.

Mark Herring Fights Marriage Ban — And Virginia's Ugly History

The Republican Party of Virginia, if given its way, would turn the clock back to circa 1950.  A time in Virginia that was anything but the "good old days" for anyone other than white heterosexual males.  But then again. today's GOP main obsession is about maintaining the privilege of angry white far right Christians, preferably the ones who are male.  How else to explain the Virginia GOP's unrelenting war on women, efforts to disenfranchise blacks, and maintain gays as an inferior class under the civil laws now that efforts to revive the state's sodomy law have permanently failed.  Enter Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, who rather than pining for the days of gross inequality seeks to smash once and for all the state sponsored bigotry against LGBT Virginians.  A piece in BuzzFeed looks at Herring's quest.  Here are excerpts:

As the sun set in Richmond on Monday, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring was talking about all the times the person who has sat in his seat has been on the wrong side of history.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond will consider on Tuesday whether Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex couples’ marriages violates the U.S. Constitution. And, unlike those former attorneys general, Herring believes that in choosing not to defend the law — and, in fact, arguing that the ban is unconstitutional — that he is on the right side of history.

“I looked at the brief that [former Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli’s office had filed” in the challenge to V

irginia’s marriage ban passed in 2006, Herring, a Democrat, said. “I had read large pieces of some of the briefs that were filed in some of the cases that Virginia was on the wrong side of decades ago, like the Brown v. Board Education cases. Prince Edward County in Virginia was one of those [school districts in the case], where the attorney general of Virginia argued the wrong position. And, same with Loving v. Virginia, same with the [Virginia Military Institute] case,” where VMI’s single-sex admissions policy was declared unconstitutional.

Sitting in his office overlooking the state capitol on Monday evening, Herring talked with BuzzFeed about how he made the decision not to defend the law in this case — Bostic v. Schaefer — and what difference he thinks it makes that he has done so.

After naming Stuart Raphael his solicitor general, the top appellate lawyer in the office, Herring said he put Raphael — who left his job as a partner at Hunton & Williams for the role — in charge of the review.

“I tasked him with the job of leading a team to do that legal analysis and coming back to me with that research so that we could work together to come to a legal conclusion — and you know what I concluded: It’s unconstitutional, violates due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment,” Herring said, adding, when asked, that Raphael had reached the same conclusion in his analysis.

And though he said “there was immediate criticism from some predictable circles,” he said the bigger response came from those who supported his decision. “Some of the most moving conversations I’ve had, a lot of times, in the days following that, were from parents who came up to me — people I didn’t know — who came up to me and said, first, that they wanted to thank me for what I’d done and, second, they told me that the day I made the announcement, that they got a call from their son or their daughter, in tears, because of what it meant to them to have their state’s attorney general stand up, do what’s right, and to fight for them and their rights.”

I come back to the Windsor case [striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act], and what Justice [Anthony] Kennedy said, writing for the majority, which is that laws that treat same-sex couples as second-class citizens violate due process and equal protection.” 

“In my opinion,” Herring said of Tuesday’s [4th Circuit Court of Appeals] panel, “if they’re thinking carefully about the most recent precedent, they’ll see the direction that I think the Supreme Court is headed — regardless of who the panel is.”

[O]n Tuesday, Herring and Raphael will be sitting in the courthouse just down the block from Herring’s office, and Raphael will be arguing that the appeals court should strike down the ban that voters of the state put in place less than eight years ago.  “I think it’s going to be an interesting day,” Herring said. “I think it’s going to be a good day for Virginia.”

Since the onset of the Civil War, more often than not Virginia has been on the wrong side of history.  Slavery, Jim Crow laws, racial and religious based bigotry and discrimination have been the norm, not the exception.  It is far past time that Virginia return to the ideals of its enlightened founders and kick the poison disseminated by hate spewing preachers out of the civil laws.

Charleston Gazette: West Virginia Attorney General on Wrong Side of History

Virginia has a relationship with West Virginia much like that which Alabama has with Mississippi: the eastern neighbor can always point to the state to the west as being worse than they are.  Now, the Charleston Gazette has run an editorial that notes that West Virginia's Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, unlike Mark Herring in Virginia, is on the wrong side of history in his defense of West Virginia's anti-gay ban on same sex marriage.  The paper goes on to predict that Morrisey will fail in his effort.  Here are editorial highlights:

A federal judge in Cincinnati announced Friday that he will strike down part of Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage. 

He joins a tidal wave of morality change that is sweeping America. Already, 18 states have legalized gay wedlock, with more poised to follow. The U.S. Supreme Court obliterated most of the Republican-passed Defense of Marriage Act, which ostracized same-sex weddings. Gays now serve openly in the U.S. military. Many states have outlawed discrimination against them. America’s values are evolving with remarkable speed.

Therefore, we predict that West Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey will fail in his attempt to deny this state’s gays an equal right to wed.

Like most rural, conservative places, West Virginia passed a law to prevent homosexuals from marrying. The law forbade the state to recognize such marriages performed in other states. Repeatedly, fundamentalists sought to lock this prejudice into the state constitution. 

Last fall, three West Virginia couples filed a federal human rights suit challenging the state’s ban. The case is before U.S. Judge Robert Chambers in Huntington. Morrisey leaped into court to oppose marriage equality. He calculates that the action will bring him conservative mountain votes in the next election.

But Morrisey is on the wrong side of history. America is turning more tolerant, and past bigotry is disappearing. Those who defend it will be pushed aside by the progress of democracy.

A half-century ago, it was a felony to be gay in West Virginia. Anyone caught in same-gender sex could be sentenced to the old stone prison at Moundsville. But gay sex was legalized in this state

in the 1970s, and the U.S. Supreme Court finally made it legal nationwide in 2003

We hope Judge Chambers follows the Ohio judge and voids West Virginia’s discrimination against gays and lesbians. Morrisey may reap thousands of rural votes for his defense of discrimination — but he’s destined to lose in the long run. The tide of history is abundantly clear.

Like in Southwest Virginia, rural fundamentalists are holding West Virginia back and harming its future by their hate and fear based religious bigotry. 

White Supremacist Group Files Brief Supporting Michigan Gay Marriage Ban

There's an old saying that you will be known by the company you keep  - it certainly applies to Michigan GOP Attorney General Bill Schuette and Michigan GOP Governor Rick Snyder who are defending Michigan's ban on same sex marriage after the ban was struck down as unconstitutional.  Why so you might ask?  Because in addition to being joined by the ugliest elements of the Christofascist ranks, a white supremacy group has now also filed a brief supporting the state's wrong headed position endorsing anti-gay discrimination.  I have said repeatedly that the GOP base has become a joint venture of racists and religious extremists and this brief and other aspects of this case is underscoring this reality.  Here are highlights from the Southern Poverty Law Center which monitors hate groups:

In an amicus brief filed yesterday in federal court in Michigan, the Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN) –– a student organization concerned with promoting white identity –– has taken up the mantle of defending the “sanctity of marriage” against “Culture distorters” who seek to reject “originalism.”

The brief was filed in the case of April DeBoer, a nurse in Hazel Park, Mich., who sued the state after she and her partner, Jayne Rowse, were prohibited from adopting their three children jointly because they did not have a legal marriage. Last week, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled in their favor, striking down the Michigan Marriage Act as unconstitutional. But his decision was temporarily put on hold by an appeals court.

The defense of “traditional” marriage represents something of a shift in focus for TYN, which has historically concerned itself with “Tribe and Tradition” and encouraging young people to unite against “decadence, individualism, Marxism and Modernity.” Its co-founder, Matthew Heimbach, rose from the ranks of white nationalism and has aligned himself more closely with racist activists than with conservative groups standing against same-sex marriage.

The brief . . . claim[s] that the judge’s ruling is an “affront to thousands of years of the Western legal tradition and hundreds of years of the American legal tradition.”

“While the appellants will likely not say it as bluntly as this,” the brief said, “the Culture distorters and those who espouse their ideals flagrantly reject originalism and often treat the United States Constitution like an accordion: they frequently stretch it out to invent rights that do not exist –– such as the ‘right’ to have an abortion or the ‘right’ to engage in sodomy or the ‘right’ to view pornographic materials.”

After several telephone conversations between Hatewatch and TYN leaders on Wednesday, Parrott published a short piece titled “TradYouth Stands for Traditional Marriage” on the group’s website to explain the shift.

“The recent campaign in favor of homosexual ‘marriage’ is merely one battle in [the Left’s] generational campaign against the ties that bind our peoples,” Parrott wrote, tying a defense of a traditional marriage to the white nationalist cause.
[T]he brief lists Kyle Bristow as TYN’s lead attorney. . . . . While attending law school in 2010, he published White Apocalypse, a novel seething with lethal white supremacist revenge fantasies against Jewish professors, Latino and American Indian activists and staffers of a group clearly modeled on the SPLC. Since then, Bristow has continued to air his extremist views in white nationalist, anti-gay media.

Among the claims made in the brief are the following:

·       [S]ame-sex marriage is an affront to the health, safety, morals, and public welfare of the residents of the State of Michigan which is why the Western and American legal traditions have proscribed sodomy much less same-sex marriage for thousands and hundreds of years, respectively.

·       If a state cannot be permitted to define marriage as simply as constituting one man and one woman, then our culture will be taken down a very slippery slope that will see pedophiles, polygamists, zoophiles, those in incestuous relationships, and every other sexual deviant with proclivities now known or to be invented to challenge laws that, likewise, prevent them from marrying whom or what they wish.

·       Not satisfied with exercising their newfound right in private, homosexuals have come out of the closet and into the courtroom in attempt to further normalize their conduct by demanding more rights that are not in accordance with history. Amazingly, the Culture distorters have marched forward so relentlessly in the culture war that sodomy has not only been legalized, but now those who practice sodomy are demanding to be permitted to marry one another which the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan was happy to oblige.