Court refuses to allow D.C. vote on gay marriage | Washington Examiner

Court refuses to allow D.C. vote on gay marriage | Washington Examiner

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Court refuses to allow D.C. vote on gay marriage
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
June 30, 2009
(AP)

A D.C. Superior Court judge has dismissed a motion filed by gay marriage opponents to stall the implementation of a new District law recognizing same sex unions performed elsewhere.

The decision from Judge Judith Retchin to deny a preliminary injunction and grant the city’s motion to dismiss means there will be no referendum on the recognition statute, which will likely become law July 6 after a congressional review of the law is completed. Congress is not expected to undue the legislation.

Retchin determined that the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled properly that the proposed referendum, sought by a coalition of area clergy, was an improper subject for a ballot question because it would violate the city’s Human Rights Act. The act, she said, makes it “unlawful for the government to deny services or benefits based on membership in a protected category,” and there are some 200 rights and responsibilities conferred to married couples that are not given to legally recognized same sex couples.

Retchin also concluded that Dean vs. D.C., a key 1995 Court of Appeals rule that supported a court clerk’s decision not to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, did not apply in this case. Dean, she wrote, “involved a different factual scenario and presented a different legal question than is before the Court.”

The Stand 4 Marriage D.C. coalition, led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Beltsville’s Hope Christian Church, filed its proposed referendum application on May 27, 16 days after the bill was transmitted to Congress. That delay, Retchin wrote in her decision, was “inexcusable.”

“At bottom, the harm about which Petitioners complain is not based on a denial of the right to referendum,” Retchin wrote. “Rather, they simply disagree with legislation enacted by our duly-elected Council. A citizen’s disagreement with constitutionally sound legislation, whethe

Obama assures he's committed to gay rights - Los Angeles Times

Obama assures he's committed to gay rights - Los Angeles Times

He meets with gay and lesbian leaders, asking them for patience. The activists, though appreciative of the president's support, want to see bold action.
By Peter Nicholas
7:10 PM PDT, June 29, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- Facing a political backlash from an important voting bloc, President Obama met with leaders of the gay and lesbian community Monday, asking for patience and assuring them that in time he will usher in policy changes that protect them from discriminatory treatment.

"We've been in office six months now," the president said. "I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."



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Obama offers expanded benefits to gay partners of federal employees

Obama is under mounting pressure to fulfill campaign promises to repeal laws barring gays from serving openly in the military and proclaiming marriage to be a union between a man and a woman.

Gay leaders also are unhappy about a legal brief submitted by Obama's Justice Department that gave a vigorous defense of the federal marriage law passed in 1996. The act also holds that states need not recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Obama, joined by his wife, Michelle, told the 250-some elected officials and activists that he was required to uphold federal laws even if he personally disagreed with them. By the end of his tenure, he said, he will have taken steps that gays and lesbians long have hoped to see.

The reception was warm. People gathered in the East Room of the White House shouted, "Thank you, Mr. President" and "Love you."

But afterward, some guests echoed a point made by Obama: What matters is not supportive rhetoric, but concrete steps toward fuller equality.

"While we appreciate that this president has given voice to so many important issues the gay and lesbian community faces, we also want him to take bold action," said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Boston-based Family Equality Council, an advocacy group.

The occasion for the meeting Monday was the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York, considered the opening of the modern gay rights movement. Patrons at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village clashed with police during a raid in June 1969.

Invited to the White House event were major figures in the gay rights movement, including Frank Kameny, who lost his job as a government astronomer because of his sexual orientation. Kameny led a protest outside the White House in 1965, a risky thing to do in that era, Obama said.

Some in attendance applauded Obama for assembling such a large group of gay and lesbian leaders in the White House.

"The very fact that he would invite 200 LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] leaders from across the nation on the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the gay liberation movement is just an astounding thing," said Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who is gay. "Most people were standing around not believing they were actually guests in the White House. He expressed his opposition to the same things that we're all opposed to, and his support for things we hope to see happen: the end of 'don't ask, don't tell,' employment nondiscrimination and the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act."

Recognizing a breach with gay supporters, the White House has taken conspicuous steps to demonstrate the president is committed to gay rights. On June 17, Obama extended certain benefits to gay and lesbian federal employees. He also proclaimed this month "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month."

But disappointment persists. Some in the gay community are upset by the legal brief filed by the Obama administration in support of the Defense of Marriage Act. Two California men have sued to overturn the act, and the Justice Department defended the law's recognition of "a centuries-old form of marriage."

"I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country," Obama said. "Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law."

But that's not likely to happen right away. Obama and Congress are devoting most of their energy to passing a healthcare overhaul and a sweeping new energy policy. With such a busy agenda, White House and congressional leaders have been reluctant to overload the political machinery in Washington by pushing through more controversial legislation.

Obama is hoping his gay supporters will wait. But patience is starting to ebb.

"People feel they've been patient for a long time," said Leslie Calman, executive director of the National Lesbian Health Organization's Mautner Project. "They feel President Obama is on our side and want to see something concrete as soon as possible."

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

Federal Prop 8 Test Happens Thursday | The Bilerico Project

Federal Prop 8 Test Happens Thursday | The Bilerico Project

Filed by: Karen Ocamb
June 29, 2009 11:30 AM

After all the outrage, protests and promises to put same sex marriage back on the ballot in 2010 following the California Supreme Court's May 26 ruling upholding Prop 8, the struggle over marriage equality is now back in the courts - and this time the stakes are even higher.

Ironically, an odd political pair is leading the legal fight this time around - a straight same-sex couple: Ted Olson and David Boies. Their involvement is so unexpected and potentially significant that the case is now referred to as the Olson/Boies case, as opposed to the "Perry" case - named for the last name of the first plaintiff, as is customary.

On Thursday, July 2 the Olson/Boies federal case - brought by the newly established American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) on behalf of two California couples, Kris Perry & Sandy Stier and Paul Katami & Jeff Zarrillo - will go before U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker in the Northern District of California. (This case is distinct from two other unrelated federal cases that are specifically targeting the Defense of Marriage Act, the law that keeps married gay couples from receiving federal benefits.)

Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean wrote in FindLaw that Walker is considered "unpredictable," adding that Walker was appointed to the federal bench by President George H. W. Bush after he was not re-confirmed under President Ronald Reagan.

The judge will hear a preliminary motion seeking a temporary and permanent injunction against enforcement of Prop 8 on the grounds that the state constitutional amendment violates the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The defendants are Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, and the counties of Alameda and Los Angeles where the two couples live.

That's the straightforward part. Almost everything else is as unpredictable as a ride on a rickety Magic Mountain roller coaster.

click above link for full story.

Group Petitions to Expand 1964 Civil Rights Act to Include LGBT - Towleroad, More than gay news. More gay men

Group Petitions to Expand 1964 Civil Rights Act to Include LGBT - Towleroad, More than gay news. More gay men

This morning, a press conference was held outside New York's historic Stonewall Inn by grassroots online group The Power announcing its LGBT Civil Rights campaign for full equality. At the presser, the group presented U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler with a signed petition for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include LBGT status.

Stonewall4I'll post video when it's available.

Updated: Statements by prominent leaders, AFTER THE JUMP...

The group writes: "As President Obama prepares to host a cocktail reception at the White House for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender leaders, prominent activists and fundraisers return to the Stonewall Inn on the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots to announce a new comprehensive LGBT civil rights agenda. At that time they will also present U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler with signed petitions from all 50 states and 36 countries supporting expansion of the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people, marking the official launch of The Power’s nationwide petition drive and campaign demanding full equality now."

The petition will be accompanied by statements of support from prominent lawmakers and LGBT leaders. A list, is AFTER THE JUMP...

Vander Plaats predicts own impeachment over gay marriage « Iowa Independent

Future trouble in IOWA????

Vander Plaats predicts own impeachment over gay marriage « Iowa Independent

By Jason Hancock 6/29/09 10:17 AM

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats has renewed his promise to end same-sex marriage with an executive order, even if it means facing impeachment.

Bob Vander Plaats

Appearing on the show of controversial Christian radio host Steve Deace, Vander Plaats once again said if elected governor in 2010 he would issue an executive order stopping same-sex marriage until the legislature either passes a law legalizing it or passes a constitutional amendment banning it.

“I can’t give the people the right to vote on this, but I think I can mobilize people like [Senate Majority Leader Mike] Gronstal and [House Speaker Pat] Murphy by saying no more same-sex marriages until you step up and vote to make this law,” Vander Plaats said.

After doing so, he said he fully expects Democrats to try to remove him from office for “promoting lawlessness.”

“I would like to have that debate, because then Pat Murphy has to go back to his people in Dubuque and tell them we’re going to impeach Vander Plaats because he wants the legislature to do its job in the constitution and he also wants to give you the right to vote,” he said. “I don’t think that would play very well.”

Mark Kende, director of Drake University’s Constitutional Law Center, said the governor lacks the authority to issue an executive order freezing a decision by the Iowa Supreme Court. And while they disagree on many things, that is “pretty well accepted constitutional law by scholars who are both conservative and liberal.”

If Vander Plaats were to issue such an order, it could result in a constitutional crisis the likes of which the country hasn’t seen since desegregation cases in the Deep South, Kende said. Local officials, who are responsible for issuing marriage licenses, would be stuck between the governor’s executive order and an earlier order from the Iowa Attorney General’s office explaining to county recorders that they have no authority to ignore the court’s ruling.

Ultimately, desegregation cases were settled in the south by the federal government using troops to support the court, an option that is unlikely in Iowa.

“Courts do depend on the executive branch for enforcement, and regular executive disobedience would result in numerous crises,” Kende said. “This is what has happened in some other countries where the executive ignores the judiciary, such as Zimbabwe to give just one example.”

Vander Plaats said the Iowa Supreme Court overstepped its authority when on April 3 it issued an order striking down the state’s Defense of Marriage Act and legalizing same-sex marriage.

“If the Supreme Court goes out of bounds, who holds them in check?” he said. “I believe that’s where the executive branch comes in, to hold them in check. “

How to oppose same-sex marriage has been a focal point of a debate raging within the Republican Party of Iowa. Last month, Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King of Kiron publicly criticized those calling on elected officials to ignore the court’s ruling, saying the only method available to Iowans to stop same-sex marriage is a constitutional amendment.

King’s opinion, which he shared in a guest column for The Des Moines Register, drew harsh criticism from Deace and conservative activist Bill Salier, who said elected officials must be willing to confront the judicial branch, as well as ignore decisions they disagree with.

More recently, Vander Plaats attacked another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, Christopher Rants, for saying the governor does not have the authority to issue such an order.

Now not the time for marriage bill

Now not the time for marriage bill

CAPITAL REGION — For now, same-sex marriage is off the table in New York — and some supporters of the proposed bill to legalize same-sex marriage think that’s fine.

They say they don’t want the bill to be enacted while the leadership of the state Senate is in dispute because they fear that that would make it easier for opponents to get it overturned later on. Some had expected the Senate to take up the bill, which was passed by the Assembly in May, this week. Gov. David Paterson has said that he would sign it if it reached his desk.

“We’re not disappointed,” said Nora Yates, executive director of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council. “We want marriage equality to be legal and not be partisan and not be in question. Because of all the confusion, we’re glad it’s not coming up. This is not a partisan issue. It’s people’s lives. We would like marriage removed from the drama.”

Even so, same-sex couples are anxious, Yates said.

“Having marriage equality is a daily issue for them,” she said.

Above the fray

In a statement, Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said that the Senate needs to handle the marriage bill “respectfully.”

“State senators need to know that it is unacceptable to leave Albany without voting on and passing the marriage bill,” Van Capelle said. “Marriage equality is not a partisan issue and should never be used as a political football in the current situation that has caused complete gridlock in our state capitol. Thousands of New York families expect and need senators to immediately figure out a way to work together and start doing the people’s business. ... We expect that marriage will be at the top of the agenda when the stalemate is over and the Senate resumes its business, but only when we are certain that any such vote taken by the Senate is valid and not subject to legal challenge.”


click link above for full story

Op-Ed Columnist - 40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans - NYTimes.com

excellent op ed

Op-Ed Columnist - 40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans - NYTimes.com

By FRANK RICH

LIKE all students caught up in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, I was riveted by the violent confrontations between the police and protestors in Selma, 1965, and Chicago, 1968. But I never heard about the several days of riots that rocked Greenwich Village after the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in the wee hours of June 28, 1969 — 40 years ago today.

Then again, I didn’t know a single person, student or teacher, male or female, in my entire Ivy League university who was openly identified as gay. And though my friends and I were obsessed with every iteration of the era’s political tumult, we somehow missed the Stonewall story. Not hard to do, really. The Times — which would not even permit the use of the word gay until 1987 — covered the riots in tiny, bowdlerized articles, one of them but three paragraphs long, buried successively on pages 33, 22 and 19.

But if we had read them, would we have cared? It was typical of my generation, like others before and after, that the issue of gay civil rights wasn’t on our radar screen. Not least because gay people, fearful of harassment, violence and arrest, were often forced into the shadows. As David Carter writes in his book “Stonewall,” at the end of the 1960s homosexual sex was still illegal in every state but Illinois. It was a crime punishable by castration in seven states. No laws — federal, state or local — protected gay people from being denied jobs or housing. If a homosexual character appeared in a movie, his life ended with either murder or suicide.

The younger gay men — and scattered women — who acted up at the Stonewall on those early summer nights in 1969 had little in common with their contemporaries in the front-page political movements of the time. They often lived on the streets, having been thrown out of their blue-collar homes by their families before they finished high school. They migrated to the Village because they’d heard it was one American neighborhood where it was safe to be who they were.

Stonewall “wasn’t a 1960s student riot,” wrote one of them, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, in a poignant handwritten flier on display at the New York Public Library in the exhibition “1969: The Year of Gay Liberation.” They had “no nice dorms for sleeping,” “no school cafeteria for certain food” and “no affluent parents” to send checks. They had no powerful allies of any kind, no rights, no future. But they were brave. They risked their necks to prove, as Lanigan-Schmidt put it, that “the mystery of history” could happen “in the least likely of places.”

After the gay liberation movement was born at Stonewall, this strand of history advanced haltingly until the 1980s. It took AIDS and the new wave of gay activism it engendered to fully awaken many, including me, to the gay people all around them. But that tardy and still embryonic national awareness did not save the lives of those whose abridged rights made them even more vulnerable during a rampaging plague.

On Monday, President Obama will commemorate Stonewall with an East Room reception for gay leaders. Some of the invitees have been fiercely critical of what they see as his failure, thus far, to redeem his promise to be a “fierce advocate” for their still unfulfilled cause. The rancor increased this month, after the Department of Justice filed a brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the most ignominious civil rights betrayal under the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

The Obama White House has said that the Justice Department action was merely a bureaucratic speed bump on the way to repealing DOMA — which hardly mitigates the brief’s denigration of same-sex marriage, now legal in six states after many hard-fought battles. The White House has also asserted that its Stonewall ceremony was “long planned” — even though it sure looks like damage control. News of the event trickled out publicly only last Monday, after dozens of aggrieved, heavy-hitting gay donors dropped out of a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser with a top ticket of $30,400.

In conversations with gay activists on both coasts last week, I heard several theories as to why Obama has seemed alternately clumsy and foot-dragging in honoring his campaign commitments to dismantle DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The most charitable take had it that he was following a deliberate strategy, given his habit of pursuing his goals through long-term game plans. After all, he’s only five months into his term and must first juggle two wars, the cratered economy, health care and Iran. Some speculated that the president is fearful of crossing preachers, especially black preachers, who are adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage. Still others said that the president was tone-deaf on the issue because his inner White House circle lacks any known gay people.

But the most prevalent theory is that Obama, surrounded by Clinton White House alumni with painful memories, doesn’t want to risk gay issues upending his presidency, as they did his predecessor’s in 1993. After having promised to lift the ban on gays in the military, Clinton beat a hasty retreat into Don’t Ask once Congress and the Pentagon rebelled. This early pratfall became a lasting symbol of his chaotic management style — and a precursor to another fiasco, Hillarycare, that Obama is also working hard not to emulate.

But 2009 is not then, and if the current administration really is worried that it could repeat Clinton’s history on Don’t Ask, that’s ludicrous. Clinton failed less because of the policy’s substance than his fumbling of the politics. Even in 1992 a majority of the country (57 percent) supported an end to the military ban on gays. But Clinton blundered into the issue with no strategy at all and little or no advance consultation with the Joint Chiefs and Congress. That’s never been Obama’s way.

The cultural climate is far different today, besides. Now, roughly 75 percent of Americans support an end to Don’t Ask, and gay issues are no longer a third rail in American politics. Gay civil rights history is moving faster in the country, including on the once-theoretical front of same-sex marriage, than it is in Washington. If the country needs any Defense of Marriage Act at this point, it would be to defend heterosexual marriage from the right-wing “family values” trinity of Sanford, Ensign and Vitter.

But full gay citizenship is far from complete. “There’s a perception in Washington that you can throw little bits of partial equality to gay people and that gay people will be satisfied with that,” said Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter who won an Oscar for “Milk,” last year’s movie about Harvey Milk, the pioneering gay civil rights politician of the 1970s. Such “crumbs,” Black added, cannot substitute for “full and equal rights in all matters of civil law in all 50 states.”

As anger at White House missteps boiled over this month, the president abruptly staged a ceremony to offer some crumbs. The pretext was the signing of an executive memorandum bestowing benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees. But some of those benefits were already in force, and the most important of them all, health care, was not included because it is forbidden by DOMA.

One gay leader invited to the Oval Office that day was Jennifer Chrisler of the Family Equality Council, an advocacy organization for gay families based in Massachusetts. She showed a photo of her 7-year-old twin sons, Tom and Tim, to Obama. The president cooed. “I told him they’re following in Sasha’s footsteps, entering the second grade,” she recounted to me last week. “It was a very human exchange between two parents.”

Chrisler seized the moment to appeal to the president on behalf of her boys. “The worst thing you can experience as parents is to feel your children are discriminated against,” she told him. “Imagine if you have to explain every day who your parents are and that they’re as real as every family is.” Chrisler said that she and her children “want a president who will make that go away,” adding, “I believe in his heart he wants that to happen, his political mistakes notwithstanding.”

No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness. The Justice Department brief defending DOMA has spoken louder for this president than any of his own words on the subject. Chrisler noted that he has given major speeches on race, on abortion and to the Muslim world. “People are waiting for that passionate speech from him on equal rights,” she said, “and the time is now.”

Action would be even better. It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.