Federal gay marriage challenge has Hollywood style Reuters

The story of two famous U.S. lawyers from opposite ends of the political spectrum banding together to launch a bold and unexpected fight for gay marriage sounds like it could have been written in Hollywood.

In many ways, it is.

A handful of political filmmakers led by a Democratic consultant have crafted a gay rights challenge they hope will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case which has its first hearing in a federal San Francisco court on July 2 could quickly make gay marriage a national right, or, some veteran gay rights advocates fear, cripple the movement.

The team has political experience, winning referenda in California in particular, and has brought together real-world firepower in the form of Ted Olson and David Boies, the lawyers who faced off in the 2000 election vote recount that led to George W. Bush’s presidency.

What sets them apart is the willingness to take on a court case that advocates steeped in the cause have avoided.

“Patience is a virtue I’ve quite frankly never possessed — if patience is a virtue,” said Chad Griffin, 35, who began his career in the political big leagues more than a decade ago as the youngest person to work on a president’s West Wing staff.

“History is on our side, law is on our side,” added Griffin, who is gay.

Rob Reiner, the “When Harry Met Sally” director and advocate for children’s health, and Bruce Cohen, the producer of “Milk,” a film about the first openly gay elected politician in California, are two of the six-member board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, founded for the court challenge.

See Federal gay marriage challenge has Hollywood style

Reuters

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Gay adoption before Fla. Legislature, courts

The state Legislature is faced with a bill aimed at overturning the state’s 1977 ban on gay adoption, and Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals must resolve a lawsuit over the issue stemming from Gill’s case. The case is likely to move on to the Florida Supreme Court.

The court case will likely resolve questions posed by gay rights advocates before the bill does.

The legislation is expected to die without coming to a vote before the Legislature adjourns next week.

“This year the bill is not going to be going anywhere to be honest with you,” said the sponsor, Sen. Nan Rich, D-Sunrise. “The best chance to get a change in this state … will be with Gill.”

The high court will hold preliminary hearings soon on Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman’s ruling that allowed Gill to adopt the boys in November. Her ruling said the ban violates equal protection rights for the children and their prospective gay parents.

See Gay adoption before Fla. Legislature, courts

MiamiHerald.com

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Five stories from five years of same-sex marriage

Cambridge, Mass. - Susan Shepherd looks up at the rough-hewn pink granite of City Hall, just across the Charles River from downtown Boston. An American flag ripples in the wind. Inside the building, a plaque commemorates Cambridge as America’s birthplace of legal same-sex marriage.

“I can’t believe it’s been five years,” Shepherd says, hugging her wife. “I feel like I just met her yesterday.”

Nor can gay marriage opponents believe what’s happened in Massachusetts since, in their view, traditional marriage came to an end.

Yet in the past five years as same-sex marriage became part of Massachusetts’ landscape, many Bay Staters say something unexpected has happened: Life is as it always was.

Just after midnight on May 17, 2004, Shepherd and Marcia Hams, a Cambridge couple who’d been together three decades and raised a son, became Massachusetts’ first same-sex couple to get a marriage license. They had waited 24 hours in rain and cold, and by the time they got the license, 10,000 supporters gathered on the front lawn of City Hall.

Five years later and 1,300 miles away, Iowa on Monday will allow same-sex marriages. As Iowa enters into uncharted territory for the Midwest, the Bay State may serve as a sign of what may come.

Since same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, about 12,000 same-sex couples have applied for marriage licenses. Gay marriages now comprise about 4 percent of all marriages performed in the state, meaning there are about 1,500 a year.

There have been some same-sex divorces, too, most notably by the couple whose name was on the court case that legalized same-sex marriage.

To be sure, a sizable chunk of Massachusetts’ 6.3 million residents remain opposed to same-sex marriage, mostly on religious grounds. Some say legal same-sex marriage has led to censorship of those who remain opposed, to infringement on the rights of parents who object to same-sex marriage being taught in schools, and to Catholic Charities of Boston ending adoption work because it refused to allow same-sex couples to adopt.

But polling results show a shift toward acceptance of gay marriage. A 2004 survey by the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston found the state split: 42 percent supported gay marriage, 44 percent opposed it. A similar survey in 2008 found 59 percent in support of gay marriage, 37 percent opposed.

As Iowa enters a new era, a drive through Massachusetts and into Maine shows how same-sex marriage has changed life – for better, for worse or, as many say, hardly at all.

See Five stories from five years of same-sex marriage
DesMoinesRegister.com – Des Moines,IA,USA

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Utah opposition to civil unions shows proponents of Prop 8 Lied – again

You may remember how proponents of Prop 8 claimed they were not against Civil Unions for queers – they only wanted to protect marriage from being destroyed, etc.

Well, over in Utah (home of The Mormon Church) we can now see the truth: far right conservatives and the Mormon Church are against any form of equality for LGBT people. Read on:

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Friday that Utah’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage also prohibits civil unions, and that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is wrong when he says it’s open to interpretation from the courts.

“When it comes to civil unions, it’s absolutely clear. There is no doubt,” Shurtleff said in an interview. “That’s in the Constitution.”

Utah voters approved Amendment 3 to Utah’s Constitution in 2004, stating that marriage can only consist of a union between a man and a woman and that “No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.”

On Thursday, Huntsman said that it is not clear that the Constitution bans civil unions.

“I think that ultimately could be a court case and that might be adjudicated in court if it comes to that level,” Huntsman said during his monthly KUED news conference. “But [the amendment] wasn’t clear. That spoke to marriage and anything subordinate to marriage, I think, would probably be adjudicated in a court of law.”

Shurtleff said that, based on the language of the amendment and the legislative intent and history, “they clearly were prohibiting civil unions.”

On Friday, Shurtleff sent a Twitter message to 380 correspondents: “It is NOT a matter for the courts, the PEOPLE have spoken!”

Shurtleff says guv is wrong on civil unions
Salt Lake Tribune – United States

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Florida Supreme Court takes up gay adoption advocacy case

(Tallahassee, Florida) The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments as to whether a committee of the Florida Bar Association can present arguments challenging the state’s ban on gays adopting children.

Florida law allows gays to serve as foster parents but not adopt. The law is considered the most repressive of its …

Federal appeals court asked to revive case against Baptist childcare agency

(Cincinnati, Ohio) A federal appeals court was asked Tuesday to reinstate a lawsuit accusing a Baptist childcare agency of proselytizing youngsters in its care and firing gay employees.

The lawsuit was brought by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union.

It asserts that Kentucky Baptist …

Federal appeals court asked to revive case against Baptist childcare agency

(Cincinnati, Ohio) A federal appeals court was asked Tuesday to reinstate a lawsuit accusing a Baptist childcare agency of proselytizing youngsters in its care and firing gay employees.

The lawsuit was brought by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union.

It asserts that Kentucky Baptist …

A Family in Jeopardy

Lambda Legal is representing Rita Goodman, a nonbiological mother who was awarded shared custody of the two boys she parented from birth with her former partner. Goodman’s ex–partner and the boys’ biological mother, Siobhan LaPiana, appealed the trial court order that awarded Goodman custody. Goodman and LaPiana planned the boys’ births together during their ten–year committed relationship. LaPiana gave birth but both women equally parented the children. After the couple split, LaPiana began restricting Goodman’s interaction with the boys, despite the parenting agreement they had drafted and signed before the birth of their first child. We argue that Ohio’s antigay constitutional amendment has no bearing on the court’s authority to order shared custody between former same–sex partners — the same conclusion reached by the Ohio Supreme Court in a similar case last year.

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Ken Starr vs. transsexual in Prop 8 case

Kenneth Starr and Shannon Minter, lead attorneys in the California Supreme Court case that will decide the fate of same-sex marriage in the state, are as different as the competing sides they represent.

Starr, dean of Pepperdine University School of Law, is best known for leading the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern.

Since then, the former federal judge and U.S. solicitor general has dedicated himself to conservative causes, including writing briefs for the Mormon church in a previous gay marriage case in California.

Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, is a transsexual who spent his first 35 years as a female. He was a lead counsel in the state Supreme Court case decided last May that allowed same-sex couples to marry, a ruling that was reversed in November when voters approved Proposition 8.

Starr and Minter will square off Thursday in the most closely watched California Supreme Court hearing in a generation. They’re set to deliver oral arguments in three suits in which supporters of gay marriage contend that Proposition 8, which limits marriage to a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

Minter, 48, representing gay rights groups, will be the first attorney to address the court in San Francisco. Starr, 62, will deliver the final arguments on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign.

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Fury Over Obama’s Gay-Affirming Justice Picks

Social conservatives are calling on Congress to reject several of President Obama’s picks to the Department of Justice, including the No. 2 position of deputy attorney general, because they support gay and lesbian equality and the right of a woman to have an abortion.

Republicans on Capital Hill grilled David Ogden, nominated to be the deputy attorney general, at length about those issues at his Thursday confirmation hearing, reports The Associated Press.

Ogden filed a brief in support of the gay defendants at the center of the 2004 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas which declared sodomy laws unconstitutional. Ogden has also defended organizations that support the right of a woman to seek an abortion.

“You’ve taken some very extraordinary positions, some left-leaning and unorthodox positions,” Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, told Ogden.

Evangelical groups, including the ardently anti-gay Focus on the Family and the American Family Association, have objected to Ogden’s nomination.

Similar concerns are being expressed over the nomination of Elena Kagan to Solicitor General. Kagan, who is openly gay, is being denounced for her support of open service for gay military personnel.

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