Michael Shear of the Washington Post explains how the decision by a court to further delay same-sex marriage for Californians is a boon for the Obama administration:

In this difficult summer for President Obama, not a lot has gone right, politically. But this week, for once, the White House caught a break and can breathe a sigh of relief.

Even as controversy swirled about the president’s comments on the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, another potential election-season headache was all but erased.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided Monday to delay same-sex marriages in California until at least December… it was a relief for the White House, meaning that a potentially divisive issue would not play out during the fall midterm elections.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who is close with top White House officials, said Obama has “suffered through a season of distractions. He didn’t need one more distraction…. He simply doesn’t need any more hurdles in the lane.”

Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who has extensive experience in California politics, said the ruling by the court represented “the classic dodging of a bullet” for Obama.

In other news, the racial resegregation of the military into Black-only units and White-only units has prompted audible sighs of relief in the corridors of the West Wing:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel refused to comment publicly today on news regarding the restructuring of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines into race-segregated units. However, sources close to the President indicated good spirits among staffers who had worried that divisive controversies over social issues might distract voters during the upcoming congressional election season.

Some issues remain unresolved. “We’re still trying to figure out where to put the Hispanics,” explained Undersecretary of Defense Leith Billingwattle. “They’re kind of brown, aren’t they?”

But even as controversy swirled about the president’s “no religious test should be required for public office” comment, at least on the racial and military fronts a potential political headache has gone away.

Democratic pollster Carol Ikenagha explained that Obama has “suffered through a season of distractions. He didn’t need one more distraction…. He simply doesn’t need any more hurdles in the lane.”

Some other positive indicators for the Democrats heading toward November:

* Abortion has been made illegal by the latest 5-4 ruling of the Supreme Court, largely knocking issues of reproductive liberty off the list of election-year subjects;

* The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind the right of Americans to gather in public groups of five or more has negated any perceived advantage of the Republican Party on national security issues;

* After the reduction of the U.S. minimum wage to $2 an hour, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce eased its historical practice of overwhelmingly funding Republicans.

“We see victory at hand,” exulted a young campaign intern coming out of a late-night strategy session of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The course is clear and we’re ready to run.”

My two favorite signs from yesterday’s successful Washington, DC counterprotest against the meager National Organization for Marriage’s DC anti-gay event:

Hulk Mad, Hulk Smash!
God Hates Bags

NOM can try to candy-coat its deep-down animosity against gay people, but as these signs deftly point out, at base the anti-gay movement is really nothing more than NNNNNNGGGGGNNN and GRRRRR.

When the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage kicked off its multi-city anti-gay protest tour in Augusta Maine, only 76 showed up to support NOM, and there were half again as many counter-protesters. When NOM staged one of its protests against marriage equality in Indianapolis, pro-equality counterprotesters outnumbered the meager NOM presence by a factor of more than 6 to 1.

At the Atlanta NOM protest stop, the ratio was been even more skewed: only 30 people showed up to demonstrate against equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, dwarfed by some 300 counter-protesters on the side of equality.

In Indianapolis, Indiana, the National Organization for Marriage called for a big rally against equality for gay and lesbian Americans. Only 40 people showed up when NOM’s anti-gay protest came to pass a few days ago. One of them held this sign:

Tell me again that the fight against gay marriage is an effort to uphold moral values.

By the way, the NOM anti-gay protest was dwarfed by a much larger pro-equality counter-protest presence, attracting more than six times as many participants. Way to go, Indianapolis.

In April of 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage would henceforth be legal in the state of Iowa. Since then, gay and lesbian people in Iowa have had the same right to marry as their straight peers.

Straight through this year’s arguments in court regarding California’s Proposition 8, opponents of same-sex marriage have continued to assert that the legalization of same-sex marriage will devastate heterosexual marriages by “deinstitutionalizing” heterosexual marriage. The prediction of self-professed expert David Blankenhorn and others is that where same-sex marriages are legalized, divorces will rise as people throw up their hands, decide marriage doesn’t mean anything anymore, and leave their former spouses twisting in the wind.

But a funny thing’s happened since the Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in April 2009. The CDC has released divorce statistics for the state of Iowa through November 2009. From May 2009 (the month after legalization) through November 2009 (the latest month for which divorce stats are available), there were 4322 divorces in Iowa. During the same May-November period in 2008, there were 4574 divorces in the state.

That’s a drop in the number of Iowa divorces since the legalization of same-sex marriage there. That’s the opposite of what the anti-gay forces said would happen. Reality simply isn’t matching the rhetoric.

Last night Judge Vaughn Walker issued his ruling that Proposition 8, the California law legalizing discrimination against gay and lesbian people in denying them marriage equality, is unconstitutional.

For people who cherish the concept of equality under the law, it was a heartening evening. But this ruling is not the end of the line. The US Supreme Court will almost certainly take up this case on appeal, and there are five reasons to believe that the Supreme Court will overturn Judge Walker’s ruling and reinstate Prop 8.

Those five reasons:

1. Justice Samuel Alito
2. John Roberts
3. Antonin Scalia
4. Clarence Thomas
5. Anthony Kennedy

This conservative Supreme Court majority has shown a ready willingness to deny liberty and equality to Americans in the past. And they won’t allow inept representation by anti-gay forces to get in their way.

In the California case, lawyers representing the anti-gay defenders of Proposition 8 made the bizarrely theatrical move of withdrawing nearly all of its expert witnesses on the grounds that they feared for their lives from a murderous rampaging gay horde if their testimony were broadcasted to the public. Fine, responded Judge Vaughn Walker — we’ll take their testimony but won’t broadcast it. But still those witnesses weren’t called. As a result, plaintiffs’ witnesses arguing against Proposition 8 held the attention of the court in an unchallenged manner.

The Supreme Court doesn’t operate this way: one lawyer in favor of Proposition 8 and one lawyer in opposition to Proposition 8 will have the chance to articulate legal arguments, but these will be carried out without the testimony of witnesses, and the Supreme Court justices rather than representing lawyers have control over the flow of conversation, with the prerogative to interrupt, redirect and even cut off lines of argument. After arguments, any group of five or more can craft any legal opinion it desires.

It’s nice to see the legal bigotry of Prop 8 being delivered a smackdown. But I wouldn’t bet any money on the opinion being sustained. When Alito and Kennedy and Roberts and Scalia and Thomas get their hands on this case, expect to see marriage inequality reaffirmed.

The following are excerpts from United States District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling issued today, declaring Proposition 8 — the California Defense of Marriage Act — to be unconstitutional:

The Equal Protection Clause provides that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” US Const Amend XIV, § 1. According to plaintiffs, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause because it:

1. Discriminates against gay men and lesbians by denying them a right to marry the person of their choice whereas
heterosexual men and women may do so freely; and

2. Disadvantages a suspect class in preventing only gay men and lesbians, not heterosexuals, from marrying.

The key premises on which Proposition 8 was presented to the voters thus appear to be the following:

1. Denial of marriage to same-sex couples preserves marriage;

2. Denial of marriage to same-sex couples allows gays and lesbians to live privately without requiring others, including (perhaps especially) children, to recognize or acknowledge the existence of same-sex couples;

3. Denial of marriage to same-sex couples protects children;

4. The ideal child-rearing environment requires one male parent and one female parent;

5. Marriage is different in nature depending on the sex of the spouses, and an opposite-sex couple’s marriage is
superior to a same-sex couple’s marriage; and

6. Same-sex couples’ marriages redefine opposite-sex couples’ marriages.

A state’s interest in an enactment must of course be secular in nature. The state does not have an interest in enforcing private moral or religious beliefs without an accompanying secular purpose. See Lawrence v Texas, 539 US 558, 571 (2003); see also Everson v Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 US 1, 15 (1947).

Perhaps recognizing that Proposition 8 must advance a secular purpose to be constitutional, proponents abandoned previous arguments from the campaign that had asserted the moral superiority of opposite-sex couples.

At oral argument on proponents’ motion for summary judgment, the court posed to proponents’ counsel the assumption that “the state’s interest in marriage is procreative” and inquired how permitting same-sex marriage impairs or adversely affects that interest. Doc #228 at 21. Counsel replied that the inquiry was “not the legally relevant question,” id, but when pressed for an answer, counsel replied: “Your honor, my answer is: I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Lamb and Blankenhorn disagreed on the importance of a biological link between parents and children. Blankenhorn emphasized the importance of biological parents, relying on studies comparing children raised by married, biological parents with children raised by single parents, unmarried mothers, step families and cohabiting parents. Tr 2769:14-24 (referring to DIX0026 Kristin Anderson Moore, Susan M Jekielek, and Carol Emig, Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do about It, Child Trends (June 2002)); Tr 2771:1-13 (referring to DIX0124 Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Harvard 1994)). As explained in the credibility determinations, Section I below, none of the studies Blankenhorn relied on isolates the genetic relationship between a parent and a child as a variable to be tested. Lamb testified about studies showing that adopted children or children conceived using sperm or egg donors are just as likely to be well-adjusted as children raised by their biological parents. Tr 1041:8-17. Blankenhorn agreed with Lamb that adoptive parents “actually on some outcomes outstrip biological parents in terms of providing protective care for their children.”

An initiative measure adopted by the voters deserves great respect. The considered views and opinions of even the most highly qualified scholars and experts seldom outweigh the determinations of the voters. When challenged, however, the voters’ determinations must find at least some support in evidence. This is especially so when those determinations enact into law classifications of persons. Conjecture, speculation and fears are not enough. Still less will the moral disapprobation of a group or class of citizens suffice, no matter how large the majority that shares that view. The evidence demonstrated beyond serious reckoning that Proposition 8 finds support only in such disapproval. As such, Proposition 8 is beyond the constitutional reach of the voters or their representatives.

Marriage in the United States has always been a civil matter. Civil authorities may permit religious leaders to solemnize marriages but not to determine who may enter or leave a civil marriage. Religious leaders may determine independently whether to recognize a civil marriage or divorce but that recognition or lack thereof has no effect on the relationship under state law.

In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents’ case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. FF 78-80. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate.

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples. FF 76, 79-80; Romer, 517 US at 634 (“[L]aws of the kind now before us raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.”). Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

CONCLUSION
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 California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and 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.

A simple piece of progressive activism you can take today: Pledge not to go shopping at Target or Best Buy.

Why?

1. Target and Best Buy have been sending large amounts of money to an organization supporting the Tom Emmer for Governor campaign in Minnesota. Tom Emmer is a right wing Republican who supports discrimination against Americans on the basis of sexual orientation.

2. By putting large amounts of money into an effort to manipulate public elections for the sake of their corporate interests, Target and Best Buy are undermining democracy in the United States of America. These stores are encouraging corruption and discouraging good citizenship.

You may not believe that you have the ability to change much by refusing to shop at Target and Best Buy. Perhaps you won’t stop these stores from continuing their anti-democracy, anti-equality campaigns.

However, if you refrain from shopping at Best Buy and Target, you’ll know one thing for sure: You aren’t adding to the problem. You aren’t giving these big box stores money with which to pay for the advancement of nasty, right wing policies to undermine the foundations of liberty in our nation. You don’t have to be part of the problem. You can shop elsewhere.

The Maine Human Rights Act is a law prohibiting employment, housing, public accommodation, credit, or educational discrimination on account of various sociodemographic characteristics of individuals including race, color, ancestry, sex, marital status and religion. In 2005, the Maine Human Rights Act was amended to prohibit discrimination in provision of credit, educational, employment, housing, or public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2005 and earlier this year, anti-gay forces in Maine made efforts to repeal the anti-discrimination provision by mounting a “people’s veto,” a feature of Maine law that allows laws to be overturned by a majority referendum vote. The 2005 effort was rejected by Maine citizens’ popular vote; this year’s effort didn’t even get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

On Tuesday July 13 2010, the Maine Democratic Party issued a press release claiming that Paul LePage had declared his intention to overturn the Maine Human Rights Act, despite the failure of two successive efforts to re-legalize discrimination against gay and lesbian people in the state. The press release read:

Mayor Paul LePage, has openly called for the repeal of the Maine Human Rights Act. The Act prohibits discrimination based on one’s race, color,sex, sexual orientation and religion. The sexual orientation clause was an amendment to the Act that passed with broad support from Maine voters in 2005.Yet Mr. LePage has said, “My thinking would be it clearly needs to be brought back and reformed. It should be challenged and brought back to the legislature.”(http://recordings.talkshoe.com/rss52956.xml)

Unfortunately, apart from the hyperlink provided in the Maine Democrats’ press release, the text appears nowhere else on the internet. The “talkshoe” link itself directs us to a long xml list of links to dozens of hour-long radio shows by the Aroostook Watchmen, not directly to the source for Paul LePage’s quote itself. The context of the quote is not provided, either.

This meant that it was time for us to run a fact check, and to facilitate that I challenged Irregular Times readers this morning to find, identify, and link to the direct primary source in which Paul LePage’s alleged remark in favor of discrimination occurred. Within hours, you rose to the challenge and provided the link. Thanks, Bruce and Tim.

The Aroostook Watchmen’s interview of Paul LePage on the subject (with then-fellow candidate Bill Beardsley) can be found here: http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52956/TS-317643.mp3 (I’ve saved a copy to my personal computer and will make it available directly on Irregular Times servers if anyone tries to take the original down). You can listen to Paul LePage’s full remarks on the subject beginning roughly at 1 hour and 3 minutes in, or you can read a transcription of the unredacted exchange here:

Aroostook Watchmen: Would you work to have the Maine Human Rights Act rescinded, revoked, eliminated, whatever your choice of words would be, because the 2005 Human Rights Act is where the sexual orientation question was allowed to sneak under the tent. And without getting rid of the insane wording in that document, there’s nothing you can do. This will come back every time you come around.

Paul LePage: My thinking would be it clearly needs to be brought back and reformed. The law needs to be reformed. In fact, I’m not even so sure that the rules that they’re putting in place now don’t need to go back to the legislature. I think that they’ve gone beyond the intent of the law, and they’re clearly making a law, and in my mind at least I think it probably should be challenged and brought back to the legislature. I think the only thing, Maine’s funny: in the last 30 years you know you hear everybody on the street talking about these type of the issues. And they complain, complain, and complain. But every year we seem to be sendind back the same people we complain about. So it’s up to the Maine people to take a stand. The best place and the strongest place to take a stand is this fall in November. Send a real strong message and change the mentality of the people we send to Augusta. And then we can bring the laws, make laws that have some common sense and common decency and don’t use our children as pawns.

The full quote shows that yes, Paul LePage did declared his intention to undo protections against discrimination. If you live in Maine, it’s worth considering what LePage would do to change the state if he made it into the Blaine House.

Walk down Michigan Avenue in Chicago on any summer day and you’re likely to pass by at least one mother-daughter couple on the side walk, a doll that looks almost identical to the daughter dangling from the little girl’s hand.

They’ve come from the American Girl store, the place that sells the dolls and their accessories. Why? What are they looking to get from the dolls from that particular store? Why couldn’t a less expensive doll from another store do?

In particular, I wonder what it is that the mothers are seeking at the American Girl store. The daughters are usually far too young, after all, to have learned about the American Girl store for themselves.

Each one of these mothers already has a real, live American girl. Why do they need to buy their daughters American girl dolls?

1. Have an X chromosome.

2. Also have a Y chromosome.

3. Make babies if you want to, and don’t have babies if you don’t want, because we really have enough babies to go around.

These are the three key steps of authentic manhood. Anything on top of that is really about something else.

The National Organization for Marriage kicked off its anti-gay bus tour against marriage equality in Augusta, Maine three days ago — and was outnumbered by people showing up to show their support for marriage equality.

If you can’t get actual people to come out and support your cause, you can always pay stock photographers to create a Potemkin village on wheels:

Choose your stock photos wisely and you can take a stand against interracial marriage, too.

The United States of America is falling behind in marriage rights. Once, our nation set the example of liberty for others to follow. Now, the USA is a laggard.

Early this morning, Argentina became the latest nation to grant equal marriage rights to heterosexual and homosexual couples. The vote in the Argentine Senate wasn’t even very close: 33 to 27.

Yet, in the United States, our President and Congress have refused to even consider such equality. It seems that they don’t think that marriage is important enough to protect, ensuring that all consensual adult couples have access to the institution. If Argentina can legalize same-sex marriage, why can’t we?

Antipathy to marriage equality has transformed the USA from an exemplar to a cultural backwater, lowering our nation’s status in the world.

The 2010 Texas Republican Party platform explicitly supports the idea to let foster parents beat the children under their care, “to help alleviate the shortage of foster parents.”

In the same document, the Texas Republican Party declares its intention to prohibit gay and lesbian Americans from serving as foster parents.

Republican moral values.