Gutted like a fish

The case for Proposition 8 has just been gutted by one of the two witnesses who testified in favor of it--David Blankenhorn, founder of some preposterous pseudo-think tank called "Institute for American Values." You might remember that almost all the witnesses the pro-Prop 8 side wanted to call ran away and hid because they didn't want to be identified in public with the anti-gay haters (apparently their anti-gay hate was a private thing). Only Blankenhorn and one other witness had the guts to persevere. Not a good career move that.  Plaintiff co-counsel David Boies absolutely shredded Blankenhorn on the stand, so much so that Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Blankenhorn--called as a supposedly expert witness--was in fact an expert in nothing but peddling his own opinions and struck his testimony from the record. 

Well, this media hound is back and now he's evolved.  In a New York Times op-ed he's announced that he's willing to accept the inevitability of gay marriage.  How big of him.  He still thinks it's crap but he's sniffed the air and that sweet smell of victory ain't coming from his side.  So he's jumped ship much to the chagrin of the pro-Prop 8 gang who are desperately trying to cobble together a viable appeal. 

I'm willing to bet a dollar that Blankenhorn's now ex-friends among the anti-gay crusaders are just itching to get this treacherous, two-faced SOB in a dark alley and slit his throat.  Take a number, guys, and get in line.  There's no honor among bigots, especially among bigots of the religious right. 

Every day now there's some new blow against the anti-gay right.  They're falling apart.  November is their Waterloo.  They're going to lose big and bad in four states.  And then the Supreme Court will invalidate Prop 8 and DOMA.  And then it's all over but the victory parade.  Gay Pride 2013 is going to be a celebration to remember!

Deja vu all over again

In Washington state Referendum 74 has now qualified for the ballot.  This referendum asks voters to approve or reject a recent law that permits gay marriage.  This may sound familiar because in 2009 voters were presented with Referendum 71 in which the civil unions created by law in 2007 were upgraded to "marriage in everything but name" status.  Despite howls of outrage from people who think that the lives and rights of gay people meaning nothing, that ballot measure won 53% to 47%, the first general election victory for gay civil unions in the country.  Now Washington voters are being asked to remove the preposterous and phony distinction between civil marriage and civil union.  The most recent poll has 54% of Washington state voters agreeing with the new law.

This referendum is one of four watershed ballot measures in November.  Maryland will vote on keeping its new gay marriage law; Maine will vote to restore a gay marriage law that was rejected by voters in 2009; Minnesota will vote on a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man-one woman thus outlawing gay marriage.  Given the sea change in opinion that has occurred since 2009 and the great change in support among black voters since Barack Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage, all four ballot measures can be won.  Current polling in each state indicates that the pro-gay voters outnumber the anti-gay voters.

I'd say that the anti-gay demagogues have made the fundamental error that all demagogues make:  they believe that they can whip up mob hate time after time whenever and wherever the situation demands. They never consider the inescapable truth that sooner or later the mob tires of its hates and dwindles away.  True believers never understand that only they are 100% committed; everybody else is usually along for the ride while it's fun but will jump off the train when some new entertainment beckons.  There's a world of difference between demagoguery and dedication.  The gay haters are demagogues; gays are dedicated to their rights and equality before the law. The demagogues have run their course.  Nobody's listening to them now.  Their lies are hollow.  They've foretold doom and gloom too often.  Nobody believes them.  They convince nobody.  Mostly now only fossilized prejudice keeps the anti-gays in business.  There's no passion, no conviction, no confidence on their side any more.  Even they know that their cause is lost.  In November the whole world will see their ruin.  I can't wait!

DOMA DOA

This week a three-judge panel of the 1st circuit of the US Court of Appeals struck down as unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996. This was the infamous Republican election-year attack on the human rights of gay people cowardly signed into law by that treacherous sack of shit Bill Clinton. The act was authored principally by then-Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, a man with so much respect for traditional marriage that he's had three of them himself, the first two of which ended in divorce. Barr later repudiated DOMA while he ran a frivolous campaign for the presidency as the nominee of the Libertarian party, a party affiliation he repudiated in 2012 in favor of renewing his previously repudiated Republican party affiliation in a failed attempt to regain a seat in Congress. That's the kind of unscrupulous, unprincipled man the right-wing champions as a defender of traditional morality.

So heading to the Supreme Court are two critical gay-rights cases: Proposition 8 in California and DOMA. They'll arrive sometime after the November election. Their disposition will in large part depend on what happens in Washington state, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota. The former three have gay marriage on the ballot; the latter has a state constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage up for a vote. If we win all four--and that seems probable now that opinion is rapidly turning our way after Mr. Obama's announcement supporting gay marriage--then there are good reasons to anticipate victory in the Supreme Court mostly, I think, because nobody on the Court (except Scalia) wants to be this generation's Roger Tawney.

You'll remember from your US history that in 1857 Chief Justice Roger Tawney wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case and won for himself undying infamy. By all accounts Tawney was a decent man, a Maryland Catholic who had freed his own slaves and personally opposed slavery. But as a judge he believed himself bound to uphold the letter of the Constitution, which of course permitted slavery and defined black people as three-fifths of a citizen (for that read "white people"). Tawney's legalism overrode his morality and his memory has been reviled ever since.

The Court can plainly see that the tide of history is flowing in the direction of full, equal civil rights for gay people. No justice wants to be a member of Tawney's gallery of rogues. So I'm guessing that after the election the Court will use the victories in these four elections as the foundation for a leap forward in gay rights: it will uphold the unconstitutionality of DOMA, thus requiring the federal government to recognize gay marriages; and it will uphold equal marriage for gay people as a basic civil right.

And when the Court so rules, the game's over--we'll have won!