Category: LGBTQ

This is So Unsurprising

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So, the other shoe has dropped on the former speaker, and we learn that Denny Hastert sexually abused a student:

J. Dennis Hastert stumbled into political power amid a Republican sex scandal in 1998 that unexpectedly elevated the husky Illinoisan to a position just two heartbeats away from the presidency.

He became the longest-serving Republican House speaker in U.S. history, but remained so proud of his days as a small-town high school teacher and wrestling coach that he relished the Capitol Hill nickname “Coach.”

But this week those once-idolized small-town roots caught up with the 73-year-old Hastert, who in recent years has worked behind the scenes as a Washington power broker.
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert indicted

Federal prosecutors have announced bank-related charges against former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

On Friday, federal law enforcement officials said Hastert had paid $1.7 million over the last four years to conceal sexual abuse against a former male student he knew during his days as a teacher in Yorkville, Ill., where Hastert worked until 1981.

A top federal law enforcement official, who would not be identified speaking about the ongoing federal case, said investigators also spoke with a second man who raised similar allegations that corroborated what the former student said. The second person was not being paid by Hastert, the official said.

The disclosures followed Thursday’s federal indictment against Hastert on charges of lying to the FBI about the reasons for large cash withdrawals he is accused of making to buy the man’s silence.

Currently, the age of consent in Illinois 17, but it is 18 if the person is in a position of authority, for example, being a teacher and coach. (Link)

This law appears to me to be something relatively recent, the whole “position of authority” thing really started in the 1990s, and I know that the age of consent in the 1920s was 16, so it is entirely likely that this did not constitute statutory rape.

Still, it is remarkable that the best Republicans could find for Speaker after Gingrich and Livingston had been driven from office at least in part for adultery.

I’m hoping that Larry Flynt offers another bounty on wandering Republican penises running for President..

Fabulous!

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If there is a Western European country that I would not have expected to vote for same sex marriage, it is Ireland.

Once again, I am pleased to be proved wrong, as Ireland became the first nation to approve same sex marriage by referendum:

Ireland became the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote, sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory Saturday for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change.

With the final ballots counted, the vote was 62 percent in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, and 38 percent opposed.

The turnout was large — more than 60 percent of the 3.2 million eligible voters cast ballots, and only one district out of 43 voted the measure down. Cheers broke out among the crowd of supporters who had gathered in the courtyard of Dublin Castle when Returning Officer Riona Ni Fhlanghaile announced around 7 p.m. that the ballot had passed, 1,201,607 votes to 734,300.

Not long ago, the vote would have been unthinkable. Ireland decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993, the church dominates the education system, and abortion remains illegal except when a mother’s life is at risk. But the influence of the church has waned amid scandals in recent years, while attitudes, particularly among the young, have shifted.

This wasn’t just a victory, this was a blowout.

The Catholic Church needs to get with the program. If they get blown out in Ireland, in a plebiscite no less, they need to know that they have lost the war.

Rather ironically, at nearly the same time, Northern Ireland just killed same sex marriage:

Politicians in Northern Ireland will face intense pressure from LGBT rights campaigners to “catch up” with the rest of western Europe after the Irish Republic overwhelmingly backed same-sex marriage in a referendum.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions will join Amnesty International and gay rights group the Rainbow Project to hold a mass rally in support of equal marriage rights on 13 June, while a legal test case has also been lodged with Belfast’s courts.

After Friday’s historic referendum, in which the Republic’s voters endorsed same-sex marriage by 2-1, Northern Ireland remains the last country in western Europe where LGBT couples are barred from getting married.

Attempts to legislate to allow gay marriage have been vetoed by the Democratic Unionist party and a majority of Ulster Unionists in the devolved Northern Ireland assembly at Stormont.

An ICTU spokesman said the region needed to catch up with the rest of democratic Europe – and in particular every other part of the UK. “In 1998 Northern Ireland became one of the most advanced places on earth for human rights. Section 75 of the Good Friday agreement dealt with human rights and enshrined the rights of every citizen to be treated equally in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“Since then Northern Ireland has slipped back in terms of the human rights agenda and is now isolated in the UK as the only place where a gay couple cannot get married. The rally will be held in solidarity with the gay community.”

Section 75 of the Good Friday agreement guarantees the right of every citizen to avail themselves of state services in the region. LGBT rights campaigners believe that these services include marriages in civil spaces such as council chambers.

Amnesty’s campaign director in Northern Ireland, Patrick Corrigan, has called for a mass turnout at the rally, which will start from Belfast’s Writers Square at 2.30pm. Corrigan said people in Northern Ireland should show they are “sick of living in a discriminatory backwater for gay people”.

Last month, a Sinn Féin motion on marriage equality fell after 47 Stormont assembly members voted in support while 49 unionists voted against. Even if there had been a small majority in favour, the DUP would have exercised a special veto drawn up under devolution.

So, we have the political wing of the IRA agreeing with Ian Paisley’s DUP.

I gotta think that this is more political posturing than anything else.

Basically, no one wants to be a first mover.

Republican Family Values

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It’s the hypocrisy, stupid:

Anti-Gay North Dakota State Rep Caught Sending Dick Pics On The Grindr, Surprise LOL

 by Evan Hurst, Apr 28 2:00 pm 2015

 America, meet your newest closet case anti-gay Republican lawmaker! He’s a North Dakota state representative, and he is not in the closet anymore, due to the fact that he’s been outed for voting against SB 2279, a routine bill designed to protect gays and lesbians, among others, from discrimination (which failed, for the third time). The representative’s name is “Randy Boehning,” and while we are tempted to just finish the post right there, we will tell you the story instead:

State Rep. Randy Boehning, a 52-year-old Republican legislator from Fargo, says a Capitol employee told him a fellow lawmaker vowed to out him as gay if he continued to vote against bills granting gays legal protections against discrimination. […]

The exchange came to light when Dustin Smith, a 21-year-old Bismarck man with no known connections to the Capitol, contacted The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead earlier this month, saying he recognized Boehning from a gay dating smartphone app called Grindr. Chatting under the user name Top Man!, Boehning sent Smith sexually suggestive messages and, in the early morning hours of March 12, an unsolicited photo of his penis, according to exchanges reviewed by The Forum.

Smith added, “how can you discriminate against the person you’re trying to pick up?” Good point, sir! It’s very rude, to want to f%$# the gays in a good way in your off time, and then go to work the next day and f%$# the gays in a bad way, by voting against their (AND YOUR OWN) rights. This is why we have the Barney Frank rule, which says that if a politician is known to be gay, and also votes and campaigns against LGBT people, then they are fair game for outing and stuff.

Has anyone told Jon Stewart?

Think of the children!!!!

Ted Cruz Panders to the Ghey When Money is Involved

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One of the big questions about Ted Cruz is whether he is a true believer, or if he is just a self-aggrandizing asshole who is doing this for his own selfish reasons.

Well, this news seems to strongly imply that Ted Cruz is really all about Ted Cruz:

Senator Ted Cruz has positioned himself as a strong opponent of same-sex marriage, urging pastors nationwide to preach in support of marriage as an institution between a man and a woman, which he said was “ordained by God.”

But on Monday night, at a reception for him at the Manhattan apartment of two prominent gay hoteliers, the Texas senator and Republican presidential hopeful struck quite a different tone.

During the gathering, according to two people present, Mr. Cruz said he would not love his daughters any differently if one of them was gay. He did not mention his opposition to same-sex marriage, saying only that marriage is an issue that should be left to the states.

The dinner and “fireside chat” for about a dozen people with Mr. Cruz and his wife, Heidi, was at the Central Park South penthouse of Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner, longtime business partners who were once a couple and who have been pioneers in the gay hospitality industry.

“Ted Cruz said, ‘If one of my daughters was gay, I would love them just as much,’” recalled Mr. Reisner, a same-sex marriage proponent who described himself as simply an attendee at Mr. Weiderpass’s event.

(emphasis mine)

Cruz doesn’t care about hating on the ghey, he’s just using it for political advantage.

Politicians weasel on issues all the time, but some issues, and I would include same sex marriage among these issues, there has to be a real moral component (at least on the pro-bigotry side).

Snark of the Day

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In response to a Michigan auto mechanic saying that he would refuse to serve gays, a lawyer has offered his services.

The kicker is that he is a bankruptcy attorney:

In a mocking open-letter to a Michigan auto repair shop owner following his anti-gay Facebook rant, a Grand Rapids bankruptcy attorney has offered his services to deal with the economic consequences of the business owner’s “inane, incoherent and just plain dumb comments.”

On Tuesday, Grandville auto shop owner Brian Klawiter posted a rambling attack on gays on Facebook, saying he would not service their cars, adding, “Homosexuality is wrong, period. If you want to argue this fact with me then I will put your vehicle together with all bolts and no nuts and you can see how that works.”

………

Sensing a business opportunity, Grand Rapids bankruptcy attorney Jeffrey Mapes, posted an open letter on Michigan Live, saying he too is “white, male, Christian, a business owner, and a gun owner,” and is willing to handle Klawiter’s future needs despite his “inane, incoherent and just plain dumb comments” on Facebook.

………

He then offered words of inspiration in the wake of the Facebook post that has caused Klawiter grief , quoting from the Adam Sandler film, “Billy Madison.”

“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Heh.

The Governor of the State of Walmart Vetoes Pro Bigotry Bill

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I am, of course, referring to the decision of the Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchison, to veto their (almost the same as Indiana’s) so called religious freedom bill:

Facing a backlash from businesses and gay rights advocates, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas on Wednesday called on state lawmakers to either recall or amend legislation billed as a religious freedom measure so that it mirrored a federal law approved in 1993.

 Mr. Hutchinson, a Republican, said he understood the divide in Arkansas and across the nation over the question of same-sex marriage and its impact on people’s religious beliefs. His own son, Seth, he said, had asked him to veto the bill, which critics say could allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against gay men and lesbians.

 To ensure that the state is “a place of tolerance,” Mr. Hutchinson said, he was considering using an executive order that would seek to balance the “competing constitutional obligations” if the legislature declined to make changes to the bill.

 “What is important from an Arkansas standpoint is one, we get the right balance,” he said, “and secondly, we make sure that we communicate we’re not going to be a state that fails to recognize the diversity of our workplace, our economy and our future.”

 “This is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial,” Mr. Hutchinson said. “But these are not ordinary times.”

 Two state legislative leaders — Senator Jonathan Dismang, president pro tem of the Senate, and Jeremy Gillam, speaker of the House — who appeared with Mr. Hutchinson at a news conference Wednesday, said they agreed that the bill should be changed, but that they could not guarantee that outcome.

 The legislation, which easily cleared the state House by lopsided margins, has created a political rift in the state, with Mark Stodola, the mayor of Little Rock, sending a letter to Mr. Hutchinson this week urging him to veto the bill, saying it would have “a negative impact on our state’s image.”

 Several businesses and tech companies, including the state’s largest private employer, Walmart, as well as the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, the Arkansas Municipal League and other civic groups have spoken out against the legislation.

(emphasis mine)

It’s clear that the backlash in Indiana is a major factor, but I think that it was the objections by Walmart that was the main reason for this.

Indiana is in for a Lot of Well Deserved Hurt

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First, notwithstanding claims that the Indiana law is just the same as the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other state’s laws that require a compelling state interest to interfere with religious observance, the Indiana law is far more extreme:

No one, I think, would ever have denied that Maurice Bessinger was a man of faith.

And he wasn’t particularly a “still, small voice” man either; he wanted everybody in earshot to know that slavery had been God’s will, that desegregation was Satan’s work, and the federal government was the Antichrist. God wanted only whites to eat at Bessinger’s six Piggie Park barbecue joints; so His servant Maurice took that fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1968 decided that his religious freedom argument was “patently frivolous.”

………

That’s a good background against which to measure the uproar about the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last week. I don’t question the religious sincerity of anyone involved in drafting and passing this law. But sincere and faithful people, when they feel the imprimatur of both the law and the Lord, can do very ugly things.

There’s a factual dispute about the new Indiana law. It is called a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993.* Thus a number of its defenders have claimed it is really the same law. Here, for example, is the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack: “Is there any difference between Indiana’s law and the federal law? Nothing significant.” I am not sure what McCormack was thinking; but even my old employer, The Washington Post, seems to believe that if a law has a similar title as another law, they must be identical. “Indiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA,” the Post’s Hunter Schwarz wrote, linking to this map created by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The problem with this statement is that, well, it’s false. That becomes clear when you read and compare those tedious state statutes. If you do that, you will find that the Indiana statute has two features the federal RFRA—and most state RFRAs—do not. First, the Indiana law explicitly allows any for-profit business to assert a right to “the free exercise of religion.” The federal RFRA doesn’t contain such language, and neither does any of the state RFRAs except South Carolina’s; in fact, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, explicitly exclude for-profit businesses from the protection of their RFRAs.

The new Indiana statute also contains this odd language: “A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.” (My italics.) Neither the federal RFRA, nor 18 of the 19 state statutes cited by the Post, says anything like this; only the Texas RFRA, passed in 1999, contains similar language.

 ………

So, let’s review the evidence: by the Weekly Standard’s definition, there’s “nothing significant” about this law that differs from the federal one, and other state ones—except that it has been carefully written to make clear that 1) businesses can use it against 2) civil-rights suits brought by individuals.

Of all the state “religious freedom” laws I have read, this new statute hints most strongly that it is there to be used as a means of excluding gays and same-sex couples from accessing employment, housing, and public accommodations on the same terms as other people. True, there is no actual language that says, All businesses wishing to discriminate in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation, please check this “religious objection” box. But, as Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

So—is the fuss over the Indiana law overblown?

No.

The statute shows every sign of having been carefully designed to put new obstacles in the path of equality; and it has been publicly sold with deceptive claims that it is “nothing new.”

Being required to serve those we dislike is a painful price to pay for the privilege of running a business; but the pain exclusion inflicts on its victims, and on society, are far worse than the discomfort the faithful may suffer at having to open their businesses to all.

As the story of Maurice Bessinger shows us, even dressed in liturgical garments, hateful discrimination is still a pig.

The response has been outrage and boycotts:

Pence has been suggesting that there might be some tweaks made, but so far no one is buying this.

Here is hoping that the anti-gay bigots get their clocks cleaned over this.

More Evidence That Conservative Christianity Has Degenerated Into a Vehicle for Hate

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This is beyond contemptible

Once Again I need to invoke Shelby Spong‘s question, “I have quoted the controversial theologian’s question, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?”

In Tennessee, a Talibaptist cleric has equated equal rights to Satan:

A Tennessee pastor said this week that his church was “not trying to offend anyone” when it put up a sign linking “equal rights” to Satan.

 Members of the community expressed outrage over the weekend after photos of marquee outside the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle Church were circulated online. The sign read, “Remember, Satan was the first to demand equal rights.”

 “Who was your target audience? Who were you speaking to when you put it up there?” Knoxville resident Rick Staples, asked, according to WBIR. “And when you say you’re asking for your equal rights, who’s asking for their equal rights and who are you comparing to Satan? That was very strong language.”

 Andy Henry said that the church was trying to make a statement about gay rights.

 “It’s clearly a sign that was meant to offend a particular community – the LGBT community. Because of (the church’s) lack of foresight, they ended up offending everybody who had ever fought for equality or civil rights in general,” Henry observed.

But Pastor Tony Greene insisted that everyone misunderstood the message.

 “Our sign referencing Satan demanding his equal rights to ascend into the heavens and be God was simply ‘I’ and all about that individual,” Greene told WATE. “It was not a statement against any one group in particular, you know what about the rights of the unborn babies, the rights of children, the rights of everyone?”

 He added: “My heart breaks in the dividedness of our country.”

No, Rev. Greene is not calling for unity, he is expressing a world view for which faith is indistinguishable from hate.

At its core, this is the same spirituality that we see from Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban.

H/t Neo at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

The Best “Pass the Popcorn” Moment of the Year so Far

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Pass the Popcorn

The only gay state legislator in Alabama, State Rep. Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham), has just announced that her fellow representatives had better walk the “family values” walk if they talk the “family values talk”, and that she will publicly out the philanderers in the state house:

State Rep. Patricia Todd, Alabama’s only openly gay legislator, is threatening to play hardball in the fight over marriage equality in her state. Over the weekend, Todd warned her colleagues who oppose same-sex marriage that they’d better be careful about the way they defend “traditional” marriage, and about the way they conduct their own lives: according to the Times Daily, the representative claimed she’s prepared to out lawmakers rumored to have had extramarital affairs, but who proclaim to defend family values.

“I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about ‘family values’ when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have,” Todd posted on Facebook over the weekend. “I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet out.”

I haven’t been this amused about the juxtaposition of marital infidelity and politics since Larry Flynt offered a bounty for cheating Congress critters during the height the attempted putsch against Clinton in 1998.

The Push-Back Against the Lindsey Graham Presidential Needs to Get Less Awful

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Let’s be clear here:  Senator Lindsey Graham is a blithering idiot, whose only claim to policy expertise is his playing ventriloquist dummy to petulant child Senator John Sidney McCain III’s harebrained “Forever War” foreign policy initiatives.

This is a guy who has literally been wrong on absolutely every foreign policy initiative that he has ever been a part of.

He makes Richard Bruce Cheney look level headed and competent.

These are all legitimate reasons for him to be criticized, and ridiculed, for his recent statements about running for President.

There is also the issue of his personal affect.

Specifically, for lack of a better term, he minces almost as much as Michelle Bachmann’s husband Marcus.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with that)

So, over the past few days, we have been bombarded with tasteless cartoons and Photoshop jobs mocking the (never Married, not that there’s anything wrong with that) distinguished gentleman from South Carolina.  (I’m talking to you, Howie Klein)

Lindsey Graham sucks, both as a potential candidate, and even more so as a potential President.

It simply does not matter whatever else he does, or does not suck.

It Couldn’t Happen to a More Deserving Genocidal Monster

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The attempted genocide suit against Scott Lively, one of the architects of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, will be allowed to go forward:

Most of us go our entire lives without ever standing trial for crimes against humanity. Then again, most of us aren’t notorious bigot Pastor Scott Lively, whose life work seems to be to ask the question: “How can I make gay people miserable across the world?”

In the United States Lively’s homophobic messages are largely ignored, and in recent years he has had to endure various setbacks at the state and federal level as equality makes historic gains. Undeterred, Lively has sought out foreign lands where his particular brand of ruthless anti-gay ideas are more accepted. In Uganda, he found a home away from home. During a Christian “workshop” in the African nation he managed to become one of the principal architects behind some of the most retrograde anti-gay legislation on the planet.

………

Unfortunately for Lively, orchestrating genocide in another country is kind of frowned upon, and in 2012 a lawsuit was filed against Lively in federal court in Massachusetts for crimes against humanity. This week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals denied Lively’s final request to have it dismissed because, well, the whole genocide thing.

Lets be clear:  This is not criminal charges.  This is a civil suit under the Alien Tort Statute, but the judge has allowed discovery to proceed, and this should detail the full extent of Mr. Lively’s perfidy.

He has been protesting that he actually recommended against jailing (and in earlier versions executing) the LGBT community in Uganda, but I am certain that discovery will show that he was actively advocating for genocide.

Here’s hoping that he is left bankrupt and broken by this.

Cue Antonin “Fat Tony” Scalia’s Poo Flinging

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Now that there has finally been a split between the Federal Districts, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a same-sex marriage ruling:

Taking on a historic constitutional challenge with wide cultural impact, the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon agreed to hear four new cases on same-sex marriage. The Court said it would rule on the power of the states to ban same-sex marriages and to refuse to recognize such marriages performed in another state. A total of two-and-a-half hours was allocated for the hearings, likely in the April sitting. A final ruling is expected by early next summer, probably in late June.

The Court fashioned the specific questions it is prepared to answer, but they closely tracked the two core constitutional issues that have led to a lengthy string of lower-court rulings striking down state bans. As of now, same-sex marriages are allowed in thirty-six states, with bans remaining in the other fourteen but all are under court challenge.

Although the Court said explicitly that it was limiting review to the two basic issues, along the way the Justices may have to consider what constitutional tests they are going to apply to state bans, and what weight to give to policies that states will claim to justify one or the other of the bans.

In a part of the order that was not entirely clear, the Court instructed lawyers to limit their written and oral arguments to the specific issues they had raised in taking the cases to the Court. That apparently meant that couples seeking to marry can only raise that issue, and couples seeking official recognition of their existing marriages can only argue that question.

I think that Scotus will rule in a way generally favorable to gay marriage, they would have taken the appeal last fall otherwise, but I do expect Scalia to be at his trollish worst, both at the oral arguments, and in his dissent or (God forbid) assent.

Westboro Baptist is Going to be Fabulous, Whether they Like it or Not

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A federal judge has struck down the gay marriage ban in Kansas.

I am sure that those sociopaths at Westboro Baptist are feeling unhappy, and they deserve every bit of misery that the universe delivers to their door:

Federal Judge Daniel Crabtree today has found that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Judge has placed a temporary, one-week stay on his ruling, until November 11, unless the State of Kansas indicates it will not appeal.

The ACLU had filed the suit, Marie v. Moser, after the U.S, Supreme Court refused to review any same-sex marriage cases, including those in the 10th Circuit’s purview, Utah and Oklahoma.

Kansas voted to add an amendment to its constitution banning same-sex marriage back in 2005.

“In the past year, nearly 50 different rulings have been issued from state and federal courts in favor of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples,” Freedom To Marry notes.

Same-sex couples in Kansas had a day to marry before the state Supreme Court place a stay on an October 9 ruling.

 Fabulous!

Sarah Palin Can See Fabulosity Visible From her House

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Another day, another ruling striking down a gay marriage ban:

A federal judge ruled Sunday that Alaska’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, paving the way for same-sex couples to begin marrying in the state for the first time. The state quickly said it would appeal the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess, despite recent higher court rulings striking down similar bans around the country.

“The court finds that Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage and refusal to recognize same sex marriages lawfully entered in other states is unconstitutional as a deprivation of basic due process and equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Burgess wrote in a order in the case Hamby v. Parnell, released Sunday.

The Hamby suit was filed in May by five same-sex couples. It challenged the state’s constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman, approved by voters in 1998. Both parties in the Hamby case made oral arguments [3] in the case on Friday.

In an email, the state said it will appeal Burgess’ ruling.

“As Alaska’s governor, I have a duty to defend and uphold the law and the Alaska Constitution,” Gov. Sean Parnell said in a press release. “Although the district court today may have been bound by the recent Ninth Circuit panel opinion, the status of that opinion and the law in general in this area is in flux. I will defend our constitution.”

Parnell was referring to a ruling last week from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled to overturn similar marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada [4]. Same-sex marriage advocates said the 9th Circuit ruling would likely lead to the quick overturn of Alaska’s ban on gay marriage because the bans were similar and Alaska also falls under the jurisdiction of that court.

Even as the state vowed to appeal the decision, officials with the state’s Bureau of Vital Statistics said they would begin accepting applications for same-sex marriage licenses at 8 a.m. on Monday.

“The license application begins the three-day waiting period before the license can be issued. All marriages in Alaska must have the marriage license issued before the ceremony is performed,” wrote Phillip Mitchell, head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. “We expect our office will be busy tomorrow but we will make every effort to help customers as quickly as possible.”

This is not unalloyed good news, because of the comments of Phillip Mitchell, “We will make every effort to help CUSTOMERS as quickly as possible.”

They aren’t customers, they are CITIZENS.

The notion of the citizenry being nothing more than “customers” is an anathema to good governance.

It casts those citizens, and the government, as nothing more than economic actors whose obligation is to pursue their own personal best interests, with no obligations to one another.

While this might appeal to psychopaths like Ayn Rand, this is not the model for a just society.

Calm Down Everyone

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Yes, Justice Kennedy did grant an injunction preventing same sex marriages in Idaho and Nevada, but this is a fairly standard technical ruling to allow the Idaho AG to file an appeal:

With same-sex couples in Idaho legally free to seek marriage licenses this morning, state officials filed a last-minute plea to the Supreme Court to delay that opportunity. The plea came hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had struck down Idaho’s ban on gay and lesbian marriages, and then had put its ruling into immediate effect.

The filing said that the state had asked the Ninth Circuit to put its ruling back on hold so that it could be challenged before the en banc Ninth Circuit and, later, before the Supreme Court. The request was submitted to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Idaho. He has the option either of acting alone or of referring the request to the full Court.

In their application, Idaho officials argued that their case, if it gets to the Supreme Court, is narrower in scope than the other same-sex marriage cases that the Justices had refused to review on Monday. The questions it would raise are only preliminary to a return of the case to the Ninth Circuit, the document argued.

Originally this ruing included Nevada, but this appears to have been in error, as Kennedy subsequently limited the scope of the injunction to just Idaho:

UPDATE 3:18 p.m. Justice Kennedy on Wednesday afternoon issued a revised order, limiting the postponement to the situation in Idaho, thus excluding Nevada. That puts back into effect a Ninth Circuit ruling nullifying the Nevada ban, and thus clears the way for issuing marriage licenses in that state to gay and lesbian couples. The order contained no explanation of the change, but it apparently was due to the captions the Ninth Circuit had put on its order putting its decision into effect. Lawyers for a gay rights advocacy group, Lambda Legal, had asked for a clarification of the earlier Kennedy order.

Basically this is limited, and should be (relatively) short term, to allow for Idaho to file for either an en banc hearing from the Ninth Circuit or an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Obviously, committed couples in Idaho must be bumming, but this is a procedural move without a much long term significance.

It’s the First Monday of October………

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Which means that the Supreme Court has begun its new session.

Rather unsurprisingly, the court punted on gay marriage, declining to hear any of the appeals of the recent ruling striking down gay marriage bans.

This has the effect of massively expanding gay marriage, or the recognition of gay marriage:

With not a single dependable hint of its own constitutional view of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court in one fell swoop on Monday cleared the way for gays and lesbians to wed in a batch of new states — starting first in five more states, and probably adding six more in the coming weeks. If that happens in all eleven, it will mean that same-sex marriages would then be legal in thirty states and Washington, D.C.

 In seven one-line orders, released without explanation and with no report on how any Justice voted, the Court surprisingly refused to review any same-sex marriage case now before it and, in the process, prepared to lift a series of orders that had delayed such marriages while the issue remained in the Court. Almost no one had expected that to happen.

 It may take a few weeks for the Court’s action to take effect in real-world terms, in the geographic areas where federal appeals courts have struck down bans in five states — the decisions that the Justices have now left intact. Because those appeals court rulings are binding on all federal courts in their regions, those decisions almost certainly dictate the outcome in six more states.

As Maddow noted, it only takes 4 judges to put a case up for review, and the 4 right wing judges voted to support DOMA in US v. Windsor, it means that at least one judge (My money is on Roberts) who voted against gay rights voted against reviewing the cases.

It is either an acknowledgement by one of the conservative justices that society has changed, or it it a tactical decision, hoping that the next justice will be appointed by a Republican to replace Ginsbert.

In addition, we have a very interesting 4th amendment case,  where the question of whether a search is legal if the stop is is based on a misunderstanding of the law.

We also have a patent case, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., where the court is going to review whether the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Patent Court) can review the facts presented in the district court on appeal, or only address matters of law or “clear error.”  (Interestingly enough, the Patent Court ruled against the patent, and the district judge ruled for the patent.)

The fact that the Supreme Court is taking it implies to me that at least 4 justices are looking to slap down the Patent Court yet again, which has for a while engaged in a de novo review of patents when it heard appeals.

I’m also interested in Tibble v. Edison International, where workers sued their employer, because their retirement plans were high fee plans, because Edison was getting kickbacks from the plan manager.

It’s actually a statute of limitations case, since the investment choices were initially made more than 6 years before the suit was filed, but the plan was maintained for long enough that the last day was within the statute of limitations.

More on other cases here.

Hurray! Facebook Blinks!

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Facebook has apologized to cross dressing LGBT members who want to use their stage name, and looks to be allowing “Drag Queen” names in the near future:

Two weeks ago, Facebook was forced to address a firestorm over its real-name policy after “several hundred” drag queens and performers were targeted in a spree of user reports. On that day, Facebook responded by sending a message to those account holders: either switch their public Facebook names to “legal” names or convert their accounts to public “pages,” which lack certain normal-profile features. The affected users had two weeks to do so, which ran out today.

However, instead of disabling those hundreds of accounts, Facebook went in a decidedly different direction. A meeting between affected performers, including original complainant Sister Roma, and company officials took place at the Facebook campus today, and according to a Valleywag report, it ended with Facebook issuing an official apology and promising “substantive changes” to the real-name policy.

“Facebook agreed that the real names policy is flawed and has unintentionally hurt members of our community,” San Francisco Supervisor David Campos said to Valleywag. “Facebook apologized to the community and has committed to removing any language requiring that you use your legal name. They’re working on technical solutions to make sure that nobody has their name changed unless they want it to be changed and to help better differentiate between fake profiles and authentic ones.”

 Fabulous!

In A Choice Between the Two Religions of Texas, the Christian Right Goes with Bigotry

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It is said that that there are two religions in Texas: Jesus and football.

The Dallas Cowboys, whose defense was pathetic last year, decided to add openly gay defensive end Michael Sam to their practice squad, and all hell breaks loose:

Right-wing Christians plan to protest the Dallas Cowboys signing of Michael Sam, the first openly gay NFL player.

 The outside linebacker was cut last week by the St. Louis Rams, which had drafted him in the seventh round out of the University of Missouri, and picked up by the defense-starved Cowboys.

 He will join the team’s practice squad if he passes a physical exam.

 The move angered anti-LGBT Christians, who had threatened to boycott the Rams before Sam was released.

 “We cannot just stand idly by as Christian values and morals are trampled,” said Jack Burkman, the GOP lobbyist working to keep Sam out of the NFL. “We will do whatever we can to preserve family values in this country.”

 Burkman has drafted legislation barring gay players from the NFL, but his brother said his efforts were a publicity stunt to draw clients to his lobbying firm.

 “I think the idea that he is pushing legislation that is just hurtful and ridiculous is just plain stupid,” said Jim Burkman, an anesthesiologist who is openly gay. “He is not a legislator and he can’t really push legislation. I don’t think there are any cosponsors for a bill. It is just an attention grab and a media grab to pander to those folks who pay him to lobby on their behalf.”

I’m about to say something that I never believed that I would ever say: Thank you Jerry Jones for doing the right thing.

I feel dirty now.

Bummer

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The Rams just cut Michael Sam. He performed well in the preseason, but the Rams simply had too many defensive linemen:

The St. Louis Rams have released defensive end Michael Sam, the first openly gay player selected in the NFL draft.

Sam, a seventh-round draft choice, had been battling undrafted rookie Ethan Westbrooks for a final roster spot. Westbrooks was one of nine defensive linemen to make the team.

Sam thanked the Rams for the opportunity in a series of tweets after the team made the announcement.

I still expect him to play for some team this season.