Kagan heads back to the Hill for whirlwind visits
(Washington) Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan returned to Capitol Hill Thursday to meet with senators who are key to her confirmation.
The solicitor general, preparing for meetings with Republicans and Democrats, including one who has opposed her in the past, said she’s beginning to get accustomed to the delicate ritual of closely watched courtesy calls she must make in the run-up to her summer confirmation hearings.
Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, her first visit of the day, asked Kagan whether she’s “getting used to this little routine.”
“Just barely,” Kagan responded with a smile.
Kagan, 50, called on eight senators Wednesday and plans meetings with another seven today. That includes one former foe, Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who as a Republican voted last year against confirming her to her current post.
Kerry said he was “very proud” of Kagan, adding that she has “quite a road yet to travel.”
In closed-door meetings, Kagan has assured senators that she’s up to the job of being a justice, seeking to counter GOP criticism of her lack of experience as a judge or courtroom litigator. President Barack Obama tapped Kagan this week to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.
Kagan has gotten off to a fast start on Capitol Hill. Shuttling from office to office Wednesday, she stayed quiet in public but fielded questions in private about her resume, opinions and legal philosophy.
Kagan, a former Harvard Law School dean, defended herself against Republican doubts about her fitness to be a fair justice. She said she’d be “faithful to the law,” according to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who said he asked her whether she could be impartial given that she’s identified with “liberal” positions and has clerked for two judges he called “activist.”
Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel that will hold Kagan’s confirmation hearings, said he’d do his best to give her a “fair” hearing, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee chairman, said he’d guarantee a process where senators could ask “all relevant questions.”
Republicans are questioning whether Kagan can be impartial in light of her political views and current position on Obama’s team. And they have harshly criticized her decision while at Harvard to bar military recruiters from campus because she disagreed with the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay soldiers.
GOP senators say they want to see documents from her time serving in Bill Clinton’s White House to get a better understanding of her fitness for the Supreme Court.
“I think all the documents that are producible should be produced,” Sessions said. “The American people are entitled to know what kind of positions she took, and what kind of issues she was involved with during her past public service.”
Democrats praise Kagan as a highly qualified, sharp legal mind who will bring an important perspective from outside the federal bench to the job of justice.
“She brings to this court that kind of intellect and those values that can make a positive difference for the future of the court,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Monday Watercooler: Kagan gets a new job offer and White saves SNL
It’s Kagan. I’m sure the Republican opposition is in full research mode this morning. President Obama picked U.S. solicitor general Elena Kagan [1] to be an associate Justice of the Supreme Court. As the dean of Harvard Law, Kagan challenged the Solomon Amendment [2], an attempt by Congress to deny federal funds from colleges and universities that barred military recruiters from their campuses.
[3]
RIP Lena Horne [4]. The legendary singer died last night. Her career covered it all, from musicals [5], Gap ads, and Sesame Street [6]. In everything, she had no peer. Goodnight sweet princess.
[7]
Lacrosse player comes out. No one on the team cares. Andrew McIntosh [8] is a co-captain of the Oneonta men’s lacrosse team. He came out and there was no backlash. A sign to gay athletes that the tide is changing.
[9]
Rekers’ book cover explains a whole lot. I’m stealing this from the Unzipped [10] boys. Everyone has been having good chuckles over the George Rekers [11]‘ bought boy drama. Side note: looks like Rekers [12] is a stingy john, which is low class. Being good to your rent boy is a sign your mom raised you right. Anyway old man Rekers is an author of note. His book is called “Shaping Your Child’s Sexual Identity.” Here is the cover. I’m saying nothing. Nothing.
[13]
Betty White on Saturday Night Live [14]. I know people go crazy over White’s work in The Golden Girls [15]—morning Angel [16]— but she earned my love in The Mary Tyler Moore Show [17]. Her character Sue Ann Nivens was pitch perfect. Did you watch SNL? What did you think? From all accounts it was a good show, but it is SNL. The bar is low.
[18]
Sometimes the law disappoints. Like most of you I’m ticked at the jury in the Hakim Scott [19] trial, one of the men involved in the murder of Jose Sucuzhanay. Maybe I need to remove these rose colored glasses, but I’m going to give the jurors the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully he will see a full 25 years for his dreadful crime.
[20]
Gay sex is nasty, but be nice to those who practice it. Hope College’s Board of Trustees [21] is a firm believer in the “love sinner, hate the sin” ideology when the matters are the gay. Of course it’s rare to see much love whenever this line is thrown out.
[22]
A victim of history and time? Look at this article on Clay M. Greene [23], the Sonoma County [24] man whose relationship has gone national. He insists he and Harold Scull were just roommates and not married. This makes sense. For the 78 year old, to be gay is to be silent. Sonoma County officials maintain everything they did was because of physical abuse against Scull. Of course they filed no criminal charges.
[25]
[1] http://www.365gay.com/news/ap-source-elena-kagan-picked-for-supreme-court/
[2] http://www.law.georgetown.edu/Solomon/solomon.html
[3] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/Kagan-top.jpg
[4] http://www.365gay.com/news/barrier-breaking-jazz-star-lena-horne-dies-at-92/
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMf0Z7EPdLo
[6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0TyUOJfpQo&feature=related
[7] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/Lena-Horne-top.jpg
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/sports/09oneonta.html?scp=1&sq=%20McIntosh&st=cse
[9] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/McIntosh-top.jpg
[10] http://blog.unzipped.net/2010/05/presented-without-comment.html
[11] http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino-rekers-rentboy/
[12] http://www.queerty.com/the-worst-thing-about-prostitute-loving-george-alan-rekers-hes-cheap-20100506/
[13] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/Rekers-book-cover-top.jpg
[14] http://www.afterelton.com/blog/michaheljensen/snl-betty-white-funny-prison-rape+not
[15] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088526/
[16] http://angel-benton.livejournal.com/
[17] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065314/fullcredits
[18] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/Betty-White-top.jpg
[19] http://www.365gay.com/news/1-convicted-of-manslaughter-in-nyc-beating-death/
[20] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/jose-sucuzhanay-top.jpg
[21] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/hope-college-gay-policy-c_n_569729.html
[22] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/Hope-College-top.jpg
[23] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/us/07sfmetro.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
[24] http://www.365gay.com/news/abuse-allegations-make-case-of-elderly-gay-couple-murky/
[25] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/question-mark-2-top.jpg
Gay activists applaud Kagan – tepidly
Gay legal activists are applauding President Obama’s second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court [1]: Solicitor General Elena Kagan. But it could hardly be described as a standing ovation.
Former Clinton White House aide Richard Socarides called Kagan a “brilliant, pragmatic progressive interested in listening to all sides and building coalitions.”
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Executive Director Kevin Cathcart called Kagan “a strong position” in opposing the military’s ban on gays but noted that Obama administration has also “taken legal positions on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ with which we strongly disagree.”
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese applauded her selection as fulfilling Obama’s promise to promote “diversity” on the court.
If confirmed, Kagan would become only the fourth woman ever named to the court –out of 104 justices in the history of the court.
Kagan is of particular interest to the LGBT community. While serving as dean of Harvard Law School, she took sides with gays against military recruiters because the military would not abide by the school’s non-discrimination policy. That policy prohibited recruiters who discriminated based on sexual orientation.
Kagan clerked for one of the Supreme Court’s staunchest liberals, Thurgood Marshall, and was a research assistant for one of the greatest legal defenders of gay civil rights, Laurence Tribe.
Single and 50, she was also the subject of a CBS News website blog report last month which claimed that, if named to the court, Kagan would be the “first openly gay justice.” But Kagan has not publicly identified with any sexual orientation, and the White House moved quickly to say the report was “inaccurate.”
The president announced his selection at a 10 o’clock press conference this morning.
Socarides called Kagan “one of the smartest people I know” and “someone the country will come to like and respect.”
“Her thinking is well within the mainstream,” said Socarides, and “very much in keeping with Obama’s overall philosophy…. Pretty much a home-run appointment.”
Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights called Kagan “well-qualified” and said members of his organization “strongly support increasing the number of women on the court.”
Lambda’s Cathcart said he did not expect Kagan “to answer questions about how she would rule on specific issues such as these that will come before her.” But he said Lambda does “expect that she will respond to questions about her judicial philosophy and her understanding of core constitutional principals of equal protection and privacy that are so crucial to the civil rights of people who face discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and/or HIV status.”
Long-time gay legal activist Paula Ettelbrick, an adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School, said Kagan’s nomination is “most historic” and that “it moves women’s representation on the Court to a more meaningful plurality.”
Mainstream news organizations immediately set about assessing her odds for confirmation. MSNBC speculates both conservatives and liberals could criticize her. Commentator-reporter Chuck Todd said conservatives would fault Kagan over her opposition to military recruiters at Harvard. He said liberals could fault her for defending some policies put in place by the administration of President George W. Bush.
In introducing Kagan to the press conference Monday morning, Obama praised Kagan for having sought conservative views to balance liberal views at Harvard. During her confirmation process for Solicitor General last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee received letters in support of Kagan from such well-known conservatives as former Solicitor Generals Charles Fried and Kenneth Starr, and such well-known liberals as Eleanor D. Acheson.
Her confirmation as Solicitor General was opposed, as expected, by some ultra-conservative groups, including Concerned Women for America, who faulted her for opposing military recruiters, as well as Focus on Family and more than a dozen other groups who said she could not be counted on to defend “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”
Kagan, an attorney, has never served as a judge but is widely respected as a legal scholar.
NCLR’s Minter said, “Because she has not served previously as a judge, it will be important to hear more about her judicial philosophy and whether she has a strong commitment to enforcing constitutionally protected rights and liberties. “
Given that she filled out the Senate Judiciary Committee’s lengthy questionnaire just last year, the vetting of her by various senators should go fairly rapidly.
In response to questions from the Judiciary Committee last year, Kagan said she views as “unjust the exclusion of individuals from basic economic, civic, and political opportunities of our society on the basis of race, nationality, sex, religion, and sexual orientation.” But she also said she was “fully convinced” she could defend U.S. laws even when they do not reflect her personal views, including the federal law which penalizes universities which ban military recruiters.
Kagan’s questionnaire also indicated that she delivered a welcoming address to introduce panel members at a Harvard University Gay and Lesbian Alumni event in September 2008. And in April 2006, she moderated a panel of the LAMBDA Student Organization concerning the “Relationship between Law Schools and the Military.” Such participation is fairly typical of law school deans and her list includes an even greater number of appearances before groups promoting civil rights for black law students.
Senators Orrin Hatch and Jon Kyl, two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted for Kagan as Solicitor General, issued statements
Monday morning saying their vote is not guaranteed for the Supreme Court appointment.
If confirmed, Kagan will become the third woman on the U.S. Supreme Court today and the second unmarried justice. Justice Sonia Sotomayor,
Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, was married briefly but divorced in 1983.
A press release from HRC applauded Kagan’s “commitment to fairness and equality.”
“Specifically, we applaud Elena Kagan’s vocal opposition to the Solomon Amendment and the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law.
HRC said it would continue examining Kagan’s record on issues that affect the LGBT community.
Kagan’s nomination is being made to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his retirement last month.
The composition of the Supreme Court is increasing critical to the LGBT civil rights movement. Three important cases seeking equality in marriage rights are winding their ways to the high court and it seems nearly inevitable that the high court will choose to weigh in on at least one, if not all three. The court will also hear a case this fall that will determine whether a virulently anti-gay protest group has a First Amendment right to stage their demonstrations in ways that disrupt private funeral services.
While many nominees introduce close members of their family at the press conference, Kagan noted that her parents had already passed away and said she was “thankful for my brothers and other family and friends” for being there with her.
© 2010 Keen News Service
[1] http://www.365gay.com/news/ap-source-elena-kagan-picked-for-supreme-court/
Neff: In Texas, only gay marriage is til death do they part
Spouses can’t always take that bit about “till death do us part” literally.
And judges and lawyers don’t always take that bit about “till death do us part” literally either. Some dedicate their workdays dissolving such vows.
Yet in some states that don’t recognize same-sex marriages, same-sex marriages could last till death do they part.
Oh, these funny times.
A Dallas man, identified only as J.B. in court papers and the press, is trying to divorce a man he married four years ago in Massachusetts and separated from — amicably enough — two years ago.
J.B. was winning his case for divorce before District Judge Tena Callahan, when the Texas Attorney General tried to intervene and stop the process. It seems that because the state of Texas does not recognize same-sex marriages, the court shouldn’t divorce the two men, according to the AG.
Callahan ruled against the AG, which appealed her decision.
“My client is a married man and he needs a divorce. But for the actions of the attorney general, there would already be one less same-sex marriage in Texas,” attorney Jody Scheske told a three-judge appeals court panel in a hearing last week.
Oh, these funny times.
“The parties lack standing to file a divorce because they are not married. If you are not party to a marriage, you cannot file for a divorce,” an assistant Texas solicitor general argued last week before the federal appeals court.
The assistant Texas solicitor general said, the court should “void” the union not divorce the men.
An annulment, then, is Texas’ preferred alternative to a gay couple’s divorce.
Oh, these funny times.
The stakes in this Texas case are considerable, because in finding that she has standing to hear the gay man’s request for a divorce, Callahan also found that Texas’ 2005 constitutional amendment that defines marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman violates the right to equal protection and therefore violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Had the Texas Attorney General not tried to intervene and block the court from hearing the divorce case, the district court judge might not have deemed the anti-gay amendment unconstitutional. We don’t know really. Callahan might have taken up the constitutional issue, or she simply might have granted the divorce.
Attorneys for J.B. say they didn’t want a constitutional fight or a federal case — just a divorce for their client.
“My client’s very private matter has become a public spectacle,” Scheske told the court last week.
Oh, these funny times.
J.B., seeking to end his marriage, is at the forefront of a legal dispute that could tear down a ban against gay marriage in Texas.
And opponents of gay marriage are worried, which is why the Plano-based right-wing Liberty Institute argued alongside the attorney general against what it called “judicial activism at it’s worst.”
Opposing J.B.’s divorce, Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser said a gay divorce is an attack on same-sex marriage.
Oh, these funny times.
And Sasser, who said he represented the two authors of the anti-gay amendment that 76 percent of Texas voters supported in 2005, cited Bill Clinton in his defense of the Texas ban and his opposition to the gay couple’s divorce.
Clinton signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act that allowed states to refuse to honor another state’s same-sex marriage and defined marriage at the federal level as the union of one man and one woman.
“I think President Clinton said it best when he said we have to honor the decisions of the states,” Sasser said.
The former president, however, has said that his position on same-sex marriage is evolved and he “didn’t like signing DOMA.”
Oh, these funny times.
Ancient India didn’t think homosexuality was against nature
NEW DELHI: Was Indian society tolerant of homosexuality before the colonial administration proscribed it in 1860? The government has taken conflicting positions on this within the country and outside.
On a petition pending before the Delhi high court seeking to decriminalize homosexuality, the government said in its counter affidavit that that there were “no convincing reports to indicate that homosexuality or other offences against the order of nature mentioned in Section 377 IPC were acceptable in the Indian society prior to colonial rule.�
But when it was being reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council last year for the first time ever, India distanced itself from that provision when Sweden, arguably the most gay-friendly country in the world, questioned its record in ensuring equality irrespective of a person’s sexual orientation.
This is how Goolam Vahanvati, who was then solicitor-general and is now attorney-general, tried to save India’s face before the council as part of its official delegation. “Around the early 19th Century, you probably know that in England they frowned on homosexuality, and therefore there are historical reports that various people came to India to take advantage of its more liberal atmosphere with regard to different kinds of sexual conduct.
“As a result, in 1860 when we got the Indian Penal Code, which was drafted by Lord Macaulay, they inserted Section 377 which brought in the concept of ‘sexual offences against the order of nature’.
Now in India we didn’t have this concept of something being ‘against the order of nature’. It was essentially a Western concept, which has remained over the years. Now homosexuality as such is not defined in the IPC, and it will be a matter of great argument whether it is ‘against the order of nature.”
Vahanvati’s admission on the international forum that the ban on homosexuality was a western import and its relevance was debatable flies in the face of the government’s unabashed efforts before the Delhi high court to retain Section 377, complete with its colonial baggage and archaic notion of unnatural offences.
Whatever the politics behind this glaring contradiction, there is ample evidence placed before the high court by petitioner Naz Foundation substantiating in effect Vahanvati’s view that in the centuries prior to the enactment of section 377, India was rather accommodating of homosexuals. See Ancient India didn’t think homosexuality was against nature
Times of India
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Gay marriage case will go to Supreme Court: attorney
The attorney representing two same-sex couples who were denied a right to wed in California said on Thursday he expected the case to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has yet to hear a case on the gay marriage issue.
“When it does get to the United States Supreme Court, we expect to win,” Theodore Olson, who was solicitor general under former President George W. Bush, told reporters after the first hearing on federal lawsuit that was filed in May.
See
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Voter ‘animus’ to be issue in Calif marriage case
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an amendment to the Colorado Constitution that outlawed discrimination protections for gay people, same-sex couples could not enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships anywhere in the nation, much less get married. But as they seek to persuade a federal judge to strike down California’s ban on gay marriages, lawyers for two unmarried gay couples are using that 13-year-old decision as their road map — one they expect will eventually lead the high court to take up the marriage issue. In the Colorado case, Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court majority held that voters’ dislike of gays and the laws that several cities had approved to shield them from bias motivated the state amendment. Such “animus,” it said, was incompatible with the section of the U.S. Constitution that requires the government to treat its citizens equally absent a compelling reason to do otherwise. The attorneys behind the challenge to California’s Proposition 8 plan to argue during a pretrial hearing Thursday that by stripping gays of the right to wed, the voter-approved ban runs afoul of America’s founding framework in the same way — and for the same reason. “Romer is a strikingly similar situation to what we have here. You had a ballot initiative, a majority vote of the people, taking away a right,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a member of the legal team led by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and veteran trial lawyer David Boies. “And there was no justification or rationale other than disapproval by that majority of that group.” U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Tuesday issued a tentative order to fast-track the case in his San Francisco court. Among the questions he said he wants covered at trial are whether sexual orientation is unchangeable, if permitting same-sex marriage “destabilizes” traditional unions and whether Proposition 8′s ballot history demonstrates the measure had “discriminatory intent.” California Attorney General Jerry Brown, a defendant in the case, has sided with gay rights advocates and declined to defend the ban, which overturned a California Supreme Court ruling that had legalized same-sex marriages. The state Supreme Court five weeks ago upheld the measure, saying it represented a valid exercise of voters’ authority to amend the California Constitution. Proposition 8′s sponsors, a coalition of religious conservative groups called Protect Marriage, has been given permission to intervene in the federal case. In court papers, the group’s lawyers rejected the assertions that anti-gay attitudes fueled the November measure and that the 1996 Colorado case was applicable. “Nothing in California law, either Proposition 8 or otherwise, indicates that Californians harbor animus towards gay and lesbian individuals,” they wrote. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision, attorneys for gay rights and Christian conservative groups have debated whether the Romer decision could be used to expand gay rights. The ruling marked the first time the Supreme Court determined that the Constitution’s equal rights guarantees extended to gays and lesbians. “The basic point of Romer is that government cannot ever act out of hostility toward a group of people, and whether that is in the context of marriage or anti-discrimination law, the point carries over,” said Suzanne Goldberg, who worked on the case and now directs Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Program. The ruling has been cited, though so far unsuccessfully, in past challenges to gay marriage bans in Nebraska and Florida. At the same time, gay rights groups mostly have shied away from pursuing federal marriage cases in favor of pursuing marriage rights in state courts. Legal observers on both sides of the debate agree, however, that California’s Proposition 8 presents novel questions that could make the issue ripe for federal action.
San Francisco Chronicle
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/voter-animus-…
Schwarzenegger, AG Brown oppose bid to immediately block Prop 8
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown on Thursday urged a federal judge to keep Proposition 8 in force for now, arguing that it would create too much uncertainty across the state to put the voter-approved ban on gay marriage on hold while the latest legal challenge unfolds in the federal courts.
In court papers, state lawyers argued against an injunction that would freeze the current gay marriage ban, opposing a request filed in federal court in San Francisco last month by two gay couples seeking the right to marry. Backed by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and renowned lawyer David Boies, the couples moved to counterract the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling upholding Proposition 8, arguing that it violates equal protection rights under the federal constitution.
Brown and Schwarzenegger argued separately that it would create too much havoc to put the law on hold until the constitutional issues are resolved, perhaps eventually by the U.S. Supreme Court. The governor and attorney general did not take a position on the federal constitutional questions, focusing only on whether Prop 8 should be blocked while the case is litigated, a move that would allow same-sex couples to resume marrying in California.
Brown had previously urged the California Supreme Court to overturn Prop 8, and Schwarzenegger has said publicly he believes the courts eventually will permit gay marriage.
See Schwarzenegger, AG Brown oppose bid to immediately block Prop 8 San Jose Mercury News
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/schwarzenegge…
Dismay 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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New Prop. 8 court challenge brings former legal rivals together
The California Supreme Court failed to protect gay couples’ fundamental right to marry when it upheld Proposition 8, forcing same-sex couples to appeal to the federal courts to remedy the injustice, two prominent lawyers said today in announcing a lawsuit on behalf of two gay couples.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, a renowned conservative, and David Boies, who opposed Olson in Bush v. Gore in the 2000 fight over the presidential election, cast their collaborative effort to restore the right of gays to marry in California as a moral imperative to correct an injustice. Their suit seeks an immediate injunction on Prop. 8′s ban, thereby allowing same-sex marriages to resume while the case makes its way through the federal court system.
But Olson’s role in the gay rights mission prompted much speculation about his motives. The former Bush administration official, who lost his wife in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, conceded that the federal courts might not be ready to recognize sexual orientation as a class in need of protection from discrimination, but he said he hoped “that people don’t suspect my motives,” vowing to demonstrate his commitment to equal rights by winning the challenge.
Boies vouched for Olson as “committed in heart and soul to equality and committed in heart and soul to the Constitution.” See New Prop. 8 court challenge brings former legal rivals together Los Angeles Times * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-prop-8-co…
