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!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The bottom drops out
More new developments on the gay marriage front:
(1) Former secretary of state Colin Powell has announced his support for gay marriage.
(2) ABC News/Washington Post polling reports that for the first time those strongly supporting gay marriage outnumber those strongly opposing.
(3) Langer Research Associates reports that since Barack Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage, African Americans now support gay marriage by 59%, up from 40% as recently as a year ago.
(4) ABC/Post poll reports that now an absolute majority of 51-53% support gay marriage.
(5) Public Policy Polling reports that now 57% of Maryland voters will vote to uphold the state's new gay marriage law. There has been an enormous shift in black support from 57% opposed to 56% in favor.
I'd say that the bottom of the anti-gay marriage hate ship has just fallen out and that the ship is now sinking. The haters had previously counted on an apparently immovable opposition to gay marriage among black voters. Then Barack Obama changed everything. Now prominent black leaders like Powell and the NAACP have announced support for gay marriage equality. The black vote no longer belongs to the haters. If trends continue (and there's no reason to think they won't) support for the anti-gay haters will hardly amount to a quarter of the population. Talk about reversal of fortune. That's about where gay marriage support started back in the late 1990s, the difference being that support for justice, fairness, and equality has grown whereas support for bigotry has declined. It's fair to say that the anti-gay marriage campaign is dying on the vine in front of our eyes.
November is now not only a watershed moment in the gay marriage struggle. It may be a knockout victory. If the votes in Washington state, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota turn out to be landslides in favor of equality for gays, it's over. The Supreme Court will have a political basis to invalidate all anti-gay marriage obstructions when the Proposition 8 case arrives on its docket sometime after the election. There is already constitutional basis in Roemer vs Evans, but the uncourageous court never outpaces public opinion on anything.
Put a bit differently, if a political candidate was polling the way gay marriage is now polling, all observers and pundits would say that he was own his way to victory. Mitt Romney is going to pay a big price for his stupid support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He'd better drop that crap right now if he knows what's good for him although I hope he doesn't because there will be nothing sweeter in November than the sight of the Mormon church and its favorite son/champion being crushed by a pro-gay avalanche.
(1) Former secretary of state Colin Powell has announced his support for gay marriage.
(2) ABC News/Washington Post polling reports that for the first time those strongly supporting gay marriage outnumber those strongly opposing.
(3) Langer Research Associates reports that since Barack Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage, African Americans now support gay marriage by 59%, up from 40% as recently as a year ago.
(4) ABC/Post poll reports that now an absolute majority of 51-53% support gay marriage.
(5) Public Policy Polling reports that now 57% of Maryland voters will vote to uphold the state's new gay marriage law. There has been an enormous shift in black support from 57% opposed to 56% in favor.
I'd say that the bottom of the anti-gay marriage hate ship has just fallen out and that the ship is now sinking. The haters had previously counted on an apparently immovable opposition to gay marriage among black voters. Then Barack Obama changed everything. Now prominent black leaders like Powell and the NAACP have announced support for gay marriage equality. The black vote no longer belongs to the haters. If trends continue (and there's no reason to think they won't) support for the anti-gay haters will hardly amount to a quarter of the population. Talk about reversal of fortune. That's about where gay marriage support started back in the late 1990s, the difference being that support for justice, fairness, and equality has grown whereas support for bigotry has declined. It's fair to say that the anti-gay marriage campaign is dying on the vine in front of our eyes.
November is now not only a watershed moment in the gay marriage struggle. It may be a knockout victory. If the votes in Washington state, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota turn out to be landslides in favor of equality for gays, it's over. The Supreme Court will have a political basis to invalidate all anti-gay marriage obstructions when the Proposition 8 case arrives on its docket sometime after the election. There is already constitutional basis in Roemer vs Evans, but the uncourageous court never outpaces public opinion on anything.
Put a bit differently, if a political candidate was polling the way gay marriage is now polling, all observers and pundits would say that he was own his way to victory. Mitt Romney is going to pay a big price for his stupid support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He'd better drop that crap right now if he knows what's good for him although I hope he doesn't because there will be nothing sweeter in November than the sight of the Mormon church and its favorite son/champion being crushed by a pro-gay avalanche.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
NAACP supports gay marriage
The good gay news just keeps rolling along.
The oldest civil rights organization in the country, the NAACP, has just endorsed gay marriage. Civil marriage, says the group, is a civil right and civil rights are for every American.
Hooray! This endorsement is a consequence of Barack Obama's recently announced support for gay marriage. But the NAACP sees him and raises the ante. None of this "leave it up to the states" crap for them. Nobody left black civil rights "up to the states" because "states rights" meant no rights for black people. We are citizens of the United States of America, not merely citizens of Idaho or Maine. All citizens enjoy the same rights: that's what the 14th amendment to the Constitution says. It was ratified in 1868 precisely to correct the Founding Fathers' error of minimizing the federal government's responsibility to articulate, define, guarantee, and protect exactly what rights citizens of the country possess. The correction the amenders proposed is simple: every citizen has every right and all citizens are equally protected by the law. Civil rights don't stop at state borders. You don't become a second-class citizen just because you cross a state line.
That rumbling you hear is the gay rights avalanche sweeping across this country. There's no stopping it. The feeble obstructions bigots have placed in their state constitutions will all be swept away by federal statute and Supreme Court rulings. We're not going to keep fighting a skirmish here and a skirmish there indefinitely. We're not going to fight the way the bigots want us to fight. We're fighting to win. We're going to win this war with overwhelming force and destroy our enemies. Period.
The oldest civil rights organization in the country, the NAACP, has just endorsed gay marriage. Civil marriage, says the group, is a civil right and civil rights are for every American.
Hooray! This endorsement is a consequence of Barack Obama's recently announced support for gay marriage. But the NAACP sees him and raises the ante. None of this "leave it up to the states" crap for them. Nobody left black civil rights "up to the states" because "states rights" meant no rights for black people. We are citizens of the United States of America, not merely citizens of Idaho or Maine. All citizens enjoy the same rights: that's what the 14th amendment to the Constitution says. It was ratified in 1868 precisely to correct the Founding Fathers' error of minimizing the federal government's responsibility to articulate, define, guarantee, and protect exactly what rights citizens of the country possess. The correction the amenders proposed is simple: every citizen has every right and all citizens are equally protected by the law. Civil rights don't stop at state borders. You don't become a second-class citizen just because you cross a state line.
That rumbling you hear is the gay rights avalanche sweeping across this country. There's no stopping it. The feeble obstructions bigots have placed in their state constitutions will all be swept away by federal statute and Supreme Court rulings. We're not going to keep fighting a skirmish here and a skirmish there indefinitely. We're not going to fight the way the bigots want us to fight. We're fighting to win. We're going to win this war with overwhelming force and destroy our enemies. Period.
Friday, May 18, 2012
More good news yet again!
Today the Maryland supreme court legalized gay marriage. In a unanimous ruling the court declared that gay marriages performed in other states must be recognized as legal marriages in Maryland. The case dealt with a lesbian couple married in California but seeking a divorce in Maryland. The court requires the state to permit the divorce as it would with any other marriage whether in-state or out-of-state.
This ruling makes no reference to the current political debate going on in Maryland. Early in the year Maryland's legislature and the governor signed gay marriage into law. Because Maryland has one of those despicable voter veto laws, the anti-gay losers immediately launched a petition drive to put the issue on the November ballot. That process is still underway. But no matter what the outcome, the supreme court says that out-of-state gay marriages are legal in Maryland.
Which to all intents and purposes legalizes gay marriage in Maryland. Gay marriage is legal in the District of Columbia, so gay Marylanders can simply drive to DC, get hitched, and drive back home with a fully legal marriage license that the state must now recognize completely. Earlier in the week Rhode Island's governor issued an executive order requiring the state to recognize out-of-state gay marriages thus effectively legalizing gay marriage there. So we have two big wins in a single week! Hooray for justice and equality.
Maybe this ruling along with Barack Obama's public support of gay marriage will help preserve in-state gay marriage in Maryland. Blacks are a big voter block. Polls taken after Obama's announcement are starting to show movement toward accepting gay marriage among blacks who have previously opposed gay marriage by the widest margin among voter groups. The times are changing fast.
November is the watershed moment for gay marriage. Probably we'll have three states deciding gay marriage (Washington state, Maine, and Maryland) and one state deciding a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage (Minnesota). Supporters of equality and justice for gay people can win all four. If so, that's the effective end of the anti-gay marriage opposition: they're losing in state legislatures, in courts, and soon at the ballot box. Then it's on to the US supreme court for California's Prop 8 and possibly a landmark ruling that sweeps away all the state prohibitions and obstructions and burdens bigots have placed in the way of gay people who simply seek the same opportunities in life that everybody else enjoys. It's becoming clear as a bell now: anti-gay bigotry is losing politics. Republicans had better figure out really quick how to accommodate gay marriage or that party will be by-passed by history and relegated to the dump.
I'm going to enjoy watching the haters get squashed. Couldn't happen to more deserving people.
This ruling makes no reference to the current political debate going on in Maryland. Early in the year Maryland's legislature and the governor signed gay marriage into law. Because Maryland has one of those despicable voter veto laws, the anti-gay losers immediately launched a petition drive to put the issue on the November ballot. That process is still underway. But no matter what the outcome, the supreme court says that out-of-state gay marriages are legal in Maryland.
Which to all intents and purposes legalizes gay marriage in Maryland. Gay marriage is legal in the District of Columbia, so gay Marylanders can simply drive to DC, get hitched, and drive back home with a fully legal marriage license that the state must now recognize completely. Earlier in the week Rhode Island's governor issued an executive order requiring the state to recognize out-of-state gay marriages thus effectively legalizing gay marriage there. So we have two big wins in a single week! Hooray for justice and equality.
Maybe this ruling along with Barack Obama's public support of gay marriage will help preserve in-state gay marriage in Maryland. Blacks are a big voter block. Polls taken after Obama's announcement are starting to show movement toward accepting gay marriage among blacks who have previously opposed gay marriage by the widest margin among voter groups. The times are changing fast.
November is the watershed moment for gay marriage. Probably we'll have three states deciding gay marriage (Washington state, Maine, and Maryland) and one state deciding a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage (Minnesota). Supporters of equality and justice for gay people can win all four. If so, that's the effective end of the anti-gay marriage opposition: they're losing in state legislatures, in courts, and soon at the ballot box. Then it's on to the US supreme court for California's Prop 8 and possibly a landmark ruling that sweeps away all the state prohibitions and obstructions and burdens bigots have placed in the way of gay people who simply seek the same opportunities in life that everybody else enjoys. It's becoming clear as a bell now: anti-gay bigotry is losing politics. Republicans had better figure out really quick how to accommodate gay marriage or that party will be by-passed by history and relegated to the dump.
I'm going to enjoy watching the haters get squashed. Couldn't happen to more deserving people.
Monday, May 14, 2012
More good news again!
More good news on the gay marriage/gay equality front. Today the governor of Rhode Island signed an executive order directing the state's agencies to recognize the marriages of gay people living in the state. Rhode Island itself does not allow gay marriage, so the order requires that the state recognize marriages performed elsewhere. About a year ago the governor and his allies in the legislature tried to enact gay marriage but could not win sufficient support and had to settle for civil unions instead. So today, the governor gets revenge for his loss by enacting gay marriage by edict. Gay Rhode Islanders can drive to Massachusetts, get married, drive home, present their license to the state, and voila they're married as far as Rhode Island is concerned. Clever!
Of course we'll hear grumbling and moaning by opponents and certainly shrieks of "tyranny!" (as if the rabid anti-gay haters aren't supporting raw tyranny against gay people). Too bad, folks. There's more than one way to skin a bigot. Kudos to Governor Lincoln Chaffee for having the guts and tenacity to stand up to the bigots and to the Catholic clergy who tried to thwart civil rights for gay people.
The cause of gay marriage is on a roll. That vile vote in North Carolina was sadly inevitable. North Carolina is after all the state that sent the mad dog racist and gay-hater Jesse Helms to the US senate for term after term. It is part of the old Confederacy. Who has been out of step with the march of history more or longer than white southerners? But with Barack Obama's long overdue discovery that he has a spine and therefore can stand for gay rights instead of just yacking about it and today's victory in Rhode Island, nobody should doubt that the cause of equality for gay people is now rolling forward. The bigots are in retreat. This November there will be game-changing votes in Washington state, Maine, Minnesota, and Maryland. This year's election is the watershed. Everything will be different after the first Tuesday in November, 2012. The retreat will become a rout and our enemies, who are enemies of human freedom in general, will be crushed and thrown onto the garbage dump of history.
Of course we'll hear grumbling and moaning by opponents and certainly shrieks of "tyranny!" (as if the rabid anti-gay haters aren't supporting raw tyranny against gay people). Too bad, folks. There's more than one way to skin a bigot. Kudos to Governor Lincoln Chaffee for having the guts and tenacity to stand up to the bigots and to the Catholic clergy who tried to thwart civil rights for gay people.
The cause of gay marriage is on a roll. That vile vote in North Carolina was sadly inevitable. North Carolina is after all the state that sent the mad dog racist and gay-hater Jesse Helms to the US senate for term after term. It is part of the old Confederacy. Who has been out of step with the march of history more or longer than white southerners? But with Barack Obama's long overdue discovery that he has a spine and therefore can stand for gay rights instead of just yacking about it and today's victory in Rhode Island, nobody should doubt that the cause of equality for gay people is now rolling forward. The bigots are in retreat. This November there will be game-changing votes in Washington state, Maine, Minnesota, and Maryland. This year's election is the watershed. Everything will be different after the first Tuesday in November, 2012. The retreat will become a rout and our enemies, who are enemies of human freedom in general, will be crushed and thrown onto the garbage dump of history.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Good news!
Today the New Hampshire House voted decisively against an attempt to repeal gay marriage. The vote: 211-116. This is astonishing given the fact that the 400-member house has 294 Republican members and a mere 103 Democrats (with 3 vacancies). The gay-hate caucus failed to win even a majority of Republicans! Now that's total failure. Gay marriage was legalized by the previous Democrat-controlled legislature. Then along came the 2010 election disaster for Democracts (many thanks to Barack Obama for this!) and the Tea Party/Republicans won a veto-proof majority in both the House and the Senate. Repealing gay marriage was an early goal of the Lord's warriors in the Tea Party but one thing led to another and the vote was postponed until this election year (wonder why--maybe some anti-gay demagoguery to plump up those poll numbers?). What appeared to be a dead-certain repeal has exploded in the faces of Tea Party wackos, NOM, mad-dog evangelicals, and assorted enemies of gay people. Polls had repeatedly shown absolutely no interest in the repeal among New Hampshire voters. Zilch. New Hampshire citizens have made their peace with gay marriage. They've moved on. That message finally got through to the rational (and rationally self-interested) members of the legislature: voting against gay marriage is definitely a bad career move. Thus today's vote.
This victory is critical. In November there will be at least three critical ballot issues in Washington state, Maine, and Minnesota regarding gay marriage. This vote is especially important for Maine. Two years ago the voters in Maine ratified bigotry by cancelling a law enacted by the legislature which included gays in marriage. The vote was close. Now polls clearly indicate a majority in favor of gay marriage and the issue is once again on the ballot. If New Hampshire Republican voters (at least enough of them) can allow gay marriage in their state, then the signs are good that next door in Maine voters will correct the injustice done two years ago and restore gay marriage.
The leaders of anti-gay hate have until now banked on the bigotry of the mob. Court rulings and pro-gay legislation have often been stymied by referendum. Disgraceful and odious and unjust as putting human rights up to a vote is, the haters (who have no scruple whatsoever) are happy to let the mob rule as long as the mob can be stirred up against gay people. They've been largely successful until now. However, that strategy (if it deserves the name) has not worn well over the years; it isn't working anymore. Public opinion has changed very rapidly in the last few years. Polls clearly indicate that a majority of voters in critical states have accepted gay marriage and now support it (or at least don't oppose it). Seems that more and more people accept fairness for gay people. The haters on are the run. The Republican party has gone out of its way to be the anti-gay party in order to demagogue the issue and squeeze as many votes out of the haters as possible. Whoops! Repubs didn't count on a sea-shift in public opinion. They thought hatred of gays was an eternal truth; instead it's a cultural artifact of the past, like race hatred. Repubs are going to be punished severely for this error. They've let their party become infested with haters. What will they do now that inflaming anti-gay hate is a loser at the polls? The conservative party in Great Britain did the same thing under the anti-gay hater Margaret Thatcher, and the party was out of power for more than a decade, losing three successive general elections and effectively became a rump, regional party without a national constituency. Only now under Prime Minister Cameron has the party embraced gay rights and become viable against Labor but only by sharing power with Liberal Democrats. The British conservatives are now proceeding with full gay marriage on the agenda; the new leaders of the party want a modern party, not a useless antique from the distant past. Canadian conservatives made their peace with gay marriage when they were returned to office and have prospered ever since. What's wrong with Republican conservatives? Why can't they learn from experience? The answer: Republican conservatives are not true conservatives; they are radical ideologues wholly captured by reactionary doctrine and ideology.
So November 2012 is the watershed in the struggle for gay marriage and full civil rights for gays. I expect victory in Washington state, Minnesota, and now Maine. The last device of the gay-haters--demagoguery at the voting booth--will fail. When mob rule is no longer an option, the haters will have no weapons left. Public opinion will turn rapidly and decisively against them. Victory is at hand. Finally.
This victory is critical. In November there will be at least three critical ballot issues in Washington state, Maine, and Minnesota regarding gay marriage. This vote is especially important for Maine. Two years ago the voters in Maine ratified bigotry by cancelling a law enacted by the legislature which included gays in marriage. The vote was close. Now polls clearly indicate a majority in favor of gay marriage and the issue is once again on the ballot. If New Hampshire Republican voters (at least enough of them) can allow gay marriage in their state, then the signs are good that next door in Maine voters will correct the injustice done two years ago and restore gay marriage.
The leaders of anti-gay hate have until now banked on the bigotry of the mob. Court rulings and pro-gay legislation have often been stymied by referendum. Disgraceful and odious and unjust as putting human rights up to a vote is, the haters (who have no scruple whatsoever) are happy to let the mob rule as long as the mob can be stirred up against gay people. They've been largely successful until now. However, that strategy (if it deserves the name) has not worn well over the years; it isn't working anymore. Public opinion has changed very rapidly in the last few years. Polls clearly indicate that a majority of voters in critical states have accepted gay marriage and now support it (or at least don't oppose it). Seems that more and more people accept fairness for gay people. The haters on are the run. The Republican party has gone out of its way to be the anti-gay party in order to demagogue the issue and squeeze as many votes out of the haters as possible. Whoops! Repubs didn't count on a sea-shift in public opinion. They thought hatred of gays was an eternal truth; instead it's a cultural artifact of the past, like race hatred. Repubs are going to be punished severely for this error. They've let their party become infested with haters. What will they do now that inflaming anti-gay hate is a loser at the polls? The conservative party in Great Britain did the same thing under the anti-gay hater Margaret Thatcher, and the party was out of power for more than a decade, losing three successive general elections and effectively became a rump, regional party without a national constituency. Only now under Prime Minister Cameron has the party embraced gay rights and become viable against Labor but only by sharing power with Liberal Democrats. The British conservatives are now proceeding with full gay marriage on the agenda; the new leaders of the party want a modern party, not a useless antique from the distant past. Canadian conservatives made their peace with gay marriage when they were returned to office and have prospered ever since. What's wrong with Republican conservatives? Why can't they learn from experience? The answer: Republican conservatives are not true conservatives; they are radical ideologues wholly captured by reactionary doctrine and ideology.
So November 2012 is the watershed in the struggle for gay marriage and full civil rights for gays. I expect victory in Washington state, Minnesota, and now Maine. The last device of the gay-haters--demagoguery at the voting booth--will fail. When mob rule is no longer an option, the haters will have no weapons left. Public opinion will turn rapidly and decisively against them. Victory is at hand. Finally.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The political party that time forgot
Physicists and science fiction writers should take note of the Republican primary campaign. Each of the four remaining contestants is trying to time travel into the past. Newt Gingrich wants to time travel to the fictitious "morning in American" Reagan era of the early 1980s. Mitt Romney wants to time travel to the last quarter of the 19th century and rule the country along with the rest of the robber barons like Vanderbilt and the first Rockefeller. Ron Paul wants to time travel back to the 18th century and live in the early days of the American republic when the Constitution was new and most of the country was wilderness. Rick Santorum wants to travel back to the 12th century and reprise the Dark Age and the Crusades and get the Inquisition back into business.
Before these knuckleheads started campaigning, the Republicans were looking forward to a big win in 2012. Then these clowns opened their mouths and started talking. Bad career move. Now even hardcore do-or-die party stalwarts are aghast and have had their fill of this non-stop nonsense. Primary voter participation is down 30%. Old dog poop looks better than these guys. Old Republican dog poop today is going to be older Republican dog poop in November. Who'll want to vote for a pile of it then? The Republican party may have engineered a landslide victory for a Democrat president that even Democrats think is below average.
Even for a party obsessed with looking backwards, that's ass-backward politicking.
Before these knuckleheads started campaigning, the Republicans were looking forward to a big win in 2012. Then these clowns opened their mouths and started talking. Bad career move. Now even hardcore do-or-die party stalwarts are aghast and have had their fill of this non-stop nonsense. Primary voter participation is down 30%. Old dog poop looks better than these guys. Old Republican dog poop today is going to be older Republican dog poop in November. Who'll want to vote for a pile of it then? The Republican party may have engineered a landslide victory for a Democrat president that even Democrats think is below average.
Even for a party obsessed with looking backwards, that's ass-backward politicking.
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