Excellent analysis of Log Cabin's DADT brief to the Supreme Court

Via TowleRoad:

At the center of LCR's argument to the Supreme Court is that the Ninth Circuit "abused its discretion" when it granted a stay based on incorrect reasoning and a refusal to use the proper legal test for stays. An "abuse of discretion" is a tough standard to meet simply because appellate courts have discretion to issue stays. But what they don't have discretion to do is to grant stays without requiring the party seeking the stay to prove, among other things, a "likelihood of success on the merits." All that means is that in order to properly get the stay at the Ninth Circuit, the government had to prove that it was likely to win its appeal on the merits, likely to keep DADT as good law. The Ninth Circuit, LCR argues, didn't really do that. Nor did the Ninth Circuit engage in the required balancing of harms. Before getting a stay, the government was also supposed to show that any hardship to the military or the government if there were no stay would outweigh any hardship to LCR with a stay. Finally, LCR points out that the Ninth Circuit accepted the government's injury argument based on mere speculation rather than actual evidence.

LCR's argument makes a lot of sense to me, especially since the Ninth Circuit apparently justified its stay on Judge Phillips's decision being at odds with other court decisions on DADT and generally failed to require the government to justify a stay. A stay is an example of "extraordinary relief," meaning that you don't get it just because you want it, you have to prove a lot -- meet a "heavy burden" -- to get it. At the Ninth Circuit, the government arguably did not meet that burden.

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What happens when your 5 year old boy wants to be Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween

Great story, though I'm not sure I'd have kept urging my child to do this if he started to worry about being made fun of. You?

But here’s the point, it is none of your damn business.

If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.

If my daughter had dressed as Batman, no one would have thought twice about it. No one.

But it also was heartbreaking to me that my sweet, kind-hearted five year old was right to be worried. He knew that there were people like A, B, and C. And he, at 5, was concerned about how they would perceive him and what would happen to him.

Just as it was heartbreaking to those parents that have lost their children recently due to bullying. IT IS NOT OK TO BULLY. Even if you wrap it up in a bow and call it ‘concern.’ Those women were trying to bully me. And my son. MY son.

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Kerry Eleveld's take on Obama and the elections

From Kerry Eleveld in the Advocate:

The turnout and voting patterns were a symptom of the fact that during his first two years in office, President Barack Obama and his White House delivered nothing short of a true progressive’s most fiendish nightmare: He governed from the middle but failed to enlist enough GOP help to tag them with partial responsibility. Then he simultaneously left the substance of his centrist policies to be framed by the right, who naturally painted his initiatives as dangerously liberal and even socialist in nature.

The result of that toxic formula is that progressives didn’t get much of they wanted and yet the population as a whole has been left to believe that America has jumped off the liberal deep end.

In short, Obama didn’t govern as a progressive but was painted as one. Therefore, progressives didn’t get what they voted for and yet the rest of the country was led to believe the “progressive” agenda had pushed us down a dark path to nowhere.

Here’s lesson 1: If you’re going to let yourself be characterized as a liberal, you damn well better be one; otherwise the base that elected you won’t turn up at the polls to get your back once you’ve given a bad name to everything they believed in but never actually got.

Now, one could argue that getting military leaders on board with repeal was a smart idea, but one would be hard-pressed to find the genius in letting the top brass set their own time line when everybody knew there would only be two years to pound this through with unprecedented Democratic majorities. (Remember, with the White House’s blessing, the Pentagon arbitrarily chose the date for release of its study to be December 1, comfortably after the midterms yet close enough to year’s end to almost surely doom a vote. How different would this look, for instance, if they had taken six months to study repeal and released their report in August?)

If you have been listening closely, President Barack Obama is already laying the groundwork for dropping blame at the feet of Republicans if the National Defense Authorization Act fails (let’s keep in mind that charming and arm-twisting politicians from across the aisle is part of the legislative process and, so far, the White House and Senate Democratic leadership have expended almost no political capital to advance the NDAA bill with DADT attached).
Also, when outlining his priorities this week for the lame-duck session, the president made no mention of the defense funding bill, nor did press secretary Robert Gibbs. Any chance this sounds familiar? Gibbs was having the same issue last month. When left to his own devices to list lame-duck priorities, guess what never came up: the NDAA.

Now that House control has switched hands, it’s perhaps a positive that our national progressive organizations can go back to demonizing the GOP — it’s really the only thing they know how to do. But while they are busy doing that, let’s remember that Democrats had full run of Washington for two years and their only LGBT accomplishment looks to be the hate-crimes law. Read More...

Log Cabin appeals DADT stay to Supreme Court

From Log Cabin's lawyers at White and Case.

Attached please find Log Cabin Republicans' application to vacate the Ninth Circuit order and related papers that were just filed with the US Supreme Court. Also find below a quote from R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, and Dan Woods, White & Case partner who is representing Log Cabin Republicans. Also included below is a short Q&A; regarding process moving forward that you may find helpful.

R. Clarke Cooper, Executive Director, Log Cabin Republicans
"It is unfortunate the Obama Justice Department has forced the Log Cabin Republicans to go to the Supreme Court."

Dan Woods, White & Case

"We have today filed an application with the United States Supreme Court asking it to vacate the Ninth Circuit's order staying Judge Phillips's injunction pending appeal. We argue in this application that the Ninth Circuit order was arbitrary and an abuse of discretion and should be vacated immediately. We continue to look forward to the day when all Americans can serve in our military without regard to their sexual orientation," said Dan Woods, White & Case partner who is representing Log Cabin Republicans.


Q: Will the entire Supreme Court be involved in considering whether to vacate the Ninth Circuit order?
A: That is up to Justice Kennedy. He may decide himself or he may refer the application to the full court.

Q: How long will the review take?
A: That is also up to the court. The Court may allow the government the opportunity to respond to our application.

Q: What are the next steps if the Court vacates the ruling/doesn't vacate the ruling?
A: If the Court vacates the stay order, DADT is dead pending the appeal, and we have for all inteappeal from Judgnts and purposes won. If it doesn't, we will next move in the Ninth Circuit to expedite the e Phillips's decision.

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Beautiful prayer from Archbishop Desmond Tutu

A gorgeous prayer has been published from Desmond Tutu in "Essence" magazine. Please go there and read the whole thing because it was hard to choose which excerpts to highlight and there is something very important Tutu writes about concerning the recognition of one's mortality. Once we accept we are, indeed, not immortal do we act more cautiously or do we become bolder? These is a strong prayer from a true "fierce advocate."

Today I pray for people in Africa and throughout the world who long for freedom because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. It grieves me to be retiring at this crucial moment in history, so I write to you in this open letter, to invite you to pick up the work that remains to be done. More than 70 countries still imprison or execute gay and transgender people, and bullying and murders are all too common. This must change.

Each of you is called to respond to God's urgency for love and life. So whether you are in South Africa, the United States or anywhere else, humanity needs to accept its own diversity as a gift from our Creator. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are part of our family of God.

Boldly, I urge all faith leaders and politicians to stop persecuting people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Every day people live in fear because of who they love. We are talking about our family members, our flesh and blood, our humanity. LGBT people are in our villages, towns, cities, countries -- and our whole world.

Faith leaders are you listening? I'm impressed with Desmond Tutu, of course, for writing the prayer but grateful to "Essence" for providing the Archbishop a forum to address how hate of our LGBT community is incompatible with Christianity. I accepted my mortality in my early twenties while watching some of my friends die of AIDS back in the late 1980's. We don't have the luxury to wait for our supposed leaders to overcome their "fierce timidity," nor do we have forever down here to make a positive contribution to LGBT civil rights, so let's follow Archbishop Tutu's example, and let us choose boldness! Read More...

Gay voters' support for GOP doubled from 2008

Amanda Terkel at Huffington Post confirms what we reported the other day. And Yahoo News seems to confirm that gay support for Democrats dropped disproportionately as compared to other Democratic constituencies. Read More...

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell yet again goes soft on DADT repeal, contradicts President

Typical. He refuses to urge Congress to pass the compromise DADT legislation, and even worse, he yet again seemed to suggest that the DOD study of DADT implementation is somehow geared as well towards whether we should repeal DADT.

Watch the video, he gets asked why DOD is urging Congress to pass the START treaty but not urging Congress to pass the DADT legislation. The President says he wants the DADT compromise passed during the lame duck session, why can't the Pentagon?

Even after we lose an election the President still can't find the backbone to get the Pentagon in line.

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DADT? Don't ask.

The latest on how repealing DADT is pretty much dead. You can thank your President (who didn't want to do DADT until after the elections (oops)), HRC and CAP (who both enabled the President's brilliant plan), and Harry Reid (who couldn't control his own Senate). All around, pretty FUBAR.

Oh, and the President's decision to put off that DADT DOD study until December 1 is a gift that just keeps on giving. Check this out:

Congress could vote to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" during its lame-duck session, which begins on Nov. 15. But a Pentagon study on the impact of the repeal, which would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, won't be completed until Dec. 1 and many top military commanders are against repealing the ban.

Yep, the lame duck session begins on November 15, but we won't have the DOD study yet, so lots of members of Congress won't want to touch DADT.

The rank incompetence of this entire effort has been simply mind-boggling.

At the rate we're going, we'll be lucky if we get another shot at DADT, DOMA or ENDA in the next twenty years (remember, kids, the last time we lost the House it took 12 years to get it back, and another two years to get the White House back). Are you willing to wait 14 years for another chance to have HRC pander to yet another President who thinks it's just not time yet for us to be free?

Someone needs to pay dearly for this disaster. Read More...

Yahoo News confirms disproportionate drop in gay vote support for Dems

First the article poo-poo'd the drop in gay support, then the researcher realized the drop was significant, and worse than any other groups.  This backs up the data I posted last night.

Exit polling commissioned by the major cable news networks has found that 31 percent of people who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual voted for Republicans on Election Day. That represents a big uptick from the 24 percent of gays who voted for the GOP in 2006 and from only 19 percent who did so in 2008. The trend appears to bear out pre-Election Day predictions from gay rights organizers that gay voters were angry and disenchanted with Democrats for not delivering on promises to the community.

UPDATE: After reviewing the full data, Sherrill says there was a disproportionate drop in Democratic support among LGB voters compared to Hispanic, black, and young voters. Though the sample size is still very small and thus there's a large margin of error, Sherrill now says the drop may be attributed to "dissatisfaction with the pace of change on LGB rights over the past two years."

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More love from the Catholic church

How long has it been since a really nasty attack from the Catholic church against "the gays?" I guess too long as far as they're concerned. The head of the Belgian Catholic church claims that AIDS is "justice" for gays.

The head of the Catholic Church in Belgium has said that AIDS is “intrinsic justice” for homosexuality.

Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard also said that elderly priests found to have sexually abused children should not be punished.

His spokesman Juergen Mettepenningen resigned over his boss’ remarks, AFP reports.

Well, at least his spokesman resigned... Read More...

Vince Vaughn 'clarifies' that gay slur isn't about gays, just being gay, or being like gays, or something

Yes, and I'm sure when he uses the n-word he doesn't mean black people, he means the "other" meaning of the n-word. What an idiotic thing to say. Read More...

Iowa's Mike Gronstal won't give in and let GOPers take away rights because 'that's ugly'

Wow. We don't hear elected officials stand on principle and talk like this very often. Thank you, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal:

Senate Republicans intend to try various maneuvers to force a vote, even though they don't believe such efforts will succeed. Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, hopes public pressure might eventually compel Gronstal to allow a vote, but Gronstal said Wednesday that will never happen.

McKinley said: "I believe enough pressure will be brought that Mike Gronstal will have to stand against the wishes of the entire majority of Iowans. And then he will agree to do the right thing."

Gronstal believes the right thing means protecting the civil rights of gays and lesbians. He reaffirmed Wednesday that he won't bow to pressure, no matter how nasty it gets.

"The easy political thing for me to do years ago would have been to say, 'Oh, let's let this thing go. It's just too political and too messy,' " Gronstal said. "What's ugly is giving up what you believe in, that everybody has the same rights. Giving up on that? That's ugly."

Oh, the haters will get nasty. We've all got to have Gronstal's back.

This might be a good time for Dick Cheney, Laura Bush, Ted Olson, Mary Cheney and Ken Mehlman to weigh in with the Iowa GOPers. Read More...

AFER on CA results: 'This year, despite the rising conservative tide, equality triumphed'

The Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, Chad Griffin, weighed in on the 2010 elections, which saw great progress for LGBT equality in California:

The contrast with 2008, when despite the historic Obama election, Prop. 8 was passed by the voters, is startling. This year, despite the rising conservative tide, equality triumphed. The difference is that the political rhetoric that dominated the Prop. 8 campaign has been replaced by a discussion of the facts through efforts like the Foundation's successful federal court case for marriage equality.

This nation was founded on the principle that all Americans are created equal, and our Constitution requires that every American be treated equally under the law. That is something all Americans can agree on, and more and more people are understanding that marriage equality is rooted in our nation's fundamental values.

That last paragraph is powerful. Great message. Equality didn't quite triumph across the rest of the country on Tuesday. So, we will need some of AFER's top supporters, like Ted Olson and Ken Mehlman, spreading that message of equality on Capitol Hill when the homophobic GOPers start their attack on LGBT Americans. Read More...

Shouldn't matter, but top House and Senate GOPers on Armed Services vow to stop DADT repeal in lame duck

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. We know Rep. McKeon and Senator McCain opposed DADT repeal. They're going to try to stop it in the lame duck. Pushing this. Those Log Cabin Republicans and GOProuds have their work cut out for them:

Already, the Republican widely expected to be the next House Armed Services chairman signaled that Republicans are not on board with trying to push for a vote in the last few weeks of the current session, while the Democrats are just a few votes shy of pushing it through.

"Republicans on both sides the Capitol are committed to passing a National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 that is not weighed down by the current majority's social agenda items," said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-California, in a statement released Wednesday morning.

Before the election, the top Republican on the Armed Services committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, told an Arizona television station he would "absolutely" filibuster any attempt to vote "until we have a thorough and complete study on the effect of morale and battle effectiveness."

"The reason they tried to ramrod it through the Senate is they knew that the Senate will look different next January," McCain said on 12 News' "Sunday Square Off" on October 17. "I will filibuster or stop it from being brought up."

This shouldn't matter. McKeon and McCain don't run the commmittees -- yet.

Obama and the Democrats need to really focus on the passing the Defense bill as is. They let the GOPers get away with filibustering the Defense bill in September, which was a huge mistake. We're in two wars, which should be reason enough to force the GOP's handgs. Also, the Defense bill has to be one of the biggest jobs bills that Congress passes. It funds millions of salaries in both the government and private sectors. And, as the President noted yesterday at his press conference, there is a huge amount of support for ending DADT.

Let this be the first fight with the Republicans. But, make it a fight.

And, if you haven't seen it, watch Alex Nicholson's video on how we can prevail. He spells it out quite clearly:
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More on Maine's Governor-elect LePage and his homophobic record

Joe mentioned the victory of Tea Partier Paul LePage in Maine with 38% of the vote. It’s worth noting, though, that this is not just a lost opportunity to restoring marriage equality in Maine. There is real potential here for backwards movement on equality on all fronts.

In February, LePage called into the radio show “Aroostook Watchmen” and offered his bigoted thoughts on both transgender children and the Maine Human Rights Act, which protects LGBT Mainers from discrimination. MPBN notes that LePage later said he didn’t remember making these comments and backed off his position on the Human Rights Act (while maintaining some opposition).

On the Human Rights Act extending to LGBT residents, LePage said:

My thinking would be it clearly needs to be brought back and reformed, the law needs to be reformed. In fact, I'm not even so sure that the rules that they're putting in place now don't need to go back to the Legislature. I think that they've gone beyond the intent of the law, and they're clearly making the law, in my mind at least. I think it probably should be challenged and brought back to the Legislature.

And on children who identify as transgender, he offered:

You know, our children are being used as pawns. I just don't understand how people, at least sane people, would want to allow transgender in our primary schools and our high schools.

LePage is a homophobe and a real threat to equality for LGBT Mainers. He’s also a threat to a whole host of services that Mainers rely on, like public education and state services. We're going to have to keep a close eye on his efforts to push back on equality. Read More...