DriveThru – Get What You Need

That is, if you’d like to continue the 9th Circuit’s reputation as the most bizarro, most liberal, most reversed appeals court in the federal system.

Liu, a Berkeley law professor, was nominated by President Obama for a vacant seat on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals headquartered in San Francisco. An under-qualified but outspoken liberal, he has managed in his short few years out of law school to burnish and publicize his liberal credentials.

He’s a former board member for an exclusive list of far Left organizations: the ACLU of California, the American Constitution Society of Northern California, and the National Women’s Law Center. He managed to get himself invited to Justice Alito’s confirmation hearings to mischaracterize and then demagogue to the Judiciary committee about Alito’s record.

Liu wrote an op-ed criticizing California’s Prop 8 marriage amendment and the seven million citizens who voted for it by labeling it as “the will of a narrow and ultimately temporary majority.”

And last but certainly not least, Liu firmly has stated his belief in the desirability of courts making law from the bench: “What we mean by [constitutional] fidelity is that the Constitution should be interpreted in ways that adapt its principles and its text to the challenges and conditions of our society in every succeeding generation.”

This guy’s confirmation hearings should be interesting.

h/t to Ed Whelan at Bench Memos

The Prop. 8 trial reached a new low yesterday when Dr. Hak-Shing Tam was belittled and mocked for his marriage beliefs on the witness stand.

The freedoms of religion, speech and association were all violated by the legal team of Olson and Boies, lawyers who have been respected nationally for their professional expertise.

Andrew Pugno’s blog post described it this way.

Then Thursday, for the first time (we believe) ever in a court of law, a proponent of a voter initiative was put on the stand to be interrogated under oath about his own political, moral and religious views.  Not only was the Prop 8 supporter forced to reveal his political and religious views under penalty of perjury, but he was further forced to defend and substantiate his views so the court can decide whether his views are “improper.”

Clearly the plaintiffs will go to any lengths—even if it means sacrificing the precious protections of the First Amendment—to achieve their goal of invalidating the vote of the people.

It reminded another courtroom witness of Joseph McCarthy’s bullying tactics.  Read Austin Nimocks’ blog post.

Are Olson and Boies trying to perpetuate the idea that marriage advocates should lose their 1st amendment rights?

Expert witness against Proposition 8, Nancy Cott, is a historian of marriage who supports its deconstruction.

Bruce blogged about Cott’s biased activities—including lobbying on behalf of same-sex marriage laws.  Her testimony yesterday scored more points for the pro-marriage team when she admitted that

marriage has evolved from a child-focused institution to an adult-focused institution

and

marriage has evolved such that it is now more about making adults stable in their relationships with each other.

It’s an excellent point, and it’s exactly what the supporters of Prop. 8 protested.   Voters for Prop. 8 saw that children need a mom and a dad, and redefining marriage would move marriage further from that purpose.

I’ve mentioned here and here the legal efforts to protect citizens who sign petitions or donate money to protect marriage in connection with voter initiatives and referendums. Recent efforts by lawyers in Washington state and Maine to protect these folks against disclosure of their names are based on the violence and intimidation experienced in California over Prop 8 when the names of that proposition’s supporters were posted on the internet by LGBT organizations.

Well, the Heritage Foundation has catalogued the Prop 8 incidents in its backgrounder entitled “The Price of Prop 8.” Here’s a piece:

Support for Proposition 8, the democratically established marriage amendment in California, has come with a heavy price for many individuals and institutions that think that marriage should remain the union of husband and wife. Publicly available sources, including evidence submitted in a federal lawsuit in California, show that expressions of support for Prop 8 have generated a range of hostilities and harms that include 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.

Here’s a thought: When your major talking point is calling supporters of traditional marriage “haters” and “bigots,” you should probably refrain from behavior that actually fits those terms.

Here’s more disturbing evidence that—when it comes to conservative religious groups—national, gay activist organizations have none of the so-called tolerance they love to promote.

GLSEN—the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network—held a Hollywood star-studded event this month called the “Respect Awards.” HBO and ABC/Disney TV heavyweights were in attendance, as well as stars from popular TV shows.

Ironically, while accepting GLSEN’s “Respect” award, technology entrepreneur David Bohnett slammed some of the nation’s largest religious groups, and basically issued a manifesto calling for people to fight them.

Below, I’ve highlighted a few excerpts. You can read the whole thing yourself here.

• “… it is the evangelical and fundamentalist groups that teach homosexuality is a sin, who stand in the way of fairness and equality.”

• “It’s time to combat head-on religious organizations that are funding the opposition to marriage equality and safe school legislation.”

• “Among our greatest adversaries who actively work against us are the leaders of the Catholic, Mormon, and evangelical churches who seek to deny equal protection…”  

• “…  the children taught at an early age that the bible condemns homosexuality may become the school bullies, and then later the adults who vote to deny marriage equality…”

This is a disturbing example of vilifying faith-based groups who dare to disagree with homosexual advocacy groups’ agenda, including the legalization of gay marriage—and even more disturbing is the not-so-subtle insinuation that parents should not be allowed to teach their kids religious beliefs that are opposed to gay activist goals. Does this represent GLSEN’s vision for “safe schools”? And the vision of GLSEN’s founder, Kevin Jennings?

As I pointed out before, this same intolerance was clearly on display in the vehement attacks against those who were brave enough to support Prop. 8 (a traditional marriage law recently upheld by California’s Supreme Court). But nothing is said about promoting “safety” or “respect” for those individuals and churches.

Apparently, GLSEN and its supporters believe in “safety” for everyone except those who disagree with them.

That’s why it’s so essential that we act now to defeat measures like the “employment nondiscrimination act” that give political ammunition to those who would destroy religious liberties.

It’s also extremely important to protest the appointment of people like Kevin Jennings, GLSEN’s founder, who has now been given control of the federal “Safe Schools” office. Jennings and his group have repeatedly displayed the same bias, and even outright anger, against conservative faiths that was so vividly on display at GLSEN’s “Respect” awards. For more examples, click here.  You can also listen to a Focus on the Family broadcast highlighting some of these issues.

(Warning: excessive sarcasm alert.)

Those exasperating voters. You know the ones. They sign petitions by the thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, to get issues they care about on a statewide election ballot. Why? Because they’ve watched their proposed bills get killed in legislative committees. Or they’ve watched arrogant judges legislate the exact opposite of the will of the people. And instead of simply accepting their fate, those uppity voters act like it’s a democracy and demand a popular vote on the issue. Like the definition of marriage, for example.

Thankfully, a certain frustrated California Chief Justice has come up with a remedy: We have to stop allowing voters to do that!

The LA Times reports that the Chief Justice Ron George, who authored the Court’s 2008 opinion which, by a 4-3 vote, redefined marriage in California (at least for a few months), thinks the ballot initiative process (like Prop 8 ) needs to be “reformed”  because it “has rendered California government dysfunctional.” As if it wasn’t already.

In prepared remarks before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he cried “fowl”:

“Chickens gained valuable rights in California on the same day that gay men and lesbians lost them,” George said.

Actually, gays and lesbians didn’t lose any rights. California’s domestic partnership laws grant everything but the label “married” to domestic partners.

But George, whose marriage redefinition decision went from primetime to a footnote because of Prop 8, isn’t taking his irrelevance lying down. He wants to change the system so that nothing like that ever happens again.

One thing George overlooks. He’ll need those pesky voters to agree to give up their right to keep him in check.

Good luck with that.

My favorite sentence so far from the lengthy motion for summary judgement brief filed by the defense team in Perry v. Schwarzenegger—the Prop. 8 case:

The striking lack of historical precedent for extending marriage to same-sex couples provides strong evidence that liberty and justice can exist in a regime that does not recognize same-sex marriages.

It goes on to say that the issue of legal recognition of same-sex relationships is so new that it’s not realistic to conclude that “ordered liberty … requires … that they be recognized and denominated “marriages.”

It’s from page 40 in the .pdf document.  You can download the entire thing here.

The National Law Journal has a pretty thorough article up on the two federal lawsuits currently underway in Massachusetts asking the federal courts to declare a section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. The specific section of DOMA being targeted is the section that defines marriage as one man and one woman for the purpose of

“…determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative  bureaus and agencies of the United States…”

The legal theory being espoused by the Massachusetts plaintiffs: Marriage is strictly within the province of the states to define, and the federal government must accept whatever the states do.

There’s just one problem with that, however,  Ted Olson and David Boies (dubbed “Super-lawyers” by the media) are arguing in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bars Californians from defining for themselves that marriage is between a man and a woman. So with regard to marriage, the federal constitutional interest supposedly trumps the state interest. Are you confused yet? Don’t worry, the “Super-lawyers” have an argument as to why that’s not inconsistent. It involves jamming square pegs into round holes. A post for another day.

It is consistent to argue that both the states and feds have an interest in legislating about marriage, which is what pro-family groups have argued for years in their attempts to obtain a federal marriage amendment as well as state marriage amendments. The federal court lawsuits to redefine marriage, however, merely prove that gay activists will try anything to get a court to do what voters will not.

The NY Times reports that gay anti-marriage activists are reconsidering a repeal attempt of CA’s Prop. 8.   See “Backers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push.”

Their blogs have been lit up for weeks with conversation back and forth about groups that support an attempt to repeal Prop. 8 and establish same-sex marriage in the state, and those who think a return to the ballot in 2010 would result in a second defeat.

Apparently, initial polling does not look promising because the momentum seems to have settled on the side of those who do not support a 2010 repeal effort.  The NYTimes reports that support for redefining marriage in California is polling only in the 40s, and those who would invest the most money in a repeal campaign would prefer to donate to redefinition efforts which may have a greater chance of success.

Significantly, the polling shows that California’s citizens are firm in their affirmation of the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.  They haven’t changed their minds since November, and much more than a months-long campaign would be necessary to make any headway.

In spite of this, Matt Foreman, a program director for a funder of LGBT causes is quoted in the NYTimes piece saying that minds are hard to change in a campaign because “people are being bombarded with lies.”

I have another idea.  As someone who believes that it’s the truth that sets us free, I don’t believe that “lies” could prevail for such a length of time.  The marriage campaigns in Arizona are evidence of this.  The one-man, one-woman definition of marriage lost in 2006 in a cloud of confusion.  It prevailed decisively just two years later.  Perhaps the minds of Arizonans were changed because they had been bombarded with lies.

But beyond any one campaign, marriage is centuries-old and is practiced in nations in which the prevalent religion isn’t even Christian.  The truth about marriage resounds in the heart of humanity.

David Boies, one of the attorneys who brought the federal lawsuit to overturn California’s Prop. 8, argues his case in an opinion piece in today’s WSJ.

It’s always intriguing when someone who is an expert in policy denies the obvious, but Boies claims that there is no legitimate state policy underlying the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.  It’s not obvious, apparently, that marriage is The. Social. Institution. most responsible for the flourishing of the human species for the few thousand years of civilization for which we have record.

He also writes that the “occasional suggestion that marriages between people of different sexes may somehow be threatened by marriages of people of the same sex does not withstand discussion.”

He’s right—it doesn’t withstand discussion; it’s a tiresome argument and a ridiculous suggestion.  Our opposition to redefining marriage goes way beyond any one couple’s relationship—heterosexual or homosexual.  We are concerned at the prospect of generations raised in a world in which we’ve decided that the intentional detachment of children from the mother and father who together made them is good, just and lawful.

As is true of others, Boies promotes the redefinition of marriage to meet a need for which it is entirely unsuited—the affirmation of gay and lesbian relationships.  The majority of Americans resist the redefinition of marriage not to hurt individuals or their relationships, but to support the one family structure which inherently provides our most flourishing family structure for children.

More later perhaps about marriage as “figurative and literal gay-bashing.”