Vanasco: Who’s next on the Supreme Court?
The Daily Beast has the top contenders (though of course, no one actually knows). The Beast names Eric Holder, Diane Wood, Elena Kagan, Cass Sunstein,
I’d love the next choice to be Cass Sunstein (a well-regarded Constitutional law scholar and creative thinker who can explain law to the masses - as …
Tags: Beast, Cass Sunstein, Constitutional Law Scholar, Creative Thinker, Diane Wood, Elena Kagan, Eric Holder, love, Names, Supreme Court, Top ContendersDismay Over Obama’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Turnabout
When Barack Obama sought the presidency, he pledged to reverse the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy preventing gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military. Yet on Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a gay Ohio soldier’s challenge to the law — with the legal backing of none other than the Obama Administration.
James Pietrangelo II, the former Army infantryman and lawyer whose case the high court declined to review, reserved most of his ire for President Obama instead of the court. “He’s a coward, a bigot and a pathological liar,” Pietrangelo said in an interview with TIME shortly after the high court declined to hear his appeal. “This is a guy who spent more time picking out his dog, Bo, and playing with him on the White House lawn than he has working for equality for gay people,” he added. “If there were millions of black people as second-class citizens, or millions of Jews or Irish, he would have acted immediately” upon taking office to begin working to lift “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Pietrangelo fought in Iraq in 1991 as an infantryman, and returned as a JAG officer for the second Iraq War, before being booted out in 2004 for declaring he was gay as he was readying for a third combat tour. He was representing himself before the high court. (See pictures of the gay rights movement.)
The Obama Administration, in its brief in the case last month, said a lower court acted properly in upholding the gay ban. “Applying the strong deference traditionally afforded to the Legislative and Executive Branches in the area of military affairs, the court of appeals properly upheld the statute,” argued Elena Kagan, who as Solicitor General represents the Administration before the Supreme Court. The bar on gays serving openly is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion,” her 12-page filing added.
The endorsement of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” by the Administration marks the latest rightward tack by Obama. The President denounced many of George W. Bush’s national-security policies during the campaign, but in office has adopted more conservative positions, including endorsing military commissions to try purported terrorists, and declining to release a second batch of photographs depicting alleged U.S. maltreatment of Iraqi detainees. His stance on “Don’t ask, don’t tell” may be more surprising, because Obama aides have made clear the President wants the ban lifted eventually. (Watch a gay marriage wedding video.)
Pietrangelo doesn’t buy the line from Obama aides — and the Pentagon — that they’re too busy grappling with a faltering economy and two wars to handle the gay ban right away. “It’s a complete lie that he has too much stuff on his plate — this is the guy who criticized Bush for not being able to multitask,” Pietrangelo says. “We have an old saying in the military — the maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters.” See Dismay Over Obama’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Turnabout TIME
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/dismay-over-o…
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.
See Fury Over Obama’s Gay-Affirming Justice Picks
On Top Magazine, OH
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/fury-over-oba…
