DOJ still arguing DOMA applies in Golinski case

Sounds like the DOJ lawyers in California didn't get the memo about DOMA. The President think it's unconstitutional. So, why the hell is DOJ still arguing that DOMA applies in the Golinski case?:

The Justice Department says a lesbian federal employee should still be denied permission to add her wife to her health insurance despite the Obama administration's refusal to defend a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriages.

Government lawyers told a federal judge Monday in San Francisco that the administration will still enforce the Defense of Marriage Act until it is struck down by a court or repealed by Congress. They say its new position on the act's unconstitutionality is irrelevant.

Um, that the President thinks DOMA is unconstitutional should be hugely relevant.

More on the Golinski case here. It's been going on for awhile. The Obama administration has been fighting a judge's order to provide benefits to Golinski's wife for a couple of years. Enough already. Let John Boehner defend this case, too. Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich: Wife #3 and I made a movie about the Pope, so my divorces and adulterous affairs don't count

Newt Gingrich wants to be President of the United States. So, he's reintroducing himself to the American people as a devout Catholic. He and his wife, Calista (with whom he was having an affair during his second marriage to Marianne), even made a documentary about Pope John Paul II. How much more Catholic and good and kind and decent can one get. According to the NY Times, the new Newt "Puts Focus on Faith":

On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society.

“To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

Here's the thing for Newt: If he wants to make religion and morals an issue, we'll play along -- and encourage the media to do that, too. That means a lot of talk about the issue of his two divorces, two affairs and three marriages. Seems like that might interfere with his new messaging. Newt thinks he can use his new found moral authority to trash the LGBT community in America. He's done that before. This time, we're going to hit back at every opportunity.

Newt is a fraud and a hypocrite. Although, some are falling for it:

Dr. Jack Willke, an early leader in the anti-abortion movement in Ohio and across the country, was among those waiting for an autograph. Dr. Willke said he was delighted that Mr. Gingrich had increased the role of faith in his public appearances, something that he said he did not recall during Mr. Gingrich’s tenure as speaker of the House.

“We were there long before he was,” Mr. Willke said. “It was never a big public thing for Newt, but he’s surfaced now as considerably more so.”

As Dr. Willke and his wife, Barbara, mingled with others in the crowd, Mrs. Willke said she was delighted to read about Mr. Gingrich’s baptism as a Catholic in March 2009. When one woman asked about his conversion, Mrs. Willke replied: “His Catholicism certainly sounds legit, and even more so since Callista is in the picture now.”

And, how Callista (a.k.a. the third Mrs. Gingrich who helped Newt cheat on the second Mrs. Gingrich) got into the picture is going to be part of the campaign story.

Before any of the sanctimonious inside-the-beltway types start saying this should all be off limits, remember, Newt is making trying to make LGBT families a political issue. It's fair play. Read the rest of this post...

British town stops anti-gay bigots from proselytizing to children

You have the right to be a bigot. You don't have the right to the government helping you foist your bigoted views on innocent children. If you can't accept all kids for who they are, and are willing to put a child at risk of suicide because of your disdain for them, then perhaps you should find another outlet for your bigotry than risking the life and livelihood of a child. Feel free to be a bigot, but don't be so selfish as to your bigotry about the best interests of children.

BBC:

Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation "should take precedence" over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

They said that if children were placed with carers who objected to homosexuality and same-sex relationships, "there may well be a conflict with the local authority's duty to 'safeguard and promote the welfare' of looked-after children".

Pray tell, would this couple also like the right to tell Jewish foster kids that they're going to burn in hell unless they accept Christ? Because that's what the effect of them winning in court would be. Read the rest of this post...

'Enough already' says the LA Times: Let same-sex couples in CA get married now

The editorial page of the Los Angeles Times agrees with AFER's legal team. The stay in the Prop. 8 case should be lifted during the appeal. Same-sex couples in California should be allowed to marry:

Although the federal courts expedited their handling of the lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, the issues are far from resolved. And now that the California Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in, the case could be delayed for another year or more.

Enough already. Gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to wed while the case works its way through the system.

The state Supreme Court was asked by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on whether supporters of Proposition 8 have the right — known as "standing" — to continue with their case. It indicated that it would hear arguments late this year, with a ruling likely to follow a few months later. Meanwhile, a stay pending the outcome of the appeal has kept gay weddings from going forward. Now, however, the lawyers challenging Proposition 8 have asked the 9th Circuit to lift the stay and allow the weddings to take place. We agree that it should.

We agree it should, too. Read the rest of this post...

Boston Globe profiles GLAD's Mary Bonauto

Great to see Mary Bonauto getting some well-deserved recognition in the traditional media. She's a real hero to the community. Noah Bierman from the Boston Globe wrote the profile:

For more than 20 years, Bonauto, now 49, has been a fixture of the Massachusetts gay rights crusade. Her work on behalf of the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has garnered her a reputation as the region’s most influential gay rights lawyer.

But as her successes expand onto a national stage, they also place her among the most significant activists in the country.

Not only did Bonauto argue the gay marriage case in Massachusetts; she worked on a team that won the right to legalize civil unions in Vermont. And she is the co-lead counsel on two cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that the Obama administration weighed in on last week.

It will be up to the courts to make a final determination on whether the law is, in fact, constitutional, but Obama’s decision was still a milestone for Bonauto and others in the movement.

“I certainly never counted on such a moment,’’ Bonauto said of the president’s policy shift.

I'm so glad she's on our side doing what she's doing. Read the rest of this post...

Boehner: House GOPers will decide this week whether to defend DOMA

Under federal law, whenever the Executive branch declines to defend a law it believes is unconstitutional, the Attorney General must inform Congress of that decision. Congress can then decide whether or not to defend the law. We're seeing that play out now on DOMA. Now, it's up to the House to decide what to do. Yesterday, via On Top Magazine, Boehner talked to Christian Broadcasting Network about options on DOMA. Here are some excerpts from CBN::

Speaker John Boehner: “We’ve been researching all the options that are available to us. We’ll be talking to the members in the next few days about that and I expect we’ll have a decision by the end of the week.”

David Brody; “Rick Santorum says that the Speaker of the House should appoint a counsel representing the House of Representatives to take up the case and argue DOMA in federal court. Is that a good idea?”

Speaker John Boehner: “It’s an option being considered.”

David Brody: ”And on these options the bottom line is that something is going to happen from the House and something will get done?”

Speaker John Boehner: “I’d be very surprised if the House didn’t decide that they were going to defend law.”

So, we'll know this week.

The final decision is apparently in the hands of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), which includes top House leaders: Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, Pelosi and Hoyer. That five-member panel appoint and provide direction to the House General Counsel. But,
I wouldn't be surprised to see Boehner and the House homophobes force a vote on this one. That would give the three GOPers on the BLAG the backing they want.

Now, the decision by an administration not to defend a law doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. That's why there is a statute dealing with this situation. In fact, as the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus and the New York Times Adam Liptak both reported over the past couple days, the now-Chief Justice, John Roberts, refused to defend a law on behalf of the first Bush administration back in 1990. So, the hysteria over Obama's determination that DOMA is unconstitutional is, of course, misplaced. Although, for the past two years, too many apologists (mostly obsequieous job seekers and lobbyists) from the LGBT community made some of the same arguments that the right-wingers are making now.

My favorite line from Boehner is that Obama's DOMA decision was "raw politics." Good. That means the Obama administration finally realized that supporting equality is actually good politics. Hopefully, they learned some of that from the DADT vote. It's not 1993 anymore. If the House GOPers want to engage in legislative gay-bashing over the next couple weeks, so be it. Doesn't create any jobs. And, sure doesn't help them with young voters. Not sure I'd want Santorum dictating social policy, but, that's Boehner's call. Read the rest of this post...