“[….]having considered the purported rational bases proffered by both BLAG and Congress and concluded that such objectives bear no rational relationship to Section 3 of DOMA as a legislative scheme, the Court finds that no conceivable rational basis exists for the provision. The provision therefore violates the equal protection principles incorporated in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Section 3 “prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages”, and thus “violates equal protection guarantees”.
“Government should treat all citizens impartially, without regard to wealth, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, sex, political affiliation or national origin. We oppose all forms of invidious discrimination. Sexual orientation is not an appropriate category. ”
“The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama's journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it. I was in the room long before the 2008 primaries when Obama spoke to the mother of a gay son about marriage equality. He said he was for equality, but not marriage. Five years later, he sees - as we all see - that you cannot have one without the other. But even then, you knew he saw that woman's son as his equal as a citizen. It was a moment - way off the record at the time - that clinched my support for him.
Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That's why we elected him. That's the change we believed in. The contrast with a candidate who wants to abolish all rights for gay couples by amending the federal constitution, and who has donated to organizations that seek to "cure" gays, who bowed to pressure from bigots who demanded the head of a spokesman on foreign policy solely because he was gay: how much starker can it get?”
In the second quoted paragraph, Sullivan goes on to contrast President Obama’s position on gay rights with that of Mitt Romney. Quite the difference there, and we need to hound Romney about that order to drive difference in the point home.
President Obama tells ABC News that his position on same-sex marriage has evolved:
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”
The president has indeed affirmed that he believes that same-sex couples ought to be able to marry.
Adding......I'm really, really torn on this. On the one hand, it is unquestionably the right thing to do. On the other hand, it came at the wrong damn time, and the Republicans may make us eat it.
“I think it's funny, but the last thing you'll ever see me do is jump up and down, saying, ‘These are lies!’ That would be unfair and unkind to my good friends in the gay community. I'm not going to let anyone make it seem like being gay is a bad thing. My private life is private, and I'm very happy in it. Who does it hurt if someone thinks I'm gay? I'll be long dead and there will still be people who say I was gay. I don't give a shit.”
In an interview with an AP reporter in 2003, Rick Santorum compared consensual and legal gay sex with the illegal acts of bigamy, polygamy, and incest, along with the act of adultery:
“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
“This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. That prospect underscores the vital importance of this election and the movement to preserve our values. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”
Rick Santorum wants to determine what your values should be, and if you’re not heterosexual, he doesn’t care to see America make laws that would be more inclusive of you, and afford you full civil rights as a citizen.
Why? Well, because Santorum thinks that the gay lifestyle doesn’t reflect Judeo-Christian values, and he thinks that the values of all Americans should be reflected in laws which are based only on that religious foundation. Allowing you to marry...well, that would “destabilize the American family”.
In other words, Santorum put forth a crock of complete and utter shit to defend his bias against gay people:
“People should have the right to live the life they want to lead. But that doesn't mean that we have to adopt as matters of public policy, policies that change the basic value structure of our country to accommodate that lifestyle, if you will.
And, so, I've always said, you know, look, I've had people who actually worked for me who were gays, and they did their job like anybody else, and we were able to work together and we did work together. So, it's not a problem.
I'm against discrimination for people who should not be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. If they can, and do their job, they should. But that doesn't mean that we should change the laws of this country......to destabilize the American family, to change the way we look at religious liberty in this country, to accommodate a different value structure.
It's not about them, it's about values. It's about what America's basic moral American values should be that would be reflected in the laws.
And so, I've taken the position that the moral values reflected in the laws should be the moral values that built this country, which is the Judeo-Christian values, and that the laws should try as much as possible to comport with the higher law and also should comport with what reason would dictate. And what reason dictates is that children need mothers and fathers. … Some say well, through technology, same-sex couples can have children. Well they can, through either adoption, or artificial insemination…but they don’t get the mother and a father.”
Watch:
From a December 6, 2011 talk he gave to a crowd in Spencer Iowa, during the Republican primaries - election 2012.
Dr. Marcus Bachmann, husband of extremist presidential hopeful, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), offering advice to parents who may be concerned that a particular child is gay:
“We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined.”
When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s “strategist,” runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to “ungay” themselves.
“I think the president should be, frankly, enforcing that act [DOMA], and I think we are drifting toward a terrible muddle which I think is going to be very, very difficult and painful to work our way out of.”
People who marry because they love each other are going to be the cause of a “terrible muddle”.
For the first time ever, a Gallup Poll indicates that a majority of Americans supports same-sex marriage.
In the poll, conducted earlier this month, Gallup found 53 percent of Americans saying that marriages between same-sex couples should be considered valid and come with the same rights as heterosexual marriages, while 45 percent said same-sex marriages should not.
Just a year ago, those numbers were reversed in a Gallup Poll on the same topic. According to that poll, 44% of respondents supported same-sex marriage, and 53% opposed it. This is really good news, in part because it is an indication that people are actually thinking about this issue, and changing their minds.
Two other recent polls have indicated strong support for gay marriage.
The Gallup poll is just the latest to find that the legalization of gay marriage is supported by a majority of Americans. In a shift from its previous polls, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released in April found 51 percent of Americans in support of gay marriage and 47 percent opposed to it. And, in March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found 52 percent of Americans supporting gay marriage, also a majority opinion for the first time.
Yesterday, Delaware’s Democratic Gov. Jack Markell signed legislation which makes civil unions legal in Delaware, becoming the eighth state to legalize civil unions.
Yesterday morning there were 43 states that did not have a legal classification for same-sex relationships -- marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, etc. By yesterday afternoon, that number dropped to 42 when Delaware's Democratic Governor Jack Markell signed into law the country's latest civil union legislation.
Five years ago, if there were five Supreme Court justices who believed that marriage equality should be the law of the land, they’d still probably have shied away from saying so for fear of issuing a desperately unpopular decision on a hot-button subject. Today, not so much. And with the Obama administration now saying that DOMA should be subjected to “heightened scrutiny” it would seem to follow that all forms of marriage inequity also deserve said heightened scrutiny. Consequently, I think we may actually wind up having nationwide marriage equality sooner than people think as long as Justice Kennedy continues to be sympathetic to gay equity claims.
More Bachmann craziness in a flashback to 2004 -- then state Sen. Michele Bachmann [R-MN] talking about same-sex marriage on the radio show1 "Prophetic Views Behind The News”, 2004:
This is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that.
On that same day and show, Bachmann goes on to comment about her [then] upcoming rally against same-sex marriage [the rally was held at the Minnesota state capitol in March 2004]:
It will be an awesome day. We are going to be beseeching the Lord.
1Prophetic Views Behind The News”, hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 20, 2004. source
At the signing ceremony for the DADT Repeal Act this morning, President Obama:
We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.’ We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot. We are a nation that believes all men and women are created equal. Those are the ideals that generations have fought for. Those are the ideals we uphold today.
Would this have happened under a Republican president? Not in a million years.
UPDATE: It appears that the military is prepared to quickly move forward on the certifications. From Huffington Post:
Although several military service chiefs expressed opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, President Obama has spoken to them since the measure passed, and they are all ready to move forward expeditiously on implementing and certifying the changes.
"The President called every single service chief separately, talked to them, and they are all about moving this forward very quickly," said a White House official who helped lead the president's DADT repeal effort. "They're soldiers; they understand this is the law of the land, and they're going to get this done. They went through a process that was beyond repute to show we can do this, and I think you'll see a very, very fast process."
In a press conference on Wednesday, Obama reiterated that point, saying they "all said that we are going to implement this smartly and swiftly, and they are confident that it will not have an effect on our military effectiveness."
Rachel Maddow’s comments to MSNBC News after the Senates vote on DADT repeal:
This is the president’s victory. This is something about which the President took a lot of criticism, a lot of abuse. Um, a lot of skepticism from his otherwise most loyal supporters on this. But this is an issue on which the President did not waver. He continually insisted that this was possible, that it would get done. It in fact was not possible for the President to do this through executive action. This is something that had to happen legislatively if it was really going to happen in a definitive way. The President did not waver. He did work on the Senate to make this happen. He insisted that it was possible against a lot of people, including me, saying it was not possible. This is a difficult promise kept. It's not just a promise kept. It was one that was hard to keep, that cost a lot of political capital, and a lot of work, and this is the President's victory today, and his base will reward him for it. [emphasis mine]
Despite the passage of the DADT Repeal Act in both Houses of Congress, the DADT repeal won’t be implemented immediately, due to further requirements yet to be met, the most obvious being the President’s signing of the bill.
Not so well known or obvious, is the certification process by President Obama, and his top military advisors, who must certify that lifting the ban won't negatively affect the fighting ability of the troops.
Once the certification takes place, there is a 60-day waiting period prior to implementation by the military.
Thus, it will be a few months before we see the actual implementation of the repeal. Considering the struggle that it took to get to this point, not so long at all.
Andrew Sullivan, from his post entitled "Obama's Long Game: 65-31"
Like 2009's removal of the HIV ban, which was as painstakingly slow but thereby much more entrenched, this process took time. Without the Pentagon study, it wouldn't have passed. Without Obama keeping Lieberman inside the tent, it wouldn't have passed. Without the critical relationship between Bob Gates and Obama, it wouldn't have passed. It worked our last nerve; we faced at one point a true nightmare of nothing ... for years. And then we pulled behind this president, making it his victory and the country's victory, as well as ours.
We also know now what a McCain administration would have done: nothing. The disgraceful bitterness and rancor and irrationality that the Senator has shown these past few months reveal just how important it was to defeat him and his deranged, delusional side-kick in 2008.
Many of us appreciated his "long game" from the beginning. We understood that to use an executive order to enact civil rights for gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces would have been a stopgap measure, one easily overturned immediately upon the next Republican administration taking office.
Not to gloat, but I hope that those of you who have been burning the president at the proverbial stake because you doubted his "long game", are chastened. You should be.
Finally.And due to President Obama’s refusal to take the easy way which would have likely resulted in the reinstatement of DADT during the next Republican administration. From Think Progress:
Moments ago, in a vote of 63-33 the Senate invoked cloture on a bill to repeal the 17-year-old Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, paving the way for final passage in the coming days hours. The House passed the measure on Wednesday.
Democrats delivered eloquent speeches in support of open service. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said, “I’m here because men and women wearing the uniform of the United States who are gay and lesbian have died for this country, because gay and lesbian men and women wearing the uniform of this country have their lives on the line right now in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places for this country.” Immediately before the vote, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who has been the strongest advocate of repeal in the Senate, urged his colleagues to repeal the ban, saying “We’ve come to a point in our history, I hope, where neither race nor religion, ethnicity, or gender, or sexual orientation should deprive Americans of serving the country as the patriots they are.”
Lame Duck Congress? Perhaps not. Some high points via Chris Weigant:
Harry Reid has refused to be cowed by the recent near loss of his Senate seat, and has promised votes on some very tough issues during the so-called "lame duck" session.
President Obama appears to have undertaken a change in strategy to more involvement in the legislative process. This can only be a good thing for whatever reason he has done so.
The White House, along with Obama, has jumped deep in to the fray over the repeal of DADT, along with, believe it or not, Joe Lieberman. And, it's starting to look like we may see some serious action on DADT repeal in spite of the so-called "lame duck" Congress.
During a campaign (during the primary presidential campaign) stop in Warren, Michigan, in 2008, Mike Huckabee made it clear that he believes that we need two new amendments to the Constitution. One, a human life amendment, and the other an amendment which would define marriage as constitutional between a man and a woman only.
I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.
In early October, we along with many others, called for Michigan Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Shirvell, to be fired for his stalking and cyberstalking of Chris Armstrong, the first openly gay president of the University of Michigan's student body.
Finally, after first being allowed to take paid sick leave at taxpayer expense, Shirvell has now been fired. The Michigan Daily:
Andrew Shirvell — the Michigan assistant attorney general engulfed in a firestorm of criticism after he created a blog attacking Michigan Student Assembly President Chris Armstrong — has been fired by the attorney general's office, according to a statement from Deborah Gordon, the attorney representing Armstrong.
“This is clearly the correct decision by the Attorney General’s office,” Gordon wrote in the statement. “The next step must be a complete retraction of all the malicious lies and fabrications by Mr. Shirvell, and a public apology to Chris Armstrong, his family and the others Mr. Shirvell has slandered.”
Calls to Shirvell's lawyer weren't immediately returned this afternoon.
At an Iowa event on Wednesday [which is a whole other ‘interesting’ story], Rep. Steve King [R-IA] told a reporter for the Iowa Independent what he thought would happen if conservatives don't restrict marriage to one man and one woman.
I think that if we can’t defend marriage, that it becomes very hard to defend life. Marriage is the crucible by which we pour all of our values and pass them on to our children, and that is how the culture is renewed each time. So, if we lose marriage — for instance, if our children are raised in warehouses, so to speak. There have been civilizations that have tried to do that. The Spartans did that. They took the children away and taught them to be warriors. It’s a good way to defend a country, but not much of a way to run a civilization.
So, I’m afraid if that happened — if we lose the marriage, we lose the home, we lose the nuclear family then we can’t teach our values. We won’t be able to teach our faith. We won’t be able to teach life. We won’t be able to teach our Constitutional values either. That’s why I’m afraid it’s going to be very, very difficult to defend life.
Michigan Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Shirvell, is a homophobe who has taken his homophobia a step too far in his stalking and cyberstalking of a college student.
When 21-year-old college student, Chris Armstrong was elected by University of Michigan students to be the first openly gay student body president, Shirvell, who is a U of M alumni, launched an anonymous attack blog targeting Armstrong. Shirvell’s nasty little blog went to work via name-calling, wild accusations, and presented quite the picture of a morally repugnant man to the uninformed or the bigots who viewed the site. The screenshot below is from CNN, and depicts the front page of Sherivell’s blog featuring an image of Armstrong with the word “resign” over his face, and a gay flag with a swastika on it.
In addition to cyber stalking Armstrong, Shirvell showed up outside his home with a camera and picket signs, has harassed Armstrong, his friends, and the family members of Armstrong’s friends, on Facebook. Armstrong has filed for a personal protection order. The University of Michigan, to their credit, has banned Shirvell from their campus.
Shirvell is a coward and a bully, and the local media stepped in to defend Chris Armstrong. As the situation continued to escalate, calls for Shirvell to be fired by the AG became louder. Mike Cox, Michigan’s current Attorney General [he is also one of the idiot Republican AGs who are suing the feds to repeal health care reform], refused, claiming First Amendment rights.
This past Thursday, Michigan Governor, Jennifer Granholm tweeted that she would have fired him.
Recently, Shirvell made the blog private (for invited readers only), but currently, the Google cache is still available.
Earlier this week, CNN’s Anderson Cooper picked up the story from the local media, and broadcast an interview with Shirvell, who came across as what he is: an avowed Christian with latent homosexual tendencies (in my opinion) who is a homophobe, and a fanatic cyberstalker of the worst kind. Judge for yourself.
Shirvell has taken a personal leave of absence, probably in hopes that the whole thing will blow over and he will retain his job. And, as Anderson Cooper pointed out, Shirvell can not be fired for his political views. He can, however, be fired for “conduct unbecoming a state employee”.
FIRE Andrew Shirvell, Mike Cox. It is the right thing to do.
McCain being at the top of that list of panderers. These are truly awful people who have zero interest in "country," and would rather obstruct and block and sabotage the economic well-being of the people who have been suckered into supporting them.
In a tremendous victory for equality this afternoon, Proposition 8 was struck down by a California judge, who called it “unconstitutional”.
Ultimately, the judge concluded that Proposition 8 "fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. … Because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”]
This case will likely end up in front of our dear, dear SCOTUS, and while the Roberts Court is not known for it’s tolerance. I’m going to remain optimistic for my friends in the LGBT community. FTW!
I meant to post this earlier in the week, but forgot. 
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