WY introduces marriage law

State-level Republicans are pushing a law to ban the recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages.

Church court trial starts for minister

A lesbian Presbyterian minister who performed same-sex marriages is on trial in the church.

Culhane: How DADT repeal will help gay marriage

Depending on whom you read and rely on, the DADT ban is or is not about to be history. Many stories have been written on the proposed law, but not much has been said about this point: If the repeal does go through, the case for marriage equality becomes rhetorically stronger. Why?

First, unlike many of the laws that seek equality for the LGBT community, DADT and the ban on same-sex marriages are instances where the government itself is doing the discriminating.

Thus, the rhetoric that’s used in one case applies to the other: Government should treat all of its citizens equally. Even an unreconstructed libertarian like Rand Paul – currently in boiling water because of his statements that the government shouldn’t tell private businesses whom they can and can’t deal with (including, say, African-Americans) – should support a principle of basic fairness and equality for all citizens. (He doesn’t, of course, so his libertarianism is born of convenience, not principle.)

Second, the most-often heard argument against allowing gay and lesbian soldiers into the military is that they will disrupt “unit cohesion.” But if this argument is ultimately rejected in the one area in which it at least sounds plausible (if only because of a homophobic atmosphere that has too often come from higher-ranking military), that rejection weakens a similar argument that’s advanced by many of those who oppose marriage equality: Allowing gays, lesbians, and transgendered people to marry will weaken heterosexual marriages – disrupt their “unit cohesion,” if you will.

But if folks in the military can somehow learn to deal with gay and lesbian troops who live and fight alongside them every day, then surely straight couples can absorb the blow inflicted by living in the same society as same-sex couples.

Sometimes the argument is pitched at a slightly more sophisticated level: While marriage equality won’t immediately affect heterosexual couples, in the long run it will change the message of marriage by suggesting that the biological connection between parents and children isn’t important.

Maggie Gallagher is perhaps the anti-equality spokesperson most associated with this argument, but I’ve also heard it made during litigation. For example, during oral argument before the Iowa Supreme Court, the state’s dramatically unsuccessful effort (7-zip) to block equality leaned almost exclusively on a version of that argument.

Courts, though, are rarely impressed by such abstract arguments – especially when they carry more than a whiff of desperation. You’ll notice that the anti-equality forces haven’t been especially vocal about opposing adoption, surrogacy, or no-fault divorce laws, all of which of course sever the biological connections between parents and their children.

Nor do they acknowledge that marriage sends a bunch of other messages, too – including that one about commitment and the raising of children, together.

Against these arguments stand the obvious and debilitating discrimination against all of us – those who’d marry if we could, and those who wouldn’t but who are constantly reminded of our second-class citizenship. Faced with the balancing of that ledger, any self-respecting court should require sounder arguments for the continued exclusion of LGBT couples from the institution of marriage.

And recently, they have: Supreme Courts in California (pre-Prop 8), Massachusetts, Iowa and Connecticut have all read their state constitutional guarantees of equality to require the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Are there other arguments against marriage equality?

Not good ones.

Even Justice Scalia admitted, in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, that the marriage-procreation link isn’t a reason (we don’t require proof of reproductive capacity), and the related arguments that opposite-sex couples “need” marriage because only they can procreate “accidentally” (Oops! I Procreated Again!) is just plain dumb (even though it was accepted by the highest courts in both Washington and New York).

Religious arguments, of course, have no place in a public debate (for one thing: whose religion controls?)

So we’re left with this kind of discomfort with marriage equality – that somehow it will affect straight marriages, however indirectly and over time. Once this “unit cohesion” argument falls in the military setting, its demise in civilian life should be briskly achieved. Let’s begin to press this argument.

John Culhane is Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law Institute at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. He blogs about the role of law in everyday life, and about a bunch of other things (LGBT rights, public health, science, certain sports, pop culture, music, philosophy and lots of personal stuff) at: http://wordinedgewise.org. A fuller bio can be found here. He can be reached via email at: johnculhane@comcast.net.

Christian conservatives target San Diego judges

(San Diego) A group of conservative attorneys say they are on a mission from God to unseat four California judges in a rare challenge that is turning a traditionally snooze-button election into what both sides call a battle for the integrity of U.S. courts.

Vowing to be God’s ambassadors on the bench, the four San Diego Superior Court candidates are backed by pastors, gun enthusiasts, and opponents of abortion and same-sex marriages.

“We believe our country is under assault and needs Christian values,” said Craig Candelore, a family law attorney who is one of the group’s candidates. “Unfortunately, God has called upon us to do this only with the judiciary.”

The challenge is unheard of in California, one of 33 states to directly elect judges. Critics say the campaign is aimed at packing the courts with judges who adhere to the religious right’s moral agenda and threatens both the impartiality of the court system and the separation of church and state.

Opponents fear the June 8 race is a strategy that could transform courtroom benches just like some school boards, which have seen an increasing number of Christian conservatives win seats in cities across the country and push for such issues as prayer in classrooms.

“Any organization that wants judges to subscribe to a certain political party or certain value system or certain way of ruling to me threatens the independence of the judiciary,” San Diego County’s District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said.

“Judges should be evaluated based on their qualifications and their duty to follow the law.”

The campaign by California’s social conservatives comes at a time when judges and scholars in many states are debating whether judges should be elected or appointed, citing the danger that campaign contributions could influence their rulings. Other states have lifted restrictions allowing judges to express their opinions publicly so people know what their biases are.

Special interest groups, including those representing gay marriage opponents, have ramped up donations for judicial races in recent years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s school of law.

In Iowa’s June 8 primary, two Republican gubernatorial candidates have announced they favor ousting Supreme Court judges whose unanimous decision last year legalized same-sex marriage.

“An effective way in driving policy is to try to influence who is on the courts in a state, particularly the highest court, the supreme court,” said Adam Skaggs, counsel for the Brennan Center. “It’s cause for concern because Americans expect courts to be places where people get a fair trial.”

Most of those efforts have been aimed at state supreme courts, not courts like San Diego Superior Court that rules on custody battles and crime cases.

Called “Better Courts Now,” the movement was the brainchild of Don Hamer, San Diego County’s late Zion Christian Fellowship pastor who campaigned locally for California’s ban on gay marriage, Proposition 8, and vetted the candidates before he died of a heart attack in March.

His fellow Pastor Brian Hendry and other supporters have carried on his legacy, launching the mostly online campaign to replace the incumbent judges – all Democrats – with Christian conservatives.

Backers include El Cajon Gun Exchange, a store that encourages customers to fight for California’s gun owners and visit the “Better Courts Now” website before voting. Pastors have vowed to spread the word. Hendry said the group had raised about $2,000 last month.

Some say it would not take much to win the traditionally low turnout race. The election usually draws fellow judges, attorneys, prosecutors and others closely following the legal community.

Lantz Lewis, who has been a judge for 20 years, said his opponent’s campaign is taking judicial elections in the wrong direction.

“I have no problem with elections, but I think it really should focus on a judge’s qualifications, and it’s very difficult to think something good could come out of a partisan judicial election,” he said.

“Better Courts Now” says it wants courts to be more accountable to the public.

At a debate the group organized at the Rancho del Rey church in San Marcos, a sprawling city of strip malls and suburban earth-tone homes perched atop green canyons, candidate Harold J. Coleman Jr. told supporters it’s fair for voters to know a judge’s values.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t follow the law,” Coleman said as his supporters faced a wall with the words, “Live Jesus.”

About 25 attendees broke into prayer at the church, which was in an office complex shared by an Irish dance studio and gymnasium.

Organizers invited the incumbents but none came.

Lewis said “Better Courts Now” appears to be seeking allegiance to its views – not accountability.

“That’s one of the reasons, we declined the invitation to go to that forum,” he said. “I just don’t think judges should be in a situation, where they are asked, ‘Do you believe in God, abortion, gay marriage?’”

If judges proclaim to be either liberals or conservatives, people will feel the decks are either stacked against them or in their favor. If only one parent goes to church and the other does not in a child custody battle, a judge proclaimed to be a conservative Christian may favor the churchgoer, he said.

The district attorney and nearly every judge on the bench are endorsing incumbents Lewis, Robert Longstreth and Joel Wohlfeil, rated by the San Diego County Bar Association as “well qualified,” its highest grade.

The bar rated Candelore and his running mates Bill Trask and Larry “Jake” Kincaid as “lacking some or all of the qualities of professional ability, experience, competence, integrity and temperament indicative of fitness to perform the judicial function in a satisfactory mode.”

Trask is a lawyer for a mortgage firm and Kincaid is a family law attorney.

The bar said it did not have enough information to rate Coleman, an arbitrator for business disputes. He faces Judge DeAnn Salcido, who also received the bar’s lowest mark of “lacking qualifications.”

The Better Courts Now candidates accused the bar of being swayed by politics.

Candelore said a victory would mark only the beginning: “If we can take our judiciary, we can take our legislature and our executive branch.”