Monday, February 8, 2010
"It's Sort of Like a Coach"
Sunday, February 7, 2010
"You Don't Have a History Until You Have a Legacy. . ."
"Why You Should Care About Marriage in America" by Sheila Weber
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Roots and Branches, and the Marriages that Tie Them All Together
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
"The Price of Prop. 8"
Monday, January 11, 2010
"Roundup of Proposition 8 Coverage" by the Playful Walrus
"At trial, Walker intends to ask lawyers on both sides to present the facts underlying much of the political rhetoric surrounding same-sex marriage. Among his questions are whether sexual orientation can be changed, how legalizing gay marriage affects traditional marriages and the effect on children of being raised by two mothers or two fathers.
These questions reveal a bias. The question should center on the facts of how we adopt laws and whether those laws violate the Constitution. It doesn't matter whether or not sexual orientation can be changed (though it is interesting to see people deny the existence of people I have met) – there are conditions people have that keep them from getting a driver's license, too; counterfeits devalue the authentic; and when a child is raised by "two mothers", the child doesn't have the bonding experience and modeling of a father, and when a child is raised by "two fathers" the child doesn't have the bonding experience and modeling of a mother. If neither fathers nor mothers are important, then we're one step closer to the government owning our kids, aren't we?"
Friday, January 8, 2010
Judge Walker's "Kangaroo Court"
"On Monday, Jan. 11, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will put the people of California on trial for voting against gay marriage.
The case will be a show trial in a kangaroo court. I don’t say that lightly of any federal judge, but Judge Walker’s extraordinary bias has already been flagrantly on display.
Take the trial itself. The constitutionality of Proposition 8 is not really a matter for a trial of fact. It’s a question of law. But Judge Walker ordered one anyway. Why? Ordinarily a trial judge’s rulings of fact cannot be questioned by higher courts. So the more of his opinions that Judge Walker can stuff into the box of “trial of fact” instead of “review of law,” the more power he will have over this historic case.
Next Judge Walker issued an extraordinary ruling that the private intentions of Prop. 8 proponents — ideas by definition never communicated to voters — were properly the subject of this trial. So people who worked on the campaign have been put on trial, subpoenaed for all their e-mails and personal correspondence. This is an enormous personal headache, one which will (as intended) discourage participation in the political process in the future.
. . . .”These are kangaroo-court procedures,” distinguished lawyer Ed Whelan noted in National Review Online’s Bench Memos this week.
But the third outrageous ruling by Judge Walker is the worst of all: On Dec. 22, he ordered the trial televised — in defiance of federal rules — without proper notice and public comment… . Whelan points out that the Judicial Conference of the United States opposes televising federal trials in part because doing so “could jeopardize … the safety of trial participants” and “produce intimidating effects on litigants, witnesses and jurors.”
But this is no ordinary trial. This is a trial in a case where thousands of ordinary citizens have already faced a wave of hatred for participating in democracy. On Oct. 22, the Heritage Foundation released a report titled “The Price of Prop. 8,” which concluded that “supporters of Proposition 8 in California have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, at least one death threat, and gross expressions of anti-religious bigotry.”
To deliberately and needlessly expose these people to a new wave of publicity and attacks by televising the trial is outrageous.
Full disclosure: As the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which created a ballot initiative committee — NOM California — that worked with Protect Marriage, I was intimately involved in putting Prop. 8 on the ballot. So I know dozens of people who have been personally threatened, some of whom still live in fear today when they walk outside their door as a result of an organized effort to distribute personal addresses of donors to Prop. 8. NOM is involved in a separate federal lawsuit to protect donors’ constitutional rights in future marriage amendment battles.
At stake in this case is not only the future of marriage in all 50 states, but the future of democracy, the future of fair play, ordinary decency and common sense. Not to mention a little thing like constitutional limits on the power of judges.
After Prop. 8, gay couples continue to enjoy unmolested all the legal civil rights of marriage under California law through civil unions. Who will stand up for the core civil rights of the people of California… to participate in democracy without fear?"
~Maggie Gallagher