Via the AP, the strongest words we've seen yet from the Obama administration against anyone who disagrees with them about marriage.
We wonder if the administration is comfortable with ascribing the motivations impugned outlined below to all the Democrats and President Bill Clinton who signed DOMA into law in 1996?
In a strongly worded legal brief, the Obama administration has said the federal act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman was motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians and is unconstitutional.
The brief was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco in support of a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit claiming the government wrongly denied health coverage to her same-sex spouse.
... "The official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3," the brief reads, referring to the section in the act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Prof. Michael Filozof urges conservatives to become proactive instead of reactive to organized cultural pressure from the left:
The political strategy of conservatives and Republicans for the last several decades has been purely reactionary -- to wait for leftists in power to screw up, then reap the electoral rewards...But this strategy concedes the agenda to the left. At no time has the right actually been in control of the national agenda in any meaningful sense.
... By failing to form a militant conservative movement, defend bourgeois values, and suppress leftist radicalism, the right has created a monster. The left has already gotten nearly everything it wanted -- abortion, pornography, welfare, homosexual marriage, socialized medicine, a submissive and internationalist foreign policy, out-of-control federal spending, and federal interference in virtually every facet of American life.
... The right's strategy of conceding the national agenda to the left is exceedingly dangerous. The left's solutions to any one of a number of issues on the table -- deficit spending, cap-and-trade, energy security, Iran's nuclear program, illegal immigration -- could deal a mortal blow to the nation.
Biographical note: Filozof is an adjunct professor of political science at the State University of New York at Brockport. He says he was denied tenure by his faculty peers because of his pro-Bush/Iraq War views.
Erica Jong asks if trends are changing among the next generation:
While editing an anthology of women’s sexual writing called “Sugar in My Bowl” last year, I was fascinated to see, among younger women, a nostalgia for ’50s-era attitudes toward sexuality. The older writers in my anthology are raunchier than the younger writers. The younger writers are obsessed with motherhood and monogamy.
Here's what she thinks should mark the relationships between the sexes:
... Different though we are, men and women were designed to be allies, to fill out each other’s limitations, to raise children together and give them different models of adulthood. We have often botched attempts to do this, but there is valor in trying to get it right, to heal the world and the rift between the sexes, to pursue the healing of home and by extension the healing of the earth.
Sheila Liaugminas on interviewing Prof. Robert George about what happened in New York:
Prof. George was a guest on my radio show this week. He sounds the same in person as he does in print. Certain. Determined. Resolute.
... Citizens have to be informed and engaged, George said sternly. And even though I say that same thing often in print and on the air, it somehow seemed to carry more gravity when he said it.
As for the cover NY Governor Andrew Cuomo promised those politicians who helped him muscle this law through, George had this to say:
“Andrew Cuomo is a powerful politician, no doubt, he’s a tough guy. But we have to be just as tough…The great thing about standing up to a bully is that it always works.”
... Yet these same libertarians, who accept the gravity of changing the meaning of words in a document several hundred years old, in a blink of an eye use money and political power to change the meaning of a word thousands of years old.
Not just any word. A word – marriage – central to human social reality.
... Rosa Parks was not trying to redefine what a bus is. She was asserting her right to sit wherever she wanted on it.
Preservation of language as a vessel for underlying truths has always been central to racial justice in our nation. As Lincoln made clear at Gettysburg, we wound up with over a half a million dead fighting over the integrity of the word “equal.”
... Check on the quality of freedom in our inner cities today, where young black men and women have the same regard for marriage as do these hedge fund managers.
It’s been said that when words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty. It’s something all of us, even wealthy libertarians, should keep in mind.
This week's TOMBSTONE AWARD goes to the actions of four Republican state senators in New York. Each week Doc Holliday issues a TOMBSTONE of the Week Award that goes to an action, deed or words that deserve to be placed six-feet under the ground. You can hear the award and the rest of this week’s show at Doc Holliday’s Tea Party link by clicking here.
These four New York state senators, Jim Alesi, Roy McDonald, Steve Saland, and Mark Grisanti provided the margin of passage for the new same-sex marriage law in the state of New York. These modern day Benedict Arnold's were the four Republican votes needed to make this law pass. Their votes in Albany were completely different from the way they campaigned during their election posturing.
Tea Party patriots around the country, beware of RINO Republicans who campaign one way and once they get elected vote the opposite way. It doesn't matter what you think of the subject of same-sex marriage, the fact is these Republicans campaigned one way and voted another. They betrayed their constituents. These modern day Benedict Arnold's should get primary opponents and be kicked out of office the next election, and their votes in the state senate should be buried six-feet beneath a tombstone.
The headlines have been full this week with the news of the Casey Anthony verdict. Carolyn Moynihan writes in Mercator.net about the increased risks to children when a marriage culture breaks down:
Casey Anthony is a single mother, living with her own parents, the father of her child nowhere to be seen, although there have been rumours of incest. Macsyna King was cohabiting with her twins’ father, Chris Kahui.
The stresses of single parenthood, with or without boyfriends, are well known. And the dangers of cohabitation for children are becoming clearer all the time. A recent US federal government study of child abuse and neglect shows the dramatically increased risks for children living in a home where there is an unrelated boyfriend -- and even with their own parents if they are cohabiting.
Despite decades of feminism and gender role revision, we are still more shocked when mothers neglect, abuse and especially kill their children. But one does not have to look far into the lives of most of these women to find that the other side of the sexual revolution -- what’s politely known as the “evolution” of the family -- has played a significant role.
The Minnesota for Marriage Coalition, a broad-based group of community and faith leaders and organizations supporting next year's vote to preserve the definition of marriage as only one man and one woman in Minnesota's constitution, reacted [June 26] to the narrow vote by the Legislature in the State of New York to legalize gay marriage in the Empire State.
"This is exactly why we need the constitutional amendment to protect marriage in Minnesota," said Jason Adkins of the Minnesota Catholic Conference and a member of the Minnesota for Marriage Coalition. "Marriage between one man and one woman has served mankind for all of recorded history as the building block of civilization and the best institution for children. Now marriage has been radically redefined in New York and gay marriage imposed without a vote of the people. Placing one-man, one-woman marriage in Minnesota's Constitution ensures that only voters will ever be able to decide the meaning of marriage, not politicians."
"Those who opposed placing the amendment before the voters said it was unnecessary, but the activities in New York show differently," added Chuck Darrell, Director of Communications of the Minnesota Family Council. "In fact, State Senator John Marty boasted that the Minnesota state legislature would force same-sex marriage on the people this year - just like in New York - without a vote of the people. Instead, our legislature wisely decided to let the people decide the issue of marriage - not politicians."
"We look forward to a healthy debate on the amendment and, unlike politicians in New York, trust the people of Minnesota to make the right decision on marriage in our state," concluded Adkins.
The mainstream media did its best to hurt Bachmann for signing the Iowa Family Leader's marriage pledge, but it doesn't look like its working:
A new poll of Iowa Republicans released Sunday night suggested that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) enjoys momentum in the race to win the state's caucuses.
Twenty-five percent of likely Republican caucusgoers said they would support Bachmann, the Tea Party favorite, as the GOP presidential nominee, surpassing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney [who stands at twenty-one percent]. -- The Hill
This news (via CitizenLink) became public a little over a week ago but still remains relevant:
In a move that caught same-sex marriage advocates by surprise, the U.S. Trustee for the Bankruptcy Court, a division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), has filed notice that it intends to appeal a June 13 federal bankruptcy court ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional.
The Obama administration and the DOJ had announced Feb. 23 that they viewed DOMA as unconstitutional and would no longer defend it. The U.S. House of Representatives retained former Solicitor General Paul Clement as its attorney to defend the 1996 law.
A legal expert sent this note to us, explaining a bit more what is happening:
The DOJ filing means that the case remains alive. If they had not appealed than DOMA would have been unconstitutional in bankruptcy cases in the area around Los Angeles and nowhere else. If the debtors succeed in getting a court to agree with them on appeal, the effect of that decision on DOMA would be much broader (i.e. in all states in the 9th Circuit).
It seems like there are two possibilities that would explain DOJ’s actions:
1. They learned their lesson from the criticism of their previous decisions and are allowing the case to stay alive so that Congress can intervene and defend DOMA.
2. They still want to throw the case and so are appealing but will not put up a fight in the hopes that a higher court will also rule DOMA unconstitutional.
This article mentions two things—defending DOMA in court and enforcing it. The DOJ and Administration position has been, we will not defend it but we will enforce it. So, some of the seemingly strange things they do like not putting same-sex spouses on employee insurance plans are just a reflection of that policy.
... which gives us all the more reason and motivation to be victorious in defeating the New York Senators who flipped on marriage:
Gov. Cuomo and gay rights advocates had the backs of the four senators - Sens. James Alesi of Rochester, Roy McDonald of Saratoga Springs, Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie and Mark Grisanti of Buffalo...
Gay marriage advocates said they expect money from same-sex groups to flow to the four not just as a thank you, but also as a message to Republicans nationally.
The four Republicans know their votes could cost them their political careers, but said they felt compelled to do what they now believe is the right thing. --NY Daily News
The New York Postsays State Sen. Carl Kruger will resign to cut a better deal as part of a guilty plea for corruption charges. Kruger (one of the Democrats who flipped to vote for gay marriage this year) says no:
It may be curtains for Carl Kruger.
The state senator told confidants he'll announce his resignation by the end of the summer, a prelude to a potential guilty plea in a wide-ranging pay-to-play corruption scandal, sources told The Post.
Sources said the embattled Brooklyn Democrat is expected to resign for two reasons: love and self-interest. Kruger wants to cut a better deal for himself and his live-in boyfriend -- who is also charged in the scheme.
"The importance of his decision is so that he can negotiate better for his boyfriend," said an Albany source.
"It's better to be able to negotiate the terms of your own surrender," the source added.
But Kruger, 61, said he is not going anywhere.
"I am absolutely not resigning, and I will continue to do what I've been doing for the last 18 years," he said yesterday.
Madhya Pradesh state government is investigating claims that up to 300 girls were surgically turned into boys in one city after their parents paid about £2,000 each for the operations.
Women's and children's rights campaigners denounced the practice as a "social madness" that made a "mockery of women in India".
India's gender balance has already been tilted in favour of boys by female foeticide – sex selection abortions - by families who fear the high marriage costs and dowries they may have to pay. There are now seven million more boys than girls aged under six in the country.
Campaigners said the use of surgery meant that girls were no longer safe even after birth.
The row emerged after newspapers disclosed children from throughout India were being operated on by doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. -- UK Telegraph
Pakistan is not happy about a U.S. embassy-sponsored gay rights meeting, calling it second only to a military drone strike as an attack on Pakistan.
We do not concur, but we worry about our embassy's priorities. Is this worth breaking an alliance or spurring more terrorism? Is Pakistan our business on this issue?
America less than 20 years ago decriminalized homosexuality. Can we not allow cultures to evolve?
A group of conservative Islamic political and religious officials has condemned a meeting by the U.S. Embassy supporting gay rights in Pakistan as “cultural terrorism” against the country.
The group, which included the head of Pakistan’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, claimed the meeting — the first of its kind held by the embassy — was the second most dangerous attack by the U.S. against Pakistan, following missiles fired from unmanned drones.
