Chaos in the New York senate

Republicans try to take control of the NY senate, may thwart marriage and GENDA efforts.

Chaos in the New York senate

Republicans try to take control of the NY senate, may thwart marriage and GENDA efforts.

Same-Sex Unions Supplant Abortion As Social Priority for Conservatives In Fight Over High Court Pick

As President Obama prepares to name his first Supreme Court justice, conservatives in Washington are making clear that his nominee will face plenty of questions during the confirmation process on the legal underpinnings of same-sex marriage.

In addition to shedding more light on the nation’s most contentious unfolding social drama and legal frontier, Senate Republicans say the debate could provide a road map to an Obama nominee’s judicial philosophy.

“It may reflect the degree to which they think that they’re not bound by the classical meaning of the Constitution, and that they may want to let a personal agenda go beyond what the law said,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Questions on social issues in confirmation hearings have tended for the past 30 years to focus squarely on abortion, with partisans from both sides poring over a nominee’s writings and rulings and presidents typically denying that any “litmus test” was employed in the selection.

Same-sex marriage carries the same freighted potential to dominate a hearing, conservatives say.

“It is now the flash point where politics and law meet. That flash point used to be abortion. I don’t think anybody thinks that’s going to be the flash point in this nomination,” said William A. Jacobson, a Cornell University law professor and conservative blogger.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), another GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, said conservatives are particularly eager to avoid a Supreme Court ruling akin to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide and has divided the country ever since. “I don’t think members of the court, or any of us, ever want to see a decision like that again,” Hatch said. Obama assured the senator in a recent meeting that he will not pick a “radical” to replace Souter, but Hatch added: “Presidents always say that. That’s why we have the hearing process.”

Same-sex marriage gained national resonance in the wake of last month’s Iowa Supreme Court ruling that legalized the practice in that state. And in the two weeks since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement, Maine also legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the fifth state to do so; the New Hampshire legislature sent a marriage-equality bill to the governor; the New York State Assembly approved gay-marriage legislation; and the District of Columbia voted to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Those actions, in so short a time, have outstripped the ability of Democrats in Washington to stake out their public position on the issue. MORE at Washington Post

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Top GOP Consultant Endorses Gay Marriage

If Steve Schmidt is for same-sex marriage, can Senate Republicans be far behind?
Well, yes. We don’t expect establishment Republicans in Washington — or establishment Democrats, for that matter — to suddenly endorse gay marriage. But in a possible sign of the momentum of the gay-marriage movement, Mr. Schmidt, who was a senior adviser to the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, last year, is promoting gay marriage this afternoon.
He endorsed same-sex marriage last month, in an interview with the Washington Blade.
Today, Mr. Schmidt, who also served as a top Bush aide, discusses the subject with the Log Cabin Republicans, a group that supports gay rights. According to CNN, he will call on conservative Republicans to drop their opposition at a lunchtime speech in Washington.
Mr. Schmidt, who has a sister who is a lesbian See Top GOP Consultant Endorses Gay Marriage
New York Times * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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GOP Behaving Poorly: GOP Delaying Holder Confirmation Over Torture – want him to promise not to go after Bushies

Senate Republicans hope to delay a vote on the confirmation of Eric Holder to become attorney general in order to pressure him to say whether he will prosecute intelligence agents for torture if they were following orders and acting within what they believed to be legal guidelines.

Holder told the Judiciary Committee last week that waterboarding is “torture” and therefore illegal. Susan J. Crawford, the top Bush administration official overseeing the trials of detainees, told the Washington Post that at least one individual held at the prison center at Guantanamo Bay was “tortured.”

The question Republicans want answered before Holder is confirmed: Will you prosecute those who took part in that torture?

See GOP Delaying Holder Confirmation Over Torture…