LAWYER SAYS KIM DAVIS IS LIKE ABE LINCOLN

Matt Staver — a lawyer from theocratic law firm The Liberty Counsel — said on Sunday that his client, Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis, is like President Abraham Lincoln because of her stand against marriage equality for all Americans.

Staver made the remarks in an appearance on C-SPAN after which a caller said that Davis should do her job or step down.

“Well, she is doing her job quite well,” Staver said. “By the end of this year, she will have saved the taxpayers in Rowan County $1.5 million in her first year as the elected official since 2014, so that’s quite substantial, to be able to do that.”

“Secondly,” he went on, “if we told Abraham Lincoln, ‘Abraham Lincoln, you should just go along with the Dred Scott decision. After all, it is what the racist Chief Justice Taney wrote and it’s the law of the land.’ And yet, Lincoln advocated something different than that and unfortunately because of that Dred Scott decision we had to fight a Civil War. It was a terrible time in our history.”

In the U.S. Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, the court ruled that blacks could not be U.S. citizens, whether slaves or free. As such, they could not sue U.S. citizens in federal court in order to obtain their freedom.

The case is held by many to be an embarrassing error by the highest court in the land, with some historians calling it “unquestionably, our court’s worst decision ever.”

Staver and other Davis supporters assert that the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage on a national level in June is similarly misguided.



Dred Scott was overturned by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the ratification of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which says that any person born in the U.S. or its territories is automatically an American citizen.

“Talking about someone like Kim Davis,” Staver said Sunday, “she is just simply saying she wants to do her job, she does it well. Just give her a reasonable accommodation.”

Staver has made previous statements comparing Davis to Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Jews living in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

“This is the Rosa Parks on the bus. If they tell you to go to the back of the bus because your skin color doesn’t match what they want, don’t go to the back of the bus. This is the time for peaceful resistance, and this is the time to stand with people who are engaged in peaceful resistance,” said Staver in an interview on Christian radio.

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

HYPOCRITICAL OATHER KIM DAVIES RELEASED WITH CONDITIONS

U.S. District Judge David Bunning issued an order Tuesday afternoon releasing Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis from jail in Kentucky. She had been held in contempt for defying Bunning’s order requiring her to do her job of issuing marriage certificates.

During proceedings on Thursday, Davis was offered to avoid jail if she allowed her deputies to issue the marriage licenses. She refused, and on Friday they began issuing them. The release order requires that Davis “shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.” If she refuses — as she seemed to promise to do last week — she would again be held in contempt.

The lawyers for the deputies issuing licenses were also ordered to file a “Status Report” every 14 days to confirm their compliance with the order. They are forbidden from following Davis’ “no marriage licenses” policy should she try to enforce it again.

Davis is being released just as a rally in her support, featuring Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz and numerous anti-LGBT organizations, is set to commence outside the correctional facility where she’s been held since Thursday. The Republican presidential candidates had planned to visit her in jail, but she was released before they had the chance.

It should be noted that Davis' release from jail might not last very long. Her lawyers have indicated that she will, in fact, halt the issuing of marriage licenses in direct violation of the order.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

WING-NUT HUCKABEE IF ELECTED WOULD DEFY COURT AS WELL

Wing-Nut Mike Huckabee said on Sunday that U.S. citizens only have to follow court orders if judges get “it right,” and that he would follow his conscience as president even if it meant the type of jail time Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis is serving.

Speaking with host George Stephanopolous, the GOP presidential candidate claimed court orders only become binding upon citizens when state or federal legislatures take the ruling and codify it into law.

Huckabee — who has hitched his fading star of a campaign to the fortunes of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who is currently sitting in jail for contempt after refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples — explained that there is no specific law Davis should have been following.

“George, can you cite for me what statute Kim Davis would be required follow in order to issue a same-sex marriage license in Kentucky when her state specifically says, by 75 percent of the voters, that marriage means one man, one woman?” Huckabee asked. “Can you cite the statute at the federal or state level that she’s supposed to follow? Even the very form that she fills out specifically lists a male and a female. Does she have the authority just to scratch that out and create her own?”

“Doesn’t she have to the duty to obey a legal order from the court?” Stephanopolous pressed.

“Well, you obey it if it’s right. So I go back to my question. Is slavery the law of the land?” Huckabee attempted as way of an explanation. “Should it have been the law of the land because Dred Scott said so? Was that a correct decision? Should the courts have been irrevocably followed on that? Should Lincoln have been put in jail? Because he ignored it.”

Turning to presidents following their conscience, Stephanopolous played a clip of President John F. Kennedy in 1960 stating: “When if the time should ever come and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible, when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office.”



“Would you make that same statement in your candidacy for president?” the host asked Huckabee.

“I can’t see any circumstance in which I would be required to violate my conscience and — and the law,” Huckabee conceded before adding, “And if so, I think maybe there is a point at which you say either I’ll resign or put me in jail.”

NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

RBG BLISTERS THOSE AGAINST MARRIAGE EQUALITY

During Tuesday’s marriage equality arguments in the Supreme Court, several of the Court’s conservative members suggested that same-sex couples should not be given equal marriage rights because these couples have not enjoyed those rights for most of the past. As Justice Antonin Scalia summed up this argument, “for millennia, not a single society” supported marriage equality, and that somehow exempted same-sex couples from the Constitution’s promise of equal protection of the law.

Not long after her conservative colleagues raised this argument, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained exactly why marriage was long understood to be incompatible with homosexuality in just five sentences:

[Same-sex couples] wouldn't be asking for this relief if the law of marriage was what it was a millennium ago. I mean, it wasn't possible. Same-sex unions would not have opted into the pattern of marriage, which was a relationship, a dominant and a subordinate relationship. Yes, it was marriage between a man and a woman, but the man decided where the couple would be domiciled; it was her obligation to follow him. 

There was a change in the institution of marriage to make it egalitarian when it wasn’t egalitarian. And same-sex unions wouldn't — wouldn't fit into what marriage was once.

Justice Ginsburg’s point was that, until surprisingly recently, the legal institution of marriage was defined in terms of gender roles. According to Sir William Blackstone, an eighteenth century English jurist whose works are still frequently cited today to explain the common law principles we inherited from our former colonial rulers, “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.” As late as 1887, fully one third of the states did not permit women to control their earnings. And married women could not even withhold consent to sex with their husband until shockingly recently.

Under the common law, “by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given herself up in this kind unto her husband,” and this consent was something “she cannot retract.” The first successful prosecution in the United States of a husband who raped his wife did not occur until the late 1970s.

So American marriage law, and the English law that it was derived from, presumed that the wife was both financially and sexual subservient to the husband. In a world where marriage is defined as a union between a dominant man and a submissive woman, each fulfilling unique gender roles, the case for marriage discrimination is clear. How can both the dominant male role and the submissive female role be carried out in a marital union if the union does not include one man and one woman? This, according to Justice Ginsburg, is why marriage was understood to exclude same-sex couples for so many centuries.

But marriage is no longer bound to antiquated gender roles. And when those gender roles are removed, the case for marriage discrimination breaks down.

Generally speaking, any argument based on "we've always done it this way" seldom works. If "we've always done it this way" – it was some sort of rule we had to follow - we'd still have slavery, women would still not be permitted to vote, businesses could still post "No Irish Need Apply" signs - and yet there would still be separate drinking fountains for different races of people. In fact, it would be difficult to get any new laws passed at all.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

SCOTUS Punts Appeals From Five States, Clearing Way For Same-Sex Marriage

KU KLUX KOURT PUNTS ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE RULING

BREAKING:

This rejection lets three federal appeals decisions take effect, legalizing same-sex marriage in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected calls for a nationwide ruling on same-sex marriage, a rebuff that lets gays marry in as many as 11 new states and leaves legal uncertainty elsewhere.

The denial today of seven pending appeals defied predictions. Advocates on both sides had urged the justices to resolve the issue following a wave of lower court rulings that the Constitution guarantees same-sex marriage rights.

The rejection lets three federal appeals decisions take effect, legalizing same-sex marriage in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana. Six other states -- Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina -- will likely follow because they fall under the jurisdiction of those appellate courts.

Those additions will bring the number of gay-marriage states to 30, plus the District of Columbia.

As a practical matter, however, this decision, to not to hear these cases is an earthquake for gay rights. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, refused to issue a stay halting its order favoring marriage equality. Although the Supreme Court later stepped in with its own stay order, that order provides that the Supreme Court’s stay will “terminate automatically” if the Supreme Court denies review of the case. Now that the justices have done so, there should be no further legal barriers preventing marriages from beginning in those five states — although it is possible that there may be some delay before marriages may begin due to procedural steps that need to be taken by the judiciary.

One thing that should be noted is that there are still marriage equality cases pending before conservative circuits that could rule against equality. Nevertheless, the fact that marriages are likely to begin very shortly in the states currently subject to court orders will make it very difficult for the Supreme Court to reverse course — and retroactively invalidate those marriages — in a subsequent opinion.

RELATED: Virginia same sex marriages to begin later today

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Texas Ban On Same-Sex Marriage Is Unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled that Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. According to Judge Orlando Garcia, a Clinton appointee, the state’s marriage laws deny same-sex couples the right to marry, and therefore “demean their dignity for no legitimate reason.” Garcia stayed his decision pending appeal, so same-sex couples cannot begin marrying yet.

The case was brought by two couples: Victor Holmes and Mark Phariss, who want to marry in Texas, and Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman, who want their Massachusetts marriage recognized. Dimetman and De Leon are raising a child together. The ruling would prevent the state from enforcing its 2003 law and 2005 constitutional amendment that limited marriage to opposite-sex couples. Voters passed that amendment by a 3-to-1 margin, but a plurality of Texans now support marriage equality.

According to the ruling, not only are these families denied benefits under the law, they are also subjected to “state sanctioned discrimination, stigma, and humiliation,” explaining: “In this case, it is clear that Plaintiffs suffer humiliation and discriminatory treatment under the law on the basis of their sexual orientation, and this stigmatic harm flows directly from Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage.” Garcia cited Windsor, the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, noting that not recognizing same-sex marriages “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects.”

Garcia also dismissed the state’s arguments that banning same-sex marriage was somehow worthwhile to protect children or promote procreation. Echoing the similar ruling in Utah, he ruled that the ban only hurts the children of same-sex couples while doing nothing to affect whether heterosexual couples marry or how they raise their children.

Preempting responses from conservatives accusing him of judicial activism or overturning the will of the people, Garcia concluded by pointing out that he is simply enforcing the U.S. Constitution:

Today’s Court decision is not made in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the United States Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution. Furthermore, Supreme Court precedent prohibits states from passing legislation born out of animosity against homosexuals (Romer), has extended constitutional protection to the moral and sexual choices of homosexuals (Lawrence), and prohibits the federal government from treating state-sanctioned opposite-sex marriages and same-sex marriages differently (Windsor).

Garcia is the seventh federal judge to rule against a federal ban on same-sex marriage since the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act last summer, following rulings in Illinois, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah.

The dominoes are starting to fall.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

VIRGINIA MOVES INTO 21ST CENTURY.......MAYBE

Ruling by U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen sets the stage for a possible Supreme Court showdown, though cases from Utah and Oklahoma also are headed that way.

So at least theoretically, Virginia is for lovers - and marriage:

A federal judge in Virginia has struck down the state's prohibition on same-sex marriage, joining a growing list of state and federal courts that have granted gay and lesbian couples the right to marry following two landmark Supreme Court rulings in June.

U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen's ruling had been expected since the case was heard in her Norfolk courtroom last week. Also as expected, she blocked it from taking immediate effect until appeals are heard. As a result, gay marriages in Virginia cannot begin yet.

"Gay and lesbian individuals share the same capacity as heterosexual individuals to form, preserve and celebrate loving, intimate and lasting relationships," Wright Allen said. "Such relationships are created through the exercise of sacred, personal choices — choices, like the choices made by every other citizen, that must be free from unwarranted government interference."

Her decision follows similar rulings in Oklahoma and Utah, even more conservative states, where federal judges recently struck down gay marriage bans. Those cases are scheduled to be heard a week apart by a federal appeals court panel in April; the Virginia case now joins them in a race toward the Supreme Court.

And in recent days, Nevada state officials decided they could no longer defend the state's same-sex marriage ban, and a judge in Kentucky ruled that the state must recognize gay marriages from other states.





NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

UTAH JUDGE GETS IT RIGHT

MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Who'd a thunk it?


United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision striking down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, was not the clearest opinion the justices have ever produced. Although that opinion was firmly rooted in the Constitution’s guarantee of equality for all Americans, it contained just enough states’ rights language to give anti-gay lawmakers in the states some hopes that marriage discrimination could remain alive in conservative enclaves throughout the country. If a Utah federal judge’s opinion that was released Friday is upheld on appeal, however, there will no longer be any doubt that marriage equality belongs to all Americans.

“The Constitution protects the Plaintiffs’ fundamental rights, which include the right to marry and the right to have that marriage recognized by their government,” Judge Robert Shelby concludes in his opinion striking down Utah’s ban on marriage equality — and this right applies to everyone. The same Constitution, Shelby explains “protects the choice of one’s partner for all citizens, regardless of sexual identity.”

Although Shelby largely relies on the argument that marriage is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, he also made sharp nods towards the promise of equality. “Rather than protecting or supporting the families of opposite-sex couples,” he explains, Utah’s “Amendment 3 perpetuates inequality by holding that the families and relationships of same-sex couples are not now, nor ever will be, worthy of recognition.”

Rather than protecting or supporting the families of opposite-sex couples, Amendment 3 perpetuates inequality by holding that the families and relationships of same-sex couples are not now, nor ever will be, worthy of recognition. Amendment 3 does not thereby elevate the status of opposite-sex marriage; it merely demeans the dignity of same-sex couples. And while the State cites an interest in protecting traditional marriage, it protects that interest by denying one of the most traditional aspects of marriage to thousands of its citizens: the right to form a family that is strengthened by a partnership based on love, intimacy, and shared responsibilities. The Plaintiffs’ desire to publicly declare their vows of commitment and support to each other is a testament to the strength of marriage in society, not a sign that, by opening its doors to all individuals, it is in danger of collapse.

Beyond Judge Shelby’s conclusion that marriage is a question of constitutional rights, not one of states’ rights — as he explains, “the Fourteenth Amendment requires that individual rights take precedence over states’ rights where these two interests are in conflict” — Shelby’s opinion appears designed to tear down whatever intellectual infrastructure remains supporting marriage discrimination.

The leading argument advanced by supporters of discrimination in same-sex marriage cases is that marriage is necessarily tied to procreation, so same-sex couples can be excluded because they cannot produce biological offspring. Yet, as Shelby points out, the ability to procreate is not “a defining characteristic of conjugal relationships from a legal and constitutional point of view.

” Such an argument does not simply “demean the dignity” of same-sex couples, it also degenerates “the many opposite-sex couples who are unable to reproduce or who choose not to have children.” Indeed, under Utah’s argument for maintaining marriage discrimination, “a post-menopausal woman or infertile man does not have a fundamental right to marry because she or he does not have the capacity to procreate.”

Additionally, opponents of marriage equality who cheered Justice Antonin Scalia’s sharply worded dissent in Lawrence v. Texas — another landmark gay rights opinion — may come to regret Scalia’s words after reading Judge Shelby’s opinion. Scalia wrote in Lawrence that “today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned.” Shelby’s opinion proclaims that Scalia was right.

It should be noted, however, that Shelby’s opinion is significantly less sweeping that Thursday’s marriage equality decision by the New Mexico Supreme Court. The New Mexico court unanimously held that “because same-gender couples (whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, hereinafter ‘LGBT’) are a discrete group which has been subjected to a history of discrimination and violence, and which has inadequate political power to protect itself from such treatment, the classification at issue must withstand intermediate scrutiny to be constitutional.” Thus, under the New Mexico decision, any anti-LGBT law will be subject to heightened constitutional scrutiny — and the New Mexico court explicitly included transgender individuals within the scope of its holding. Shelby’s opinion, by contrast, is largely focused on the right to marry.

Nevertheless, Shelby’s opinion is broad enough to extend the blessings of full marriage equality to all same-sex couples if it is upheld by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, it will need to be reviewed by the conservative-leaning United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. So it will probably be quite a while before this case reaches the nation’s highest Court.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

RANDY FORBES: NO BRAINS, NO HEART, NO COURAGE

Rep. Randy Forbes (Virginia Talibangelical) is apparently urging the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) not to support any gay candidates — specifically because they’re gay. This would impact the races of Richard Tisei, who is once again running for Congress in Massachusetts after having narrowly lost in 2012, and Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego City Councilman running in California.

The NRCC helped fund Tisei’s 2012 campaign and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) even traveled to Boston to help him fundraise. Many senior House Republicans have given to both Tisei and DeMaio in their current campaigns, but their support of gay candidates seems not have fazed Forbes’ abstinence on the matter:

Last Wednesday, Forbes told POLITICO he thinks “GOP leaders can do whatever they want to do,” in terms of giving money to gay candidates. 

He said he is more concerned about members being asked to contribute to the campaigns. The NRCC is partially funded by collecting tens of millions of dollars from House Republicans, who pay dues to the organization.

When asked if he would withhold political contributions to the NRCC if they backed DeMaio, Forbes said, “I’m not going to be hypothetical on what we would or wouldn’t do at this particular point in time because you’ve got a lot of scenarios. I don’t think we’ve had primaries and nominations to nominate people. So I don’t want to prejudge.”

Because the NRCC does not involve itself in primary elections, this would only happen should DeMaio win the nomination. NRCC Chairman Greg Walden told Politico that the committee will not make decisions based on race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Forbes has received a score of 0 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard, having not supported a single LGBT equality measure. He is vying to be the next chair of the House Armed Services Committee, but in 2012, he attacked the Pentagon for allowing military service members to wear their uniforms when marching in San Diego’s pride parade, calling the decision “an outrageous and blatantly political determination issued solely to advance this Administration’s social agenda.” On that committee, he has also supported efforts to enshrine anti-gay discrimination within the military. His website still boasts his opposition to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” expressing his concern that the repeal might imply “official military support for the normalization of homosexual behavior.” In October, Forbes was supposed to be the featured speaker at a luncheon hosted by the American Family Association, an anti-gay hate group, at the Values Voter Summit, but for unknown reasons, he didn’t show.





Forbes is one of the co-sponsors of the so-called “Marriage and Religious Freedom Act,” which would provide a license to discriminate against same-sex couples for all businesses with a religious affiliation. Unsurprisingly, he has previously refused to implement nondiscrimination protections for gay employees in his own Congressional office. He also supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage throughout the entire country. In 2007, he opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act on the House floor, arguing that protecting gay people from being fired for their identities could somehow “destroy the institution of marriage.”

So much for the "GOP Autopsy". Forbes is just another bloviated outdated blowhard, with a hate for everything not past white.

If Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz found herself surrounded by men with no heart, no brains and no courage, she would be with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Randy Forbes you are NFTOS' asshat of the week, congratulations!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

GOP GOING MORE ANTI-GAY

Rachel Maddow explains how marriage equality is spreading in America, and how the American Taliban goes full bore anti-gay.

VIDEO COURTESY OF MSNBC








NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

MADDOW SCHOOLS THE TALIBANGELICALS

Ultra social conservatives came out in full force on NBC’s Meet The Press on the Sunday after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) of the Heritage Foundation and Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) both claimed the court’s decision to recognize same-sex marriages sacrificed children’s wellbeing — only to have their arguments promptly slapped down by MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and David Gregory.

DeMint said the court had privileged “the desires of adults” over “the best environment for children,” arguing that heterosexual marriage is “the environment where children can thrive and succeed.” Maddow immediately pointed out that this argument ignores the Meechildren of same-sex couples, who have up till now been treated as second-class citizens under the law:

Justice Kennedy addressed that issue specifically in his ruling. He says that by denying marriage rights to same-sex couples who have kids, you’re humiliating and demeaning those kids. By denying their families equal protection under the law by the parents who are raising them and who love them and who make their family. So we can put it in the interests of children, but I think that cuts both ways. And the ruling cuts against that argument. I mean, gay people exist. There’s nothing we can do in public policy can do to make more of us exist or less of us exist. And you guys for a generation have argued that public policy ought to demean gay people as a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist. But you don’t make any less of us exist, you are just arguing for more discrimination. And more discrimination doesn’t make straight people’s lives any better.

Maddow slams DeMint



Later in the program, Huelskamp tried to justify his introduction of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage by touting debunked research that supposedly shows heterosexual parents are better for kids. Gregory challenged the congressman, insisting that he admit the research is bogus:


David Gregory debunks Huelskamp




Huelskamp ducked the debunk and again claimed that “the court decided the desires of adults should trump the needs of children.” Nevertheless, Gregory is correct that the research cited by marriage equality opponents actually has nothing to do with same-sex couples. In fact, the largest study of families with same-sex parents recently concluded these children are not only thriving, but even beat the national average for overall health and family cohesion.

That is the point that is so frequently lost in all this. All of us are citizens and are entitled to equal rights under the law. We used to set aside the group called "women" and say that they are "less-than" and could not vote. We used to set aside a group called blacks and say they could not marry outside their own race; we used to set aside a group called blacks again and say that they could not vote in spite of the fact that it was their right under our Constitution. We used to set aside a group called "gays" and say that because our own particular religion did not like them, we could refuse to let them marry. We have grown up, matured, evolved and we realize that we were wrong.

For some people, admitting that they were wrong is like tearing out their heart and they just can't do it. They go to the Old Testament, ignoring most of it, but forget the New Testament. Jesus said, "There is neither Greek nor Jew, male or female, gentile or Christian" (paraphrased here) and that we are all equal in his sight.

Talibangelicals believe in Jesus, but not what he stood for, nor for how he defied authority because it was right. They don't understand that Jesus was liberal in his practices and he broke all the old, wrong rules.

It is not the purview of the government (state or federal) to offer benefits to some citizens and not others - end of story. It doesn't matter about children, or what some think is God's will, or what anyone thinks pro or con about same-sex marriage - It does not matter, period. If there is a government benefit offered, which marriage as presently treated by government surely is, the benefit must be offered to all.

Talibangelicals want us to believe that they have a direct line to God. My thought, the more convinced you are that you know what God wants, the less you should be taken seriously.



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Beginning this morning, the Supreme Court will hear two cases that could recognize the right of everyone, straight or gay, to marry the person they love. The first concerns California’s anti-gay Proposition 8, and could potentially extend the right to marry to same-sex couples in all fifty states. The second challenges the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and could end the federal government’s practice of denying equal benefits to couples who are legally married under state law. Here is everything you need to know to understand these cases:

How The Court Could Rule

– A Broad Decision: The best, and most obvious, decision would be for the justices to follow the Constitution and the clear command of precedent and extend marriage equality to all fifty states. It is fairly likely, however, that at least one member of the majority will be too cautious to require Alabama to follow the Constitution, even if they are prepared to order California to do so. If the justices punt on the Alabama question, the important question is whether they hold that anti-gay laws are subject to “heightened scrutiny,” a skeptical kind of constitutional analysis that will make it very difficult for anti-gay discrimination to withstand court review in the future.

— A One-Off: The Ninth Circuit proposed a way to strike down Prop 8 while leaving most other states free to engage in marriage discrimination (the court said that voters were not permitted to withdraw the right to marry once it had been established by the state Supreme Court). The logic of the ruling was thus confined to California. Similarly, two of the Court’s most important gay rights opinions relied on very narrow reasoning that advanced equality only incrementally. It is possible the justices will repeat this performance.

– Jurisdictional Dodges: In both cases, the Court could potentially rule that it lacks jurisdiction to hear the case, a decision that would cast a cloud of uncertainty over the rights of gay couples.

– A Stealth Attack: Several prominent conservatives are pushing a dangerous legal theory that would strike down DOMA on states’ rights grounds, and potentially endanger Social Security, veterans benefits and progressive taxation in the process.

– A Loss: Ultimately, however, it is important to remember that this is a severely conservative Court, and even so-called swing vote Justice Kennedy is a severely conservative justice. Equality could lose.


What To Expect From The Justices

– The Democratic Appointees: It would be very surprising if any of the Court’s four Democrats vote to uphold discrimination. While some commentators have noted Justice Ginsburg’s critical statements about Roe v. Wade — “It’s not that the judgment was wrong, but it moved too far, too fast” — this statement suggests Ginsburg might take an incremental approach, not that she will vote to uphold discrimination. Chance of pro-equality vote: more than 90 percent.

– Justice Kennedy: Kennedy is the author of two narrowly reasoned, but very important cases upholding gay rights. His record on gay rights is not perfect, however. Kennedy cast the key vote holding that the Boy Scouts have a constitutional right to engage in anti-gay discrimination, and he’s behaved less and less like a moderate swing vote and more and more like a hardline conservative in recent years. His vote for equality is likely, but not certain, and is more likely than not to rest on very narrow reasoning. Chance of pro-equality vote: 60-70 percent.

– Justice Thomas: Thomas is the Court’s most conservative member, but he once called Texas’ “sodomy” ban an “uncommonly silly” law, and he cares a great deal shrinking federal power until it is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. Indeed, Thomas believes federal child labor laws and the nationwide ban on whites-only lunch counters are unconstitutional on states’ rights grounds. For this reason, it is possible he will be attracted to the claim thatDOMA violates states’ rights. There’s no chance he’ll vote to strike Prop 8, however. Chance of pro-equality vote: 20 percent on DOMA, 0 percent on Prop 8.

– Chief Justice Roberts: Roberts has a lesbian cousin who will attend the marriage arguments as his personal guest, and he once did pro bono work on behalf of gay rights activists when he was an attorney in private practice. Nevertheless, Roberts remains very conservative and has a long record of criticizing decisions that read the Constitution’s promise of equality broadly. If Roberts does vote with a pro-equality majority, it is just as likely that he will do so in order to wrest control of the opinion and narrow it as he would to extend the blessings of liberty to gay Americans. Chance of pro-equality vote: 10 percent.

– Justice Alito: Alito is probably the toughest conservative questioner on the Court, and he has emerged as a strong advocate for whatever outcome conservatives prefer. Chance of pro-equality vote: less than one percent.

– Justice Scalia: In past opinions, Scalia compared homosexuality to murder, drug addiction, bestiality, incest and child pornography. Chance of pro-equality vote: 0 percent. Chance his opinion will accuse pro-equality justices of kowtowing to the “homosexual agenda”: 99.99 percent.


Surging Support For Marriage Equality

– Marriage Equality Has Strong Bipartisan Support: Retired Judge Vaughn Walker, the first judge to strike down Prop 8, is a Republican appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush. Three of the court of appeals judges that voted to declare DOMA unconstitutional are Republicans. 131 top Republicans, including six former Republican governors, filed a brief supporting marriage equality.

– The American People Support Marriage Equality: Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. Among adults under 30, support is at 81 percent.

The Constitution guarantees “the equal protection of the laws” — and that includes same-sex couples. As the Supreme Court has explained, this guarantee is most robust when applied to groups that experienced a “‘history of purposeful unequal treatment‘ or been subjected to unique disabilities on the basis of stereotyped characteristics not truly indicative of their abilities.” LGBT Americans undoubtedly fit this description, and thus neither DOMA nor Prop 8 can stand.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER