Senate Democrats Jump Into Pro-Gay Marriage Camp

While the Republican Party continues to prostitute itself to the Christofascists and voices of hate and intolerance and clings to an anti-gay agenda, the Democrats see where the polls are trending and the reality that very soon that being anti-gay marriage will be a losing proposition.  While many of these Democrats claim that they have "evolved," I suspect that in many cases - Senator Mark Warner is probably an exception - what has motivated them to suddenly support gay marriage is simply the fact that they see being anti-gay as bad politics as the older anti-gay voters are dying off and being replaced by gay supporting younger voters.  These folks are not profiles in courage by any means.  But, for now, I will accept their support regardless of the true motivation.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at these conversions.  Here are highlights:

In the past month, the rapid rise in public support for same-sex marriage has left Supreme Court justices perplexed and some political veterans, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, struggling to keep up. 

But there may be no better measure of this historic change and its disorienting speed than what has happened among the Democrats of the U.S. Senate. They are often representatives of an urban party in rural places. That makes them the zebras of Washington’s little world: perpetually vulnerable, sniffing the wind.

As recently as the last election, 17 of those Democrats did not support same-sex marriage. By this week, however, the number was smaller.  And getting more so by the day.

“After much thought and prayer, I have come to my own personal conclusion that we shouldn’t tell people who they can love or who they can marry,” Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) said Wednesday in a statement posted on her Facebook page.  .  .  .  .   After Hagan, nine Democrats left. And on Wednesday, even that group seemed to show limited enthusiasm for the cause of limiting marriage to unions of one man and one woman.

For many Democrats, support for same-sex marriage no longer seems like an option. It seems like an obligation.  “Many more family members have come forward, whether it’s somebody’s sister, brother, cousin, uncle, mother, father, whatever it is, have come forward as to their interest in marriage equality, and that’s been then translated into our popular culture. . . . So, we’re in a different place,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday, describing how she’s seen other lawmakers change their opinions.

According to the activist group Human Rights Campaign, 46 of 55 Senate Democrats and independents now support same-sex marriage, compared to last fall, when supporters numbered 36 out of 53.

Norfolk Pastor Arrested for Child Porn

Yet another example of hypocrisy in the pulpit has arisen.  This time it involves David William Smith (shown at left), pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Norfolk, Virginia.  Interestingly and perhaps tellingly, Trinity Lutheran is a member of the vociferously anti-gay Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church which largely ceased all cooperative work with the larger Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (which I belong to) when that denomination adopted gay friendly policies and voted to allow gay clergy.  Like the stridently anti-gay Southern Baptist Convention, the Missouri Synod Lutherans need to focus more on cleaning out their own foul house as opposed to stigmatizing and denigrating gays on a regular basis.  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

The pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church was arrested this afternoon on child pornography charges.

David William Smith, 35, faces 10 counts of possession of child pornography, a felony, police said. He is in city jail on no bond. The arrest followed an investigation by Norfolk police’s computer crimes section.

The church, which also operates a school, is in the 6000 block of Granby St. According to the church’s website, Smith was installed as the pastor in November 2010.

It almost always seems to be the far right denominations that are bizarrely obsessed with all things sexual like the Missouri Synod crowd that have the sexual deviants in the pulpit.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Dowd Calls Out SCOTUS: Courting Cowardice

Yes, today's oral arguments in United States v. Windsor were encouraging.  However, if DOMA is struck down, that still leaves millions of LGBT couples - the boyfriend and I included - screwed because we live in states where the Christofascists continue to control or at least intimidate the state legislatures into adopting the Christofascists' anti-gay agenda.  Thus, absent a broad ruling in the Proposition 8 case or less likely in the DOMA case, we will remain third class citizens for the foreseeable future.  Many of us do not have that option.  The real solution is for the Supreme Court to rule that there is a federal constitutional right to gay marriage.  Frankly, the justices are just plain chicken shits who are afraid to do the right thing.  Maureen Dowd calls them out is a column in the New York Times.  Here are excerpts:

As the arguments unfurled in Tuesday’s case on same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court justices sounded more and more cranky.  Things were moving too fast for them. 

How could the nine, cloistered behind velvety rose curtains, marble pillars and archaic customs, possibly assess the potential effects of gay marriage? They’re not psychics, after all.

“Same-sex marriage is very new,” Justice Samuel Alito whinged, noting that “it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing.” If the standard is that marriage always has to be “a good thing,” would heterosexuals pass? 

Swing Justice Anthony Kennedy grumbled about “uncharted waters,” and the fuddy-duddies seemed to be looking for excuses not to make a sweeping ruling. Their questions reflected a unanimous craven impulse: How do we get out of this? This court is plenty bold imposing bad decisions on the country, like anointing W. president or allowing unlimited money to flow covertly into campaigns. But given a chance to make a bold decision putting them on the right, and popular, side of history, they squirm. 

Donald Verrilli Jr., the U.S. solicitor general arguing on the side of same-sex marriage, told the justices, “There is a cost to waiting.” He recalled that the argument by opponents of interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 was to delay because “the social science is still uncertain about how biracial children will fare in this world.”   The wisdom of the Warren court is reflected two miles away, where a biracial child is faring pretty well in his second term in the Oval Office. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics last week announced its support for same-sex marriage, citing evidence that children of gays and lesbians do better when the couples marry. It may take another case, even another court, to legitimize same-sex marriage nationally, but the country has moved on.

Charles Cooper, the lawyer for the proponents of Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, was tied in knots, failing to articulate any harm that could come from gay marriage and admitting that no other form of discrimination against gay people was justified. His argument, that marriage should be reserved for those who procreate, is ludicrous. Sonia Sotomayor was married and didn’t have kids. Clarence and Ginny Thomas did not have kids. Chief Justice Roberts’s two kids are adopted. Should their marriages have been banned? What about George and Martha Washington? They only procreated a country. 

While Justice Alito can’t see into the future, most Americans can. If this court doesn’t reject bigotry, history will reject this court.

If Chief Justice Roberts worried about the Supreme Court's credibility and stature in the context of the challenge to the Affordable Health Care Act, he ought to be worried that thee Court today is acting very similar to its predecessors who handed down the Dred Scott decision  - which ruled that African-Americans were not citizens, and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in any territory acquired subsequent to the creation of the United States - and Plessy v. Ferguson which upheld state laws mandating racial segregation.  Is this the legacy Roberts wants? He has the chance to avoid this legacy.  But it will take a spine to avoid it.

Tony Perkins Gets Beat Up Over His Defense Of DOMA

It goes without saying that the Christofascist circles are big time unhappy with the way in which the oral arguments in United States v. Windsor seem to have played out.  Ultimately, the arguments of the supporters of DOMA come down to religious belief and nothing else - a fact that Bill O'Reilly in a moment of candor noted (see the image below).  Indeed, Justice Kagan read from a portion of the Congressional Record covering DOMA's enactment where it flat out stated that the objective was to codify moral disapproval of homosexuals.  Despite this literal, documented historic reality, the Christofascists try to fall back to whining that "children deserve a mother and father" while totally ignoring the millions of children already living in homes headed by same sex couples.  In truth, folks like Tony Perkins don't give a flying f*ck about the children of gays.  A piece at Mediate looks at the beat down Tony Perkins received on MSNBC.  Here are highlights:

NBC News reporter Luke Russert engaged in a thorough grilling of Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Wednesday over his defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. On several occasions, Russert put Perkin’s on the defense and challenged the assertions he made to justify DOMA’s constitutionality. The interview became heated and somewhat hostile when Perkins asked how, if love is the only boundary for marriage, America would be able to prohibit polygamy.

He [Perkins] then claimed that studies show that children fare better when they are raised in a two-parent household with parents of the opposite gender. Russert challenged that assertion:

“There are studies also, especially from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which say that a two-person home, even if it is a same-sex couple, is beneficial for children,” Russert contended. 

Crosstalk ensued as Perkins attempted to refute Russet’s contention. He said that the study Russert cited ignores other research into that topic. Russert fired back that the study Perkins’ cites was dismissed because of the wording of some questions and its having been funded by conservative backers.

“What do you fear the most about a couple being together – a same-sex couple being together over 60 years like we saw in the Windsor case – what do you fear so much about them getting the same federal benefits for their marriage as an opposite-sex couple would?” Russert asked.

“I don’t fear anything,” Perkins replied. “Then why do you oppose,” Russert interjected.

It is refreshing to for a change an anchor challenging Perkins' hate, bigotry and fraudulent claims.  We need to see much more of it - enough where Perkins won't even show his racist, homophobic face on television at all.  Here's the image of O'Reilly summing up the argument of Perkins and those like him:

Thoughts and Reflections on the DOMA Oral Arguments

Click image to enlarge

While yesterday's oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry were somewhat disappointing given that they seemed to foretell that no broad ruling in support of a constitutional right to gay marriage will be forthcoming, the oral arguments today in United States v. Windsor appear much more promising.  Indeed, many are now predicting that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act that will be ruled unconstitutional.  Moreover, the argument and questions from the justices helped to underscore that the entire purpose of DOMA was and always has been to discriminate against gay and lesbian Americans.  And true to form, just as was the case with ending segregation, those who are supporting bigotry are thumping on their Bibles as justification for their hate, bigotry and rank discrimination.  A piece at SCOTUS Blog looks at today's events.  Here are highlights:

If the Supreme Court can find its way through a dense procedural thicket, and confront the constitutionality of the federal law that defined marriage as limited to a man and a woman, that law may be gone, after a seventeen-year existence. That was the overriding impression after just under two hours of argument Wednesday on the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act.

That would happen, it appeared, primarily because Justice Anthony M. Kennedy seemed persuaded that the federal law intruded too deeply into the power of the states to regulate marriage, and that the federal definition cannot prevail. The only barrier to such a ruling, it appeared, was the chance – an outside one, though — that the Court majority might conclude that there is no live case before it at this point.

And one of the most talented lawyers appearing these days before the Court — Washington attorney Paul D. Clement — faced fervent opposition to his defense of DOMA from enough members of the Court to make the difference. He was there on behalf of the Republican leaders of the House (as majority members of the House’s Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group), defending the law because the Obama administration has stopped doing so.

Justice Kennedy told Clement that there was “a real risk” that DOMA would interfere with the traditional authority of states to regulate marriage. Kennedy also seemed troubled about the sweeping breadth of DOMA’s Section 3, noting that its ban on benefits to already married same-sex couples under 1,100 laws and programs would mean that the federal government was “intertwined with citizens’ daily lives.” He questioned Congress’s very authority to pass such a broad law.

Moreover, Kennedy questioned Clement’s most basic argument — that Congress was only reaching for uniformity, so that federal agencies would not have to sort out who was or was not married legally in deciding who could qualify for federal marital benefits, because some states were on the verge of recognizing same-sex marriage.

Justice Kennedy seemed to be leaning toward finding that there did exist a live controversy — between the government and Ms. Windsor, over whether she is entitled to a refund of an estate tax she paid on her late spouse’s estate. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., commented that the Court had never ruled on a case in which all of the parties involved agreed — as he suggested would be the case with the government and Ms. Windsor sharing their opposition to DOMA.

Analysis at Towleroad also looks at  the ridiculousness of the arguments of the DOMA supporters:

Shortly after came a question from Justice Alito -- what is the purpose of something like federal favorable tax treatment for married couples: is it to foster traditional marriage or to focus on support households that function as a single economic unit? -- that may be that rare instance where a question can tell us where the Court is going. The conservative Alito was expressing the point we have discussed before that DOMA cannot be about encouraging heterosexuals to marry because it deals with the benefits given after two people decide to get married. Those benefits are about a married couple functioning together, not about the sex or sexual orientation of those married. This is a conservative justice criticizing the marriage rationale for DOMA. I think we saw evidence of DOMA's downfall here.

It was Mr. Clement's response to Justice Alito's question that was perhaps the most remarkably ironic and illogical statement of the entire argument: DOMA is constitutional because Congress has an interest in treating all gay couples equally. Without DOMA, Mr. Clement said, gay couples in marriage equality states would get federal benefits, but gay couples in marriage discrimination states would not.

I was floored when I heard that, and I imagined that Mr. Clement's head would cartoonishly explode after such nonsense. He argues that precisely because some states ban gays from marrying, a gay couple in one state would get federal benefits and a gay couple in another state would not get benefits if we got rid of DOMA. That means that the government has an interest in treating all gay couples the same, but different (and worse) than heterosexual couples.

What followed was a pretty remarkable 10 minutes that can charitably be described as target practice from all sides. Justice Kagan reminded Mr. Clement that some members of Congress had improper, discriminatory motives for passing DOMA. Justice Kennedy said the entire law didn't make sense, with Section 2 purporting to support states' rights and Section 3 (at issue in this case) taking states' rights away. What Justice Kennedy missed was the implication of juxtaposing Sections 2 and 3: the gratuitous recitation of current law in Section 2 (one state does not have to recognize gay marriages in another state if they violate public policy), coupled with the anti-gay federal definition of marriage in Section 3, proves that Congress didn't really care about states' rights; if it really cared about states' rights, it would have never passed Section 3. Rather, it cared only about discriminating against gays, hence the inconsistency on states' rights. Justice Ginsburg highlighted the multitude of ways that DOMA turns valid gay marriages into "skim-milk" marriages, implying that the only reason someone could support DOMA is if he or she felt diluting gay marriages was somehow a good thing. Mr. Clement struggled to respond, returning often to his talking points about how the federal government always meddles in marriage.

In short, it wasn't pretty and the bigotry and anti-gay animus behind DOMA's enactment became all too obvious.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

I have had the opportunity to meet Dustin Lance Black three times.  Not only is he cute as can be, but he is a truly nice, unpretentious guy.  He has worked diligently to make a difference in the battle for LGBT rights.  I am definitely a fan!

New York Times to SCOTUS: Rule Broadly for Gay Marriage

Even as the Supreme Court justices - motivated by bigotry or cowardice - scramble looking for ways to stop the inevitable tide toward nationwide marriage equality and duck the main issue of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the out pouring of support from major newspapers and individuals continues to grow.  Indeed, Facebook when very red yesterday as an HRC image exploded across the Internet.  Meanwhile, the National Organization for Marriages anti-gay hate march turned out underwhelming numbers despite much hoopla by NOM in its lead up.  Joining the chorus of publications urging the Court to face the marriage equality issue is the New York Times (locally, both the Daily Press and Virginian Pilot have taken this stance).  Here are excerpts from the Times editorial:

If the court decides the case on the merits, it is hard to imagine that a majority could be swayed by the arguments offered by Charles Cooper, the lawyer for the marriage ban’s supporters. Even if his presentation had been more fluent, there was no way to overcome the incoherence of his position.

The core of Mr. Cooper’s argument was that a ruling allowing same-sex marriage would be “redefining” marriage in a way that undermines the “responsible procreation” of children. Yet California allows same-sex couples to adopt children, and many heterosexual couples who can’t have children get married. 

When Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked him if — outside the marriage context — he could “think of any other rational basis, reason, for a state using sexual orientation as a factor in denying homosexuals benefits or imposing burdens,” he could not. When Justice Elena Kagan asked him to describe “what harm to the institution of marriage or to opposite-sex couples” would occur if same-sex couples were allowed to marry, he failed to provide a single example.

Neither the Federal District Court in California nor the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found any of his arguments persuasive.

By contrast, Theodore Olson, representing the supporters of same-sex marriage, had the benefit of solid logic on his side. Noting the long line of Supreme Court cases that have declared marriage a fundamental right, he argued that society had no rational basis denying same-sex couples the dignity that marriage affords. 

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who may be a swing vote, remarked, “We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history or more.” But he pointed out to Mr. Cooper, “There are some 40,000 children in California” with same-sex parents and “they want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of those children is important in this case, don’t you think?” 

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., in support of Mr. Olson’s clients, made a cautious, lawyerly argument that the court should rule that California and the seven other states that allow civil unions equivalent to marriage could not deny same-sex couples the status of marriage — and should leave for another day the broader issue as applied to all other states. But he acknowledged that “waiting is not a neutral act” and that it “imposes real costs.”

Personally,  I find the blather about only having "five years of information" disingenuous.  The reality is that millions of children are living with gay parents and they are harmed every single day by the denial of marriage rights to their parents.  But then again, the Christofascists don't really give a damn about children, at least not after they come out of the womb.  Their hypocrisy is as always stunning.

Fox News Contributors Lie and Say Marriage Equality Would Criminalize Christianity

Fox News contributors Todd Starnes (L) and Erick Erickson (R)

The false claims of anti-Christian persecution continue to be spewed by the Christofascists and their sycophants as the nation continues to move toward gay acceptance while rejecting Christofascist efforts to inflict their foul hate and fear based religious views on all of society.  Sadly, there will be those ignorant and gullible enough to believe the lies - the Christofascists main stock in trade besides hatred of others - put out by those who see their special rights and unwarranted past deference waning.  It's no surprise that Fox News - a/k/a Faux News on this blog - is assisting in disseminating the lies that supporting gay rights will equate with criminalizing Christianity.  Think Progress looks at the campaign of lies and untruths:

As the Supreme Court weighs the merits of allowing gay and lesbian Americans the freedom to marry, right-wing anti-equality advocates are cranking the fearmongering up to 11, claiming that a world of marriage equality is one that would functionally ban Christians from practicing their religion.

Two Fox News contributors, independently and in other outlets, made dire predictions along these lines. Todd Starnes, speaking on American Family Radio, argued that “persecution [of Christians] like we have never seen it” had “already started” as a consequence of the marriage equality movement:

STARNES: You know, it’s as if we’re second-class citizens now because we support the traditional, Biblical definition of marriage, or perhaps we are pro-life, and that means we’re somehow second-class citizens who don’t deserve to be in the public marketplace of ideas.
RIOS (HOST): Absolutely. In fact, it’ll be worse than that. You know there’s going to be punishment. There will be tremendous punishment. If gay marriage is embraced by the country, if the Supreme Court goes south this week in its hearings, we are in for – of course, we’re not going to hear about it until June – but we are in for persecution like we have never seen it.
STARNES: Well, it’s already started.

In reality, every piece of marriage equality legislation that’s been passed around country has included legal exemptions preventing clergymembers and religious institutions from being forced to provide marriage-related services to LGBT Americans. 

Another Fox News contributor, Erick Erickson, went further. Writing on RedState, a conservative blog that’s commonly read by Republican legislators, Erickson fantasized about a world where the United States government — with a Congress that is roughly 80 percent Christian — began terrorizing Christian institutions, shuttering Christian businesses for opposing marriage equality, and labeling Christians themselves criminals:

Any Christian who refuses to recognize that man wants to upend God’s order will have to be driven from the national conversation. They will be labeled bigots and ultimately criminals…Once the world decides that real marriage is something other than natural or Godly, those who would point it out must be silenced and, if not, punished. The state must be used to do this. Consequently, the libertarian pipe dream of getting government out of marriage can never ever be possible.

Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse to treat as legitimate that which perverts God’s own established plan. In some places this is already happening.

Erickson here is arguing for a broad-based license to discriminate against LGBT Americans. Other than the wedding case addressed above, Erickson’s examples aren’t situations where freedom of conscience or freedom to worship in the way your religion dictates are at stake. Rather, he’s asking that schools and businesses, two of society’s most basic institutions, be given carte blanche to discriminate against gay parents or patrons merely because they’re gay.

 As is always the case, when the Christofascists lips are moving, the best approach is to be assured that they are lying.  Among these folks, pathological lying is apparently a Christian value.

Supreme Court Considers DOMA Today

Yesterday's oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry left many, myself included feeling somewhat depressed as it became obvious that a broad sweeping ruling that would bring equality to backward, bigoted states like Virginia was not going to be forthcoming.  Hopefully, today's oral arguments in United States v. Perry will be more satisfying although once again there is the issue of whether or not the GOP group bringing the appeal has standing.  One would hope that with a theoretical split between the federal circuit courts of appeals because the 1st and 2nd Circuits have ruled DOMA unconstitutional while others have not yet handed down rulings, the Supreme Court will act to strike down DOMA.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at today's Court doings.  Here are highlights:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday continues its examination of same-sex marriage, this time considering whether Congress may withhold federal benefits from legally wed gay couples by defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. The arguments will focus on a key section of the Act. The Obama administration has said that it will not defend the law, and a string of lower courts has said that it is unconstitutional to deny federal benefits to same-sex couples who are legally married in the states where they live while offering them to opposite-sex married couples.

There are more than 1,000 references to marital status in federal law and regulations covering important federal benefits such as tax savings, Social Security payments, and medical and family leave.

When Spyer died in 2009, she left her estate to Windsor. Because their marriage was not recognized, Windsor paid a tax bill of more than $360,000.  She has sued for a refund. “It’s really unfair, unconstitutional and a violation of equal protection for the federal government for the first time in our nation’s history to have two classes of married couples,” said Roberta A. Kaplan, Windsor’s attorney.

California’s elected leadership said it would not defend Prop 8, and the Obama administration has taken the same position on DOMA. So the House’s Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — bipartisan in name only, because the Democratic members of the committee also view DOMA as unconstitutional — is defending the law.

The court appointed an outside lawyer — Harvard professor Vicki C. Jackson — to represent the view that the case was not properly before the court.  She said the House members have not suffered the kind of injury required to bring a case to the court, and both Windsor and the Obama administration essentially are on the same side. She advises the court to wait for another case that challenges DOMA.

Four district judges and two courts of appeals have declared DOMA’s Section 3 unconstitutional. 

As the state of play now stands, the law has been declared unconstitutional as applied to same-sex couples married in the Northeastern states covered by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st and 2nd circuits. But the decisions don’t apply to those married in Iowa, the District or those states that approved gay marriage in the fall.

Central to the outcome is likely to be Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Although he sides most often with the court’s conservatives in ideological splits, Kennedy has written the majority opinion in two of the court’s most important gay rights decisions.

Let's hope that DOMA, which was motivated by nothing but religious based anti-gay animus as the legislative record indicates, meets the death that it deserves.