“Jindal Runs Out Of Options On Marriage Rights”: There Are No Other Courts, No More Appeals
No one seriously expected Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. On the contrary, the far-right governor, eager to impress conservatives as he hits the presidential campaign trail, was expected to complain bitterly about the civil-rights breakthrough.
But watching the lengths Jindal has gone to while resisting the ruling has been pretty remarkable.
As of late last week, Jindal said he understood what the high court had ruled, but he wasn’t prepared to allow Louisiana to officially recognize same-sex marriages. As recently as yesterday afternoon, the Republican governor still didn’t want to honor the law.
It took a while, but it seems the Jindal administration has officially, literally run out of options. TPM reported this afternoon:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said he would wait for a third and final federal court ruling declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional before recognizing gay marriages in the state, and Thursday morning a district judge gave him just that.
Thursday, federal District Judge Martin Feldman reversed his previous ruling upholding the state’s gay marriage ban, as reported by The Times-Picuyane…. The order was a procedural motion to address the litigation specific to Louisiana in light of the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide Friday.
So, looking back over the last couple of weeks, Jindal effectively said, “Let’s wait to see what the Supreme Court says.” Once the justices endorsed marriage equality, the governor effectively responded, “Well, let’s wait to see what the 5th Circuit says.”
And once the appeals court agreed with the Supreme Court, Jindal was left with, “Well, let’s wait to see what the district court says.”
There are no other courts. There are no more appeals. Jindal will be able to boast to GOP primary voters and caucus goers about resisting as long as he could, but marriage equality now applies to the whole country, including Louisiana, whether the governor likes it or not.
For what it’s worth, let’s not forget that Jindal’s broader reaction to the ruling hasn’t been especially constructive. MSNBC’s Adam Howard reported last weekend:
The Louisiana Republican, who launched a longshot bid for the presidency last week, suggested that the 5-4 ruling, which made same-sex marriage legal throughout the nation, was cause for disbanding the entire Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court is completely out of control, making laws on their own, and has become a public opinion poll instead of a judicial body,” Jindal said in a statement on Friday. “If we want to save some money, let’s just get rid of the court.”
Republicans routinely like to argue that President Obama has a radical, lawless vision of governing. He’s never suggested, in print or anywhere else, the possible elimination of the Supreme Court itself.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 2, 2015
“Protecting Equality”: What Some Black Church Leaders Have Wrong About Gay Marriage — And Civil Rights
The African American church and its leadership have often been at the forefront of movements for equality. But the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage has shed light on the resistance to social change among some black church leaders —and has left them sounding more like white conservative leaders.
On June 26, the Court ruled that two consenting adults have the right to get married—even if they are the same gender. As conservatives lamented the loss of morality and warned of the hellfire that would soon rain down upon us, President Barack Obama and the White House celebrated the decision.
Just a few hours later, Obama delivered a eulogy for Clementa Pinckney. Pinckney was a South Carolina state senator and a pastor at the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church before he was shot and killed, along with eight other members, by white supremacist Dylann Roof during a Bible study on Wednesday, June 17. The juxtaposition was quite remarkable. It was a day marked by joyous celebration and indescribable pain: the first black president at the funeral of a black man killed by a white supremacist, on the same day same-sex marriage became the law of the land.
In May 2015, the Pew Research Center found that support for same-sex marriage among all Americans increased drastically from 39 percent in 2009 to a whopping 57 percent. Opinions on same-sex marriage vary by race, with 59 percent of whites, 56 percent of Hispanics, and just 41 percent of blacks in support.
One of the biggest indicators in whether a group is in favor of same-sex marriage is religion. Of those unaffiliated with religion, 85 percent support marriage equality. In contrast, 70 percent of white evangelical Protestants oppose gay marriage, as do 57 percent of black Protestants.
Since at least 1992, blacks have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, the reason being that the modern-day Democratic Party champions causes that appeal to the black community: economic inequality, fair housing, taxing the rich, welfare, and public education. Meanwhile, the modern-day Republican Party consistently stands for causes that disproportionately hurt blacks. And much to the chagrin of conservative black pastors, the Democratic president (and those who hope to succeed him) is publicly in favor of same-sex marriage.
In May 2012, after Vice President Joe Biden came out in support for marriage equality, Obama quickly did as well. “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he said during an interview with ABC News. And while many across the United States celebrated Obama’s voiced support, he faced backlash from black pastors.
The Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP) is a socially conservative organization made up of black church leaders. After Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality, the president of CAAP, Reverend William Owens, sounded the moral alarm. “We were once proud of President Obama, but our pride has turned to shame,” he said. “The man holding the most powerful position in the world is stooping to lead the country down an immoral path.”
After the Supreme Court ruling last week, CAAP doubled down on Facebook. “Pres. Obama’s legacy: Obamacare and Gay care,” read one post. Another update used the “unelected judges” talking point, widely used by conservative politicians when they don’t agree with a SCOTUS outcome:
Today is a significant setback for all Americans who believe in the Constitution, the rule of law, democratic self-government, and marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court got it wrong: it should not have mandated all 50 states to redefine marriage.
Five unelected judges do not have the power to change the truth about marriage or the truth about the Constitution.
According to The Christian Post, CAAP and other African American Christian leaders threatened mass civil disobedience. “If they rule for same-sex marriage, then we’re going to do the same thing we did for the civil rights movement,” proclaimed Owens. The fact that protesting a law protecting equality is antithetical to the civil rights movement must be lost on Owens and CAAP. Just as notable is the lack of recognition they seem to have for how the black LGBT community has long been at the intersection of racial equality and gay rights.
Two trans women of color were at the forefront of the Stonewall riots, widely considered the beginning of the modern LGBT equality movement. Sylvia Rivera, of Puerto Rican descent, was later one of the founders of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance. She and Marsha P. Jackson, who was black, started the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries, which advocated for homeless LGBT people.
Today’s Black Lives Matter movement, which mirrors so much of the movement of the 1960s, was started when three queer black women created the hashtag—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi—after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in 2013. Writing for The Feminist Wire this past October, Garza declared that, “Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.” The Black Lives Matter movement was inclusive and intersectional from the beginning.
The black LGBT community is strong and has been fighting for civil rights for decades. The coalition of black pastors who invoke the civil rights movement when they rail against the rights of gay couples should consider reading some history books.
By: Nathalie Baptiste, The American Prospect, July 3, 2015
“Teamwork On The Supreme Court”: Discipline On The Left Side, Disarray On The Right
Now that the current term is over for the Supreme Court, analysts are digging into the record to draw conclusions about what happened. In a fascinating analysis, Adam Liptak writes: Right Divided, a Disciplined Left Steered the Supreme Court.
The stunning series of liberal decisions delivered by the Supreme Court this term was the product of discipline on the left side of the court and disarray on the right.
In case after case, including blockbusters on same-sex marriage and President Obama’s health care law, the court’s four-member liberal wing, all appointed by Democratic presidents, managed to pick off one or more votes from the court’s five conservative justices, all appointed by Republicans.
They did this in large part through rigorous bloc voting, making the term that concluded Monday the most liberal one since the Warren court in the late 1960s, according to two political-science measurements of court voting data.
“The most interesting thing about this term is the acceleration of a long-term trend of disagreement among the Republican-appointed judges, while the Democratic-appointed judges continue to march in lock step,” said Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
For example, this session there were 19 SCOTUS decisions that were decided 5/4. In 10 of those, the four liberals voted together and were joined by one conservative. In contrast, the conservatives only voted together 5 times.
Ian Millhiser suggests that the problem for the conservative justices is that they “represent three – and possibly as many as five – distinct versions of judicial conservatism.”
* The Ideologue – Clarence Thomas
* The Partisan – Samuel Alito
* The Reaganite – John Roberts
He points out that Scalia purports to be an “originalist” (like Thomas), but mostly votes as a partisan. And he can’t seem to find a way to characterize Kennedy.
Liptak credits the cohesion among the liberal justices to the leadership of Justice Ginsberg. But I’m also interested in how they managed to pretty consistently pick off one of the conservative justices to vote with them. I was reminded of something Adam Winkler wrote about Elena Kagan almost 2 years ago. He described her as a justice in the mold of Earl Warren.
Warren didn’t accomplish these by embarrassing his colleagues or by making sharper arguments on the merits. Warren was a master politician, one who’d sit with the other justices and bring them along slowly and steadily to his side. He sought to understand other justices’ concerns and address them. Unlike most of today’s justices, Warren was willing to work the halls to gain five votes.
He says this about why Kagan was chosen to be the dean of Harvard’s Law School:
She was seen as someone who could bring together a faculty known for ideological and personal divisions that institutionally hobbled the law school, especially when it came to hiring. As dean from 2003 to 2009, she calmed faculty tensions, launched an aggressive hiring spree that netted 32 new professors, and earned praise from both left and right.
I remember that some liberals opposed Elena Kagan’s nomination. But it strikes me that President Obama would see “bridge-builder” as a necessary role for someone to play on the Supreme Court. It’s exactly how people describe his tenure as President of the Harvard Law Review.
If that’s the case, here’s what we know about the 3 women on the Supreme Court: the senior member is Ruth Bader Ginsberg – the Notorious RBG – tiny woman who throws quite a punch. Then there’s my hero, Sonia Sotomayor, the wise Latina with a heart as big as they come. And finally, there’s Elena Kagan, the bridge-builder. What a team!
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, July 2, 2015
“Blowing With The Winds”: Conservatives Love Scott Walker’s Anti-Gay Transition
Scott Walker has his groove back with social conservatives and he has the Supreme Court to thank.
After the court ruled that the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry, Walker released a statement calling for a constitutional amendment to let states define marriage as between one man and one woman. Social conservatives loved it, and it came at a moment when he needed all the love he could get.
Back in May, the Wisconsin governor traveled to Washington to meet with a bevy of leaders from the party’s more conservative wing.
And in that meeting, there were lots of Walker skeptics.
Penny Nance—the president of the influential conservative group Concerned Women for America—emailed to The Daily Beast after that meeting to say she still wasn’t convinced Walker was a strong enough opponent of same-sex marriage.
“I think people are still trying to discern” his position, she wrote.
His list of confusing comments about the issue over the years made it a little tricky for some on the right to ascertain his position.
In 2014, for instance, after a district court judge declared that the Badger State’s ban on same-sex marriage wasn’t constitutional, he gave an oddly obtuse answer on the topic at a press conference.
“It doesn’t really matter what I think,” Walker told reporters, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s in the Constitution.”
Then he refused to clarify his position on the marriage question.
“No,” he said. “I’m just not stating one at all.”
For gay marriage foes, that little exchange didn’t exactly make him a profile in courage.
And it wasn’t the only time he telegraphed a position on the question that was a bit more nuanced than you might expect from, well, a Republican presidential candidate.
In a 2013 interview with Bloomberg, the likely 2016 contender indicated that he could be comfortable with federal legislation protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination. Walker noted that Wisconsin didn’t let same-sex couples marry, but still afforded them those employment protections.
“There’s a healthy balance there,” he said.
Opponents of same-sex marriage are not interested in finding “a healthy balance,” and they weren’t thrilled with Walker’s comments.
But all this changed on Friday after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to wed.
In response, Walker released a statement saying he favored amending the Constitution to let individual states decide whether or not to allow those unions. As The Daily Beast noted at the time, this distinguished him from other top-tier Republican contenders who refused to back changes to the Constitution.
And people noticed. When the Beast asked Nance if Walker’s full-throated support of a constitutional amendment gave her more confidence that he would side with her on the marriage question, she emailed, “Boy has it!”
“In calling for a federal marriage amendment that would allow states to determine their own laws on marriage Walker has put to final rest any questions social conservatives had on his willingness to lead on the matter,” she wrote.
And though Nance—like most activists—doesn’t have a 2016 favorite yet, she said taking a Walker-esque position on marriage is a must.
“Just as Roe made the issue of life central to support for a presidential candidate, the Obergefell decision has hardened our resolve on marriage,” she wrote. “The courts have made them issues that candidates for federal office can no longer duck.”
Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, is in the same boat. He said he was “distraught” with the comments Walker made last year about the overturn of Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment.
“I thought it was a huge mistake,” Brown said. “But ever since then, he has been working very hard to be a leader on the marriage issue.”
He also said that, in his view, Walker has changed his position on marriage, and for the better.
“If we ask people to sign pledges and stand for principles, then when they do it, we can’t second-guess them,” he said. “So I’m ecstatic he’s doing this.”
And Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the Iowa-based conservative group The Family Leader, said he was also delighted with Walker’s endorsement of an amendment.
He said his group was “openly concerned” with some of Walker’s previous comments on marriage, and that the governor’s stance has assuaged those fears.
Asked if he thought Walker had changed his position on how to handle marriage issues, Vander Plaats said, “Yea, without question.”
“I was thrilled to be able to see his response to this opinion,” he said.
Walker aides emailed to say that the governor’s position on the issue hasn’t actually changed, noting that in 1997 as a state legislator, he voted to ban same-sex marriage in the Badger State.
But while Walker’s single-minded opposition to same-sex marriage has won him favor with anti-same-sex-marriage activists, it’s already alienated some big Republican donors.
The Washington Post reported last week that Walker lost the support of one hedge-fund billionaire after having a long argument with him about the issue.
And an insider close with the New York Republican donor community expressed disappointment with Walker’s change of tone on the issue and support for a constitutional amendment, and suggested it could make it harder for him to secure New York Republican donors.
Mary Cheney, an openly gay political consultant who is also Dick Cheney’s daughter, expressed bafflement at Walker’s move.
“From a political perspective, I don’t understand why you would do that,” she said.
By: Betsy Woodruff, The Daily Beast, June 30, 2015
“The Supreme Court’s Ruling Be Damned”: Ted Cruz Isn’t Taking The Marriage Ruling Well
At an event over the weekend, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was asked about last week’s Supreme Court rulings on the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality. The right-wing Iowan, not surprisingly, wasn’t pleased, calling the court decisions “the heaviest one-two punch delivered against the Constitution and the American people that we’ve ever seen in the history of this country.”
Of course, Steve King is expected to say things like this. When presidential candidates go over the top in the same way, it’s a little more alarming. MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin reported:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) went so far as to call for a constitutional convention to overturn the court’s decision while campaigning in Iowa, according to CNN. In an interview with Sean Hannity he called the back-to-back rulings on health care and gay marriage “some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.”
Hannity, incidentally, found Cruz’s rhetoric quite compelling, responding, “I couldn’t say it more eloquently.”
For what it’s worth, it’s not hard to think of some genuinely tragic 24-hour periods in American history. The Lincoln assassination comes to mind. So does the time British troops burned the White House. There were days during the Civil War in which tens of thousands of Americans died on the battlefield. Just in the last century, we witnessed the JFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, and a corrupt president resign in disgrace.
For the Republican presidential hopeful, learning that Americans will have health benefits and loving couples will get married belongs on the same list.
To be sure, while much of the country will probably find that odd, it’s equally important to appreciate what Cruz intends to do with his outrage.
On the Affordable Care Act, the Texas senator will, naturally, continue to push a pointless repeal crusade. On marriage rights, Cruz intends to “focus on defending religious liberty by protecting those who act on their conscience and appointing judges who understand the limits placed on them by the Constitution.”
But it’s the Republican’s plans for the high court itself that stand out. The Huffington Post reported:
To challenge that “judicial activism,” Cruz said he is proposing a constitutional amendment to require Supreme Court justices to face retention elections every eight years. […]
Under Cruz’s proposed amendment, justices would have to be approved by a majority of American voters as well as by the majority of voters in least half of the states. If they failed to reach the required approval rating, they would be removed from office and barred from serving on the Supreme Court in the future.
Soon after, the senator said he “absolutely” believes county clerks in Texas should freely refuse marriage licenses to couples who wish to marry, the Supreme Court’s ruling be damned.
As ridiculous as Cruz’s posturing seems, it’s important to remember the broader context: national GOP candidates have a built-in incentive to be as hysterical as possible right now, in the hopes of currying favor with the party’s base. Mild, reasoned disappointment with the court doesn’t impress far-right activists; unrestrained, hair-on-fire apoplexy does.
Ted Cruz appears to understand this dynamic all too well.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 29, 2015
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 