The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, April 4

Jim Burroway

April 4th, 2012

TODAY’S AGENDA:
First Circuit Court of Appeals Hears Oral Arguments in DOMA Challenges: Boston, MA. Two cases will be argued today before a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The first case, Gill v. the Office of Personnel Management, was brought by several same-sex couples married in Massachusetts arguing that Section 3 of DOMA, which bars the Federal government from recognizing their marriage, violated their equal protection rights under the US Constitution. That case was combined with a second case, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, in which the state of Massachusetts sued the US government alleging that the state was placed in a position of either discriminating against a group of married residents on one hand or losing federal funding for programs in which the federal government dictates who is legally married on the other. On July 8, 2010, Federal District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in both cases that section three of DOMA was unconstitutional. The Justice department then filed appeals to those decisions, but that was before President Barack Obama determined in 2011 that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional and stopped defending the law in court. The House Republican leadership, with their 3-2 majority on the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), decided to take up DOMA’s defense instead.

Participating in today’s oral arguments will be BLAG’s attorney, Paul Clement, who will try to defend DOMA’s constitutionality on behalf of Congress. Also participating will be the Justice Department’s Civil Division’s acting chief Stuart Delery, who will support the Justice Department’s finding that DOMA is unconstitutional under heightened scrutiny. Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) Civil Rights Project Director Mary Bonauto will argue on behalf of the Gill v OPM plaintiffs, and Massachusetts Attorney General’s Civil Rights section head Maura Healy will represent the commonwealth in their case. Oral arguments get underway at 10:00 a.m. before a three judge panel consisting of Chief Judge Sandra Lynch (a Clinton appointee), Judge Michael Boudin (appointed by George H.W. Bush) and Judge Juan Torruella (appointed by Ronald Reagan).

Celebrations This Weekend: Spring Diversity, Eureka Springs, AK; Mr. Gay World, Johannesburg, South Africa; White Party, Palm Springs CA

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Anita Bryant Endorses Imprisoning Gays For 20 Years: 1978. Newspapers across the country got a bit of a tease from Playboy, which released a few tantalizing tidbits from an interview with anti-gay activist Anita Bryant that would appear in the May 1978 edition. In a small preview released to the wire services, Bryant was quoted as suggesting that sending gays to prison for 20 years “might make them think twice, especially the young ones. Any time you water down the law, it just makes it easier for morality to be tolerated.” She went on: “Why make it easier for them? I think it only helps to condone it and make it easier for kids who wouldn’t be so concerned if it was a misdemeanor, whereas a felony might make them think twice, especially the younger ones.” When asked whether prison life might not be conducive to homosexuality, she answered, “They’ll have plenty of time to think. Just because prisons are corrupt and not doing the right thing in rehabilitation because they don’t have enough emphasis on spiritual emphasis doesn’t mean there should not be a strong punishment for that.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Anthony Perkins: 1932. Best known for his role as the sexually-ambiguous Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho, Perkins’s own sexuality was the subject of rumors throughout his career. He shared a long-term relationship with fellow 1950s teen idol Tab Hunter (who discussed their time together in his 2005 memoir Tab Hunter Confidential) and another six-year relationship with dancer/choreographer Grover Dale before Perkins finally married Berry Berenson in 1973 in a bid to keep his name out of the scandal sheets. His gay friends though the marriage was bizarre, but Perkins seemed to have made the best of the situation, and by all accounts he was devoted to Berenson and their two children. But whether Perkins remained sexually faithful during the marriage, however, is doubtful. He died on September 12, 1992 from complications of AIDS with his wife by his side, two years after the National Enquirer outed him both as gay and as a person with AIDS. His public acknowledgment of his disease came posthumously in a statement dictated to his sons and released to the public. His private acknowledgement of his sexuality, he took with him to his grave. In a strange twist of fate, his widow died on September 11, 2001, on American Airlines flight 11 when it was hijacked and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Kevin

April 4th, 2012

I love these articles. I never really thought that Norman Bates could be thought of as being sexually ambiguous before. It seems pretty straight forward to me that he was a heterosexual and his feelings of lust towards women sparked off his “Mother’s” rage.

I always thought of Mother as being an expression of the Super Ego out of control.

I have to confess though, every time I watch Psycho I can’t get over how cute Tony Perkins was.

Gene in L.A.

April 4th, 2012

Norman Bates was not sexually ambiguous. As Kevin said, and as is said in the movie, it’s his lust for women that brings out the jealous “Mother”. He’s conflicted about sex, but his expression of it is purely heterosexual. Because of hindsight knowledge about Anthony Perkins, some people see that ambiguity in Norman; but he wasn’t written that way. In fact, Robert Bloch is more explicit about it in the book than what we see in Hitchcock’s movie.

jerry

April 4th, 2012

The President has sent too many mixed messages on civil rights for gays. His latest was his dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks comment about the court not overturning a law passed by a majority of democratically elected legislators. He doesn’t want them to overturn his health care law but he wants them to overturn sec.3 of DOMA which was also passed by a democratically elected congress, and by a far bigger margin than his health care bill was passed. Given Justice Kennedy’s votes on Citizens United and the recent strip search cases, I am very concerned about how he will vote when this case comes to the court.

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