Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 17th, 2010
Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for [gay-free] Marriage has posted her expectations based on the closing statement in Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
Chuck Cooper is a heckuva lawyer. At stake in this case is the future of marriage in all 50 states, and he’s right that this attempt to shut down the debate by constitutionalizing gay marriage will backfire. Americans have a right to vote for marriage. Ted Olson doesn’t seem to understand the argument, and judging from today’s exchanges neither does Judge Walker. I expect Judge Walker will overrule Prop 8. But millions of Americans do understand why marriage is the union of husband and wife and I believe the majority of the Supreme Court will as well.
I both agree and disagree.
Yes, Chuck Cooper is a heckova lawyer. In exactly the same way that Brownie did a heckova a job cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina. And I agree that after Cooper’s self-contradictory, confusing, and irrational argument in support of Proposition 8, no one understood his argument.
And while Maggie’s beliefs about what the Supreme Court will do have no greater validity than her beliefs about the definition of marriage (I have no presumption how they will decide), I do agree with her that it is likely that Judge Walker will find Proposition 8 to be in violation of the US Constitution.
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beachewtoy75
June 17th, 2010
Is anyone surprised really? It’s not like they ever admit defeat or even a bad job done. If Prop 8 is found to be unconstitutional, how long do we give it before Walker is called “an activist judge?”
It really comes down to the fact that they had little evidence. I’ll be very surprised if we don’t win.
Chris McCoy
June 17th, 2010
Activist Judge (n)
1) A judge who ruled against my position on any specific subject.
John in the Bay Area
June 17th, 2010
Since Chuck Cooper is such a heckuva lawyer, I wonder if he will represent the pro-Prop 8 crowd during the appeal of whatever ruling Judge Walker makes. That decision will answer the question of just how pleased Maggie and her Mormon sponsors are with Cooper’s performance.
Lindoro Almaviva
June 17th, 2010
Just like I said earlier (when the trial began). They know they are going to lose and expect to and hope they do. Then we will hear the following:
We lost because the judge was gay and he could not separate his sexual preference from the arguments. We even asked him to reccuse and he refused, so we knew we were going to lose all along, so we gave up the battle. See? We are so beaten by this, why don’t you give us some money so we can take this to the Supreme court where there is a majority of republican judges and they will favor us.
Of course, if the judge has been a heterosexual the excuse would have been:
We lost because the judge was a socialist activist and he could not separate his activism from the arguments. We even asked him to reccuse and let a republican judge preside but he refused, so we knew we were going to lose all along, so we gave up the battle. See? We are so beaten by this, why don’t you give us some money so we can take this to the Supreme court where there is a majority of republican judges and they will favor us.
And if the judge was a republican the excuse would have been:
We lost because the judge was from CA and in CA there are no real conservatives, they are all conservatives in name only so he couls not separate his underlining liberal leanings from the arguments. We even asked him to reccuse and he refused, so we knew we were going to lose all along, so we gave up the battle. See? We are so beaten by this, why don’t you give us some money so we can take this to the Supreme court where there is a majority of republican judges and they will favor us.
They have been preparing this argument for a long time. One way or another they are going to spin this so they look like the victims of some evil empire who is out to get them.
Problem is that there are people stupid enough on this country to believe their crap.
David C.
June 17th, 2010
Maggie is is a victim of the dual demons: the fear of failure and the need to achieve. She needs to predict failure so she can be right: “See, I told you the evil homosexuals and activist judges are out to get me.”
Please Mrs. Srivastav, just go away. Far away. Haven’t you got a marriage to attend to? And a child to care for? Time to retreat from public life and just melt back into a private life away from the cameras, web-pages and halls of justice. You will be so much happier that way and can spend more quality time with your traditional family in your traditional marriage with all its sanctity (hopefully) still intact. Cutting down on your addiction to lies and distortion will also help your state of mind and general well-being.
Dave
June 17th, 2010
Over at http://www.prop8case.com, Maggie also posted this tasty little nugget of chutzpah:
Cooper fighting hard to protect 18,000 gay marriages
Postted by Maggie on Wednesday June 1th at 1:47 pm.
Cooper: Long discussion of 18,000 marriages. Cooper fighting hard to protect 18,000 marriages and Prop 8. “We think that grandfathering of those marriages is perfectly rational and
common and perfectly constitutional.” Judge seems to suggest it is all or nothing.
* * * *
How sly of her not to mention that it was what the Prop 8 folks put in their answer to the “remedy” question from Judge Walker, that, oh yes, while you’re at it, they would also like to see 18,000 marriages annulled.
Jack
June 18th, 2010
My prediction for SCOTUS is a wishy-washy split:
Article One of DOMA (states don’t have to recognize the marriages of other states) is constitutional.
Article Two (the federal government doesn’t have to recognize same-sex marriages/unions) is unconstitutional on equal protection grounds (duh).
I make no prediction how they (read Kennedy) will rule on constitutionality of Prop 8. I bet it comes down to whether they find animus to have been the driving force behind it, as in Romer vs Evans.
I don’t foresee a sweeping decision legalizing same-sex marriage from sea to shining sea. No way they will do this unless, perhaps, one of the conservatives is replaced by the time the case is heard.
Eddie89
June 18th, 2010
When this case does go to the US Supreme court, I think that the H8ers will bring out their big gun Ken Starr.
And depending on the timing of this case, it could become an issue for the 2012 Presidential elections and the “Federal Marriage Amendment” will probably rear it’s ugly head again.
I don’t believe for 1 nano second that the Republicans won’t use this case as anti-gay fodder to bring out their extreme right wing religious base to the polls.
Sal Ignab
June 18th, 2010
The objective of Maggie’s klan is not to stop marriage or to even win this case. It is to scare as many people as possible into giving them money.
Their response, by the way, won’t be a Supreme Court bid. It will be a Federal Constitutional Amendment. Lots of money to get the right people elected, and Maggie gets a percentage of it all.
Timothy Kincaid
June 18th, 2010
Dave,
I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that Maggie was just, well, ‘speaking words that don’t exactly align with reality’. The transcript suggests something quite else.
At times it seems that Maggie suffers from Honesty Deficit Disorder.
Candace
June 18th, 2010
Sal said: “The objective of Maggie’s klan is not to stop marriage or to even win this case. It is to scare as many people as possible into giving them money.”
BINGO!
If anyone cares to study the rise of the religious right back from the days of Billy James Hargis and early Jerry Falwell, you’ll find out that it’s all about marketing. What will scare our donor base the most? Communism? Abortion? Homosexuals? Go for the money maker. The religious right has always preyed on the socially ignorant, deluging them with constant extremist, Armageddon-like scenarios of “what might happen” if they don’t send $10 NOW to fight the .
If you notice, the Tea Party has broken with the religious right and (for the most part) doesn’t care doodly squat about gay marriage or religious issues– they’re more concerned with the direction they perceive the economy is going in. This has redoubled the efforts of Maggie’s ilk to target, scare, and fleece thier donor base. There are only so many dollars to go around in today’s economy, and the scarcer the donatons get, the more desperate and devious Maggie/Barber/Labarbera, et al., will become.
Katie Murphy-ex Cath
July 3rd, 2010
There is nothing you can do with some hatefilled catholics, terrified by their church into believing that if they don’t kiss the popes verbal diarrhea, they will end up in hell.
Which is exactly where they belong, and that includes Maggie. And her Pope.
At least she’ll have like minded company.
BTW, Catholic church – still hasn’t EXCOMMUNICATED their boy Hitler.
But last year RATZI UNexcommunicated a holocaust denier, a bishop williamson. At least Argentina threw him out of the country. And is already 2/3 rds of the way to legalizing gay mmarriage. As did Portugal a month ago
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