Box Turtle Bulletin

Those darn activist (Republican appointed) judges

Whenever we win any court battle we are regularly treated to massive doses of whining about activist judges. And during election season, some of the less ethical Republican candidates rant on and on about how you must vote Republican because Democrats appoint “judges who legislate from the bench” (by which they mean “judges who treat gay people as equal citizens”).

So I find it amusing that in our battle for recognition of our equal marriage rights – surely the issue most concerning the opponents of “judicial activism” – by far the judges who have found in our favor have either been appointed by Republicans or are in the party themselves. And the latest victory is no exception.

The three federal judges who unanimously agreed with Judge Joseph Tauro (a Nixon appointee) are:

* Judge Michael Boudin (author) – appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1990 to the the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and elevated to the First Circuit in 1992.

* Chief Judge Sandra Lynch – appointed by Bill Clinton to the First Circuit in 1995.

* Judge Juan Torruella – appointed by Ford to the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico in 1974. Elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit by Ronald Reagan in 1984

Somehow I don’t think we’ll be hearing “Damn that Ronald Reagan for appointing that judicial activist! That’s the problem with America, Republicans keep appointing judges who legislate from the bench!”

But I’m just guessing.

Federal Appeals Court Rules DOMA Unconstitutional

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the section that bars federal recognition of legal marriages granted by the states, is unconstitutional. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously to upholds Federal District Judge Joseph Tauro’s 2010 decision.

The decision is in response to two separate cases which were combined by the lower court. The first case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, was brought on behalf of several same-sex married couples who are denied specific benefits which are routinely granted to opposite-sex married couples. The second case, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v US Dept. of Health and Human Services, was brought by the state of Massachusetts which argued that because of DOMA, the state was caught in a bind between discriminating against legally married same-sex couples or forfeiting federal funding for programs and benefits that married couples are otherwise entitled to. The appeals court heard oral arguments for the two cases in April.

Judge Michael Boudin, a President George H.W. Bush appointee, wrote for the court:

This case is difficult because it couples issues of equal protection and federalism with the need to assess the rationale for a congressional statute passed with minimal hearings and lacking in formal findings. In addition, Supreme Court precedent offers some help to each side, but the rationale in several cases is open to interpretation. We have done our best to discern the direction of these precedents, but only the Supreme Court can finally decide this unique case.

Although our decision discusses equal protection and federalism concerns separately, it concludes that governing precedents under both heads combine–not to create some new category of “heightened scrutiny” for DOMA under a prescribed algorithm, but rather to require a closer than usual review based in part on discrepant impact among married couples and in part on the importance of state interests in regulating marriage. Our decision then tests the rationales offered for DOMA, taking account of Supreme Court precedent limiting which rationales can be counted and of the force of certain rationales.

The court found that the plaintiff’s (Gill, Commonwealth) equal protection claims cannot stand up to rational basis. The Justice Department urged elevating the considerations of the case to a suspect class, but the Appeals court made clear that they were unwilling to establish that precedent in this case. They also found that doing so was unnecessary:

Without relying on suspect classifications, Supreme Court equal protection decisions have both intensified scrutiny of purported justifications where minorities are subject to discrepant treatment and have limited the permissible justifications. And (as we later explain), in areas where state regulation has traditionally governed, the Court may require that the federal government interest in intervention be shown with special clarity.

In a set of equal protection decisions, the Supreme Court has now several times struck down state or local enactments without invoking any suspect classification. In each, the protesting group was historically disadvantaged or unpopular, and the statutory justification seemed thin, unsupported or impermissible. It is these decisions–not classic rational basis review–that the Gill plaintiffs and the Justice Department most usefully invoke in their briefs (while seeking to absorb them into different and more rigid categorical rubrics).

In a move that is reminiscent of the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling that Prop 8 was unconstitutional, The First Circuit was also careful not to consider claims that they felt were unnecessary, and thus narrowed the basis of the ruling. But in a departure from the Ninth Circuit Court, the first Circuit said that while they found DOMA unconstitutional, they did not rest any part of their ruling on claims of hostility to homosexuality:

In reaching our judgment, we do not rely upon the charge that DOMA’s hidden but dominant purpose was hostility to homosexuality. The many legislators who supported DOMA acted from a variety of motives, one central and expressed aim being to preserve the heritage of marriage as traditionally defined over centuries of Western civilization. …The opponents of section 3 point to selected comments from a few individual legislators; but the motives of a small group cannot taint a statute supported by large majorities in both Houses and signed by President Clinton. Traditions are the glue that holds society together, and many of our own traditions rest largely on belief and familiarity–not on benefits firmly provable in court. The desire to retain them is strong and can be honestly held.

For 150 years, this desire to maintain tradition would alone have been justification enough for almost any statute. This judicial deference has a distinguished lineage, including such figures as Justice Holmes, the second Justice Harlan, and Judges Learned Hand and Henry Friendly. But Supreme Court decisions in the last fifty years call for closer scrutiny of government action touching upon minority group interests and of federal action in areas of traditional state concern.

To conclude, many Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress’ denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest.

As is customary, the First Circuit panel stayed its ruling in anticipation of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Cardinal Dolan Authorized Payments to Pedophile Priests

The New York Times reports that New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan authorized as much as $20,000 to pedophile priests in his previous post as Archbishop of Milwaukee. Reports of those payments first surfaced while he was still in Milwaukee, but he denied the allegations, calling them “false, preposterous and unjust.” But now that documentation of those payments have come to light in the wake of the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings, Dolan is changing his tune:

A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. The process, known as “laicization,” is a formal church juridical procedure that requires Vatican approval, and can take far longer if the priest objects.

“It was a way to provide an incentive to go the voluntary route and make it happen quickly, and ultimately cost less,” said Jerry Topczewski, the spokesman for the archdiocese. “Their cooperation made the process a lot more expeditious.”

…A victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter of protest to the current archbishop of Milwaukee on Wednesday asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

Since moving to his new post in New York, Dolan has become a national crusader against marriage equality because we’re a danger to families.

Is There An “America’s Ugliest Town” Contest I Don’t Know About?

It seems that everyone is looking for their Big Viral Internet Meme in the sun. The problem is, some of those viruses are deadly. A pastor in Newton, North Carolina wants to round up gay people and put them in concentration camps; his flock stands behind him. Another pastor, Curtis Knapp of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas, says that gays should be killed:

They should be put to death. That’s what happened in Israel. That’s why homosexuality wouldn’t have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversions. It tends to limit people coming out of the closet. — ‘Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them, no?’ — I’m saying the government should. They won’t but they should. [You say], ‘oh, I can’t believe you, you’re horrible. You’re a backwards neanderthal of a person.’ Is that what you’re calling scripture? Is God a neanderthal backwards.. in his morality? Is it his word or not? If it’s his word, he commanded it. It’s his idea, not mine. And I’m not ashamed of it.”

Knapp later claimed that he really didn’t mean it, using words to suggest that he really, deep down, did. “We punish pedophilia. We punish incest. We punish polygamy and various things. It’s only homosexuality that is lifted out as an exemption,” he told CNN.

And then there’s the viral video of a four year old boy at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Greensburg, Indiana, singing, “Ain’t no homo’s gonna make it to heaven.” The congregation leapt to its feet in shouts and applause. Someone — a parent probably? — shouted “That’s my boy!” They loved it so much that they brought the kid up for an encore. Greensburg is where 14-year-old Billy Lucas killed himself because he was perceived as being gay. The community banded together for a massive cover-up, but Billy’s memorial page on Facebook told the real story, leading me to dub Greensburg America’s Ugliest Town.

And you know what? It apparently still is, although several other pastors are trying to put their own towns in the running.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 31

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Dharun Ravi Begins Serving 30-Day Sentence: New Brunswick, NJ. Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student who was convicted in March of multiple charges stemming from his using a webcam to spy on Tyler Clementi, his dorm roommate, during an intimate encounter with another man, will turn himself in today to begin serving his 30-day jail sentence.

New Jersey’s sentencing guidelines call for five to seven years in prison for second-degree crimes with a maximum of ten years, although it can be reduced for “extraordinary circumstances.” Ravi’s reduced sentence prompted an appeal by the prosecutor’s office. While the sentence is on appeal, Ravi’s sentence was stayed, but he has the option of going ahead and serving it as long as he waives double jeopardy if the prosecutor’s arguments prevail on appeal. According to a statement released Tusday, Ravi chose to go ahead and begin serving his sentence, saying, “It’s the only way I can go on with my life.”

Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference: Philadelphia, PA. The free three-day conference offers workshops and activities focused on the health and well-being of transgender people, and provides important information and support for transgender allies. The conference, now in its eleventh year, draws approximately 2,000 people. The conference take place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and will continue through Saturday, with inclusive worship services lined up for Sunday.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Albany, NY (Black & Latino Pride); Birmingham, UK; Boston, MA; Buffalo, NY; Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo ON; Davenport, IA; Dayton, OH; Detroit, MI; Dresden, Germany; Gothenburg, Sweden; Honolulu, HI; Kansas City, MO; Karlsruge, Germany; Kiel, Germany; Lille, France; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Los Ranchos, NM; Mexico City, DF; Nantes, France; Pittsburgh, PA; Queens, NY; Riga, Latvia; Sacramento, CA; Salt Lake City, UT; Santa Cruz, CA; Sheffield UK; Sonoma Co, CA; Spencer, IN; Springfield, MA; Staten Island, NY; Tulsa, OK and Warsaw, Poland.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Beaver Lake, NY; Boston, MA; Clinton, NY; Long Beach, CA and Syracuse, NY.

Other Events This Weekend: AIDS Lifecycle, San Francisco to Los Angeles; Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Gay Days at Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Scientists Trace AIDS To 1951: 1986. The summer of 1986 looked to be another terrible year in the nearly five-year-old AIDS epidemic. To be precise, that should be the five-year-old known AIDS epidemic. The CDC first noted the new disease in 1981 with the death of five young men, “all active homosexuals” whose immune system had been mysteriously and severely compromised. Out of the 23,000 known cases of people with AIDS between 1981 and the end of 1986, 56% were already dead (PDF: 32KB/5 pages).

While anti-gay activists rushed to declare that the so-called “gay plague” was a divinely inspired “terrible retribution,” scientists sought to figure out where the deadly disease came from. It wasn’t long before doctors in Europe and Africa noticed that the new disease first reported in America was remarkably similar to a mysterious illness striking the Congo River basin of Zaire and was already spreading eastward to Uganda. Swedish doctors remembered an infant born in Zaire who had contracted a similar disease in 1975 and finally died in 1982. Others recalled a Danish surgeon who died in 1977 after working in the Congo River region. Preserved blood and tissue samples tested positive for HIV, and this sent scientists scurrying to identify earlier possible samples which may offer clues to the disease’s origin.

On May 31, 1986, a team of American scientists published a letter in the British journal The Lancet announcing that they were able to determine that a blood sample that had been taken from an unknown patient at a Kinshasa hospital in 1959 tested positive for HIV. Nothing was known of the patient — neither a name nor medical records survive — but we can certainly guess at the suffering he or she must have endured. Nevertheless, this finding was an early clue that the epidemic itself was much older than previously thought. Later genetic analysis of the virus in that blood sample would indicate that the virus had actually entered the human population sometime around 1931. And later analysis still would push that estimate back to around 1908. But as early as 1986, it was already clear that it was only the stigma surrounding the disease, and not the disease itself, that was then approaching its fifth birthday.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Walt Whitman: 1819. Usually I commemorate famous birthdays by providing a brief biographical sketch. But when describing the life of the great American poet, it strikes me as unseemly to describe a man’s life when he has already written all that needs to be said:

When I Heard At The Close Of The Day.

WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been
receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy
night for me that follow’d,
And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d,
still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in
the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening
came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to
me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover
in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined
toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast and that night I was
happy.

This poem was originally part of a sequence of poems titled “Live Oak with Moss,” which tells the story of an unhappy affair with a man. When Whitman published the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1860, he included them among the forty-five poems of “Calamus,” but re-arranged their order to obliterate the narrative. For the fourth edition of Leaves of Grass, two of the three poems dropped were “Live Oak ” poems, perhaps revealing that Whitman still feared that the poems told more than he could safely reveal. You can see the reconstructed “Live Oak” series at the Whitman Archive.

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?

I Do Not Think Rational Means What They Think It Means

Minnesota for Marriage (M4M) is pushing for a state marriage amendment with a series of short videos. They’ve used a number of tactics, including deceit, but their latest effort is like an arrow that doesn’t even try to find the target.

The video claims to deal with this question:

Is it true that Minnesota’s marriage law has no rational basis and only exists because of moral animosity toward gays and lesbians?

The clip starts off with a nice, logic-free ad hominem attack on Judge Vaughn Walker, who struck down California’s Prop 8. Then it continues:

Minnesota’s marriage law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, just as the law in 44 other states, is not only rational, but is profoundly in the common good. It is motivated by a sincere and well-placed interest in ensuring that children born of the sexual union of men and women are known by and cared for by their own parents. Children need a mother and a father. Marriage is society’s way of channeling potentially procreative relationships between men and women into intact families that are the ideal environment for children. So this is not about animosity toward gays and lesbians; it’s about promoting healthy families.

Did you see what isn’t there? Look again — it still isn’t there. Nowhere in this statement does M4M explain why same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

This video makes a case for allowing a man and woman to marry, especially for allowing a child’s mother and father to marry. That’s all. It establishes why some couples should be able to marry — without addressing why other couples should not.

But Minnesota’s proposed marriage amendment doesn’t affect the right of opposite-sex couples to marry — and further, nobody I know is threatening that right — so the video’s argument is irrelevant. This amendment is all about keeping same-sex couples (and, I suppose, groups of more than two) from marrying, but the video offers no justification for that at all. Perhaps you can extend its reasoning and come up with something, but the people who spent time and money taping this didn’t bother.

The video stumbles its way into perfect irony. If you claim you’re going to prove a rational basis for your policy, and then offer an argument that ignores the policy altogether, you might as well shout to world, “We have no rational basis for what we do!”

* Meanwhile, M4M could use this video’s rationale to promote marriage between a sexually-involved brother and sister/mother and  son/ father and daughter. And they still haven’t explained why marriage has to be just one man and just one woman. Really, M4M needs to work harder on its irrationales before committing them to video.

Mormons marching in Pride

What do you do when you believe what your church says about love, but you think they aren’t showing it very well to gay people? If you’re Erika Munson, you just decide to show it yourself. It turns out, she wasn’t alone. (SL Tribune)

“I felt that there must be people like me,” Munson said, “who are committed to the church, who believe in the gospel and want to live Jesus’ word, which is, ‘love one another.’ ”

Munson’s group is not affiliated with the LDS Church or any political party, and though it started just a few weeks ago, it’s been gaining steam through social media. As of Wednesday, the group had more than 900 members on Facebook, and more than 100 had committed to Sunday’s march in downtown Salt Lake City.

(that popping noise was an Apostle’s head)

ExxonMobil Shareholders Vote Down Anti-Discrimination Policy

By an 80% to 20% vote, ExxonMobil shareholders overwhelmingly voted against a resolution asking the company to amend its written employment policies to add protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The proposal has been introduced each year since Exxon merged with Mobil in 1999. Mobil’s anti-discrimination policies and domestic partnership benefits, which were well ahead of their time, were dismantled after the merger.

California Senate Passes Ex-Gay Therapy Bill

The California state Senate today passed SB 1172, a bill which will prohibit licensed professionals from providing sexual orientation change therapy for patients under the age of eighteen. The bill would also mandates an informed consent statement to be signed by adults seeking ex-gay therapy. Because the bill applies only to licensed therapists, religious ex-gay ministries and programs are not affected by the legislation.

The bill passed in a 23-13 vote, and is now on its way to the House.

A god not worthy to be praised

Throughout the Jewish Scriptures and into the Christian testament there is a theme: worship of G-d is conditional. Their god was not worshiped simply because he was powerful and demanded it, but because he deserved to be worshiped.

In the Exodus story (the Hebrew people flee slavery conditions in Egypt by a miraculous parting of the Red Sea which closes on the Pharoah’s army and drowns their pursuers), Moses praises God for delivering them:

I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

In the 145th Psalm, attributed to David, it is God’s wonders and goodness that cause adoration

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.

And closing out the black leather bound book, in the apocryphal Revelation, it is the act of creation that merits praise

Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.

While one might question whether the creation of all things is truly deserving of applause (one of the many problems which I have with apocrypha, especially the vision of John of Patmos), still there is present the notion that God is deserving of praise due to His actions or choices or attributes.

But I’m guessing the notion of God deserving praise totally bypassed Curtis Knapp, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas. Knapp is more of a “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” kinda guy. And Knapp’s god said that gay people should be executed:

Knapp went on to read from Leviticus 20: “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.”

“They should be put to death,” Knapp declared. “‘Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them, no?’ — I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should.”

“You say, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you, you’re horrible. You’re a backwards neanderthal of a person.’ Is that what you’re calling scripture? Is God a neanderthal, backwards in his morality? Is it His word or not? If it’s His word, he commanded it. It’s His idea, not mine. And I’m not ashamed of it.”

“He said put them to death,” he continued. “Shall the church drag them in? No, I’m not say that. The church has not been given the power of the sort; the government has. But the government ought to [kill them]. You got a better idea? A better idea than God?”

Well, yes. Now that you ask, I do indeed have a better idea than the one proposed by Knapp’s god. Instead of executing people because they are attracted to the same sex, why don’t we become mature enough to question whether God is great, worthy to be praised, holy, or any other trite phrase that Knapp could babble?

Ultimately it comes down to this:

* Either our understanding of sexuality, morality, decency, a functional society, and the way to treat people is severely flawed,

* or Knapp’s theology is severely flawed,

* or that there is a horrific monster named God who delights in torment and is most definitely not worthy of praise.

Regardless of one’s particular beliefs about homosexuality, I think most readers here would agree that Knapp’s theology is not one that reflects the will of God. Some see the Levitical prohibitions as needing consideration of context and culture and do not read Scripture as literal. Others might find that grace abounds and that Christ’s declaration that all Law is subject to the command to treat one’s neighbor the way one wants to be treated would reverse any command to execute gay people. And, of course, others will see Knapp’s theology flawed because it includes the presumption that deities exist.

But there are many many people out there who, as Paul put it, “think like a child” when it comes to Scripture. And if it’s written right there in 21st Century English, then it must be the divine word of God. “Is it His word or not?”

Oddly enough, people like Knapp are not really the problem. They are a small minority and if responded to intelligently, they have little influence. The problem is Christians who do not respond to Knapp and leave his words the only words in the vacuum.

Surely the vast majority of American Christians do not think that the government should execute gays. But if they don’t say so – outside their pulpit and where people can hear them – then this becomes the defacto position of the faith.

All the nice neighborliness in the world, all of the loaning of lawn mowers, all of the “you’re such a nice couple” will not rebut what Knapp says. Unless Christians tell us that they absolutely do NOT agree with Knapp (and loan the lawn mower, of course), then we have no reason to believe otherwise. Yes, actions speak louder than words; but the words have to be said as well.

And when some very lovely Presbyterian invites the lesbian couple next door to join them for Christmas Eve service, they really have no one else to blame if the response is, “Bya-ha-ha-ha! You’ve got to be kidding! No way do I want anything to do with a religion that wants to execute me!”

God Bless Amercia!

Contrary to a couple of snide rumors out there, I did not copy-edit the Romney campaign’s new iPhone app.

Naturally, there’s already an Amercia-themed Tumblr.

Lawsuits Planned To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage In Illinois

As I said earlier in today’s Agenda, Lambda Legal and the ACLU will be filing separate lawsuits today in a bid to legalize marriage equality in Illinois. According to The Chicago Tribune:

The gay rights group Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois each plan to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the clerk of Cook County, claiming that not issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the Illinois Constitution.

…A total of 25 couples from across the state are plaintiffs in the two lawsuits. Each couple tried to get a marriage license from the Cook County clerk’s office in May and was denied based on the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, which prohibits marriage “between 2 individuals of the same sex” and states: “A marriage between 2 individuals of the same sex is contrary to the public policy of this State.”

Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office issued a statement from the clerk, who is out of the country: “The time is long past due for the state of Illinois to allow county clerks to issue marriage license to couples who want to make their commitment. I hope these lawsuits are the last hurdle to achieving equal marriage rights for all.”

Illinois has been providing civil unions for almost a year. The lawsuit is being filed on the basis that civil unions, rather than being equal to marriage, is actually reinforcing discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. According to The Chicago Sun-Times:

Illinois’ constitution, more than other states’ constitutions, spells out rights that advocates for same-sex couples see as guaranteeing a right for people of any gender to marry, despite laws the Legislature passed in 1996 prohibiting same-sex marriage.

…The ACLU case will argue that the right to privacy in Illinois’ Constitution protects against a ban on gay marriage. California’s constitution had a similar right to privacy cited by that state’s high court in upholding a right to same-sex marriage. That law is under review in federal appellate court.

Lambda also argues that Illinois’ ban on “special legislation” that benefits one group over another prohibits a ban on same-sex marriage.

Documentary highlighting flaws and abuse of Spitzer study of exgays re-released in HD

The Spitzer Study of ex-gays should be dead, but it isn’t.

From the very beginning the study was fatally flawed by poor methodology and after over a decade of criticism directed at the study, this month Dr. Robert Spitzer has formally apologized and renounced his study in The American Prospect and New York Times.

But as BTB editor Jim Burroway pointed out yesterday, anti-gay groups continue to cite the now retracted study.

Because of the continuing need to highlight the flaws and abuse of the Spitzer Study, I’m re-releasing a documentary I made in 2007, now in high definition.

Here’s direct links to the new HD version on Vimeo and YouTube.

For you technical geeks the original film was edited on a 2003 PowerBook, I retrieved all the original source footage, graphics and audio, and re-created the film on my new iMac which can handle HD with ease.  To make matters worse, at the time when I created the original 13 minute film, YouTube limited movies to 10 minutes and 200mb file size so I had to split the film into two pieces of mediocre resolution. Although my “talking head” scenes were shot in standard definition, the re-encoding and exporting at a higher resolution helped considerably, and the re-done still graphics are drastically sharper.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, May 30

ExxonMobile protesters in 2010.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
ExxonMobil Shareholders To vote On Anti-Discrimination Policy: Dallas, TX. When Exxon merged with Mobil Corporation in 1999, the merged company ended Mobil’s domestic partnership program for its employees and rescinded Mobil’s non-discrimination policy. Since the merger, LGBT advocates have been trying to convince the ExxonMobil board to reinstate the non-discrimination policy. In 2010, only 22% of shareholders voted to uphold the policy, with most shareholders allowing the ExxonMobile board to vote their shares by proxy.

Today, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is responsible for investment decisions for the $140 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, will once again bring a shareholder resolution to the annual board meeting calling for the corporation to adopt policies that ensure its employees are not fired or harassed at work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. ExxonMobile earlier this year tried to block a vote on the proposal, claiming that the company has already informally implemented most of the changes sought. The Securities and Exchange Commission disagreed, ruling last March, “Based on the information you have presented, it appears that ExxonMobil’s policies, practices and procedures do not compare favorably with the guidelines of the proposal and that ExxonMobil has not, therefore, substantially, implemented the proposal.”

ExxonMobil is currently rated a minus 25 on Human Rights Campaign’s annual “Corporate Equality Index,” making ExxonMobil the first corporation ever to receive a negative score on the index. The shareholders meeting takes place at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (a.k.a “The Mort”) in Dallas, beginning at 9:00 a.m. CDT. It will be streamed live.

Lambda Legal, ACLU Announce Marriage Lawsuits On Behalf of Illinois Couples: Chicago and Springfield, IL. On June 1 last year, Illinois began granting civil unions for same-sex couples. Today on the eve’s eve of that anniversary, Lambda Legal and the ACLU are coordinating a joint announcement of separate lawsuits that will be field on behalf of LGBT families seeking full marriage equality. The Chicago press conference will take place at the Westin Chicago River North (320 North Dearborn Avenue, and will feature Camilla Taylor, National Marriage Project Director for Lambda Legal who lead the litigation in Iowa resulting in the historic unanimous Iowa Supreme Court decision winning marriage for same-sex couples in Iowa. The Springfield press conference will take place at the State House Inn (101 East Adams), and will feature Christopher Clark, Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office based in Chicago. Both press conference will begin at 10:30 a.m. CDT.

California Senate May Vote On Ex-Gay Therapy Curbs: Sacramento, CA. It now appears likely that the California Senate will vote on SB 1172, which would prevent licensed therapists from providing therapy to change sexual orientation to minors. It would also require that all others sign an informed consent statement. The bill would apply to licensed therapists only. Religious-based ex-gay programs and ministries would remain unaffected by the bill.

Several changes have been made to the proposed bill since the last time we looked at it, but the basic outlines remain the same. The bill has strong support from Equality California, and from several ex-gay survivors and their families. The bill’s supporters received a boost when Robert Spitzer retracted his 2001 ex-gay study and apologized to those who underwent ex-gay therapy believing it was effective. They also received unexpected support when the Pan American Health Organization called on governments to to ensure that “clinics offering (ex-gay therapy are) reported and subject to adequate sanctions.” NARTH strongly opposes the bill, and it has also drawn qualified opposition (PDF: 115KB/9 pages) from the California Psychological Association, which opposes the outright ban on therapy for minors as an intrusion on the organization’s management of its own code of ethics.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Albany, NY (Black & Latino Pride); Birmingham, UK; Boston, MA; Buffalo, NY; Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo ON; Davenport, IA; Dayton, OH; Detroit, MI; Dresden, Germany; Gothenburg, Sweden; Honolulu, HI; Kansas City, MO; Karlsruge, Germany; Kiel, Germany; Lille, France; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Los Ranchos, NM; Mexico City, DF; Nantes, France; Pittsburgh, PA; Queens, NY; Riga, Latvia; Sacramento, CA; Salt Lake City, UT; Santa Cruz, CA; Sheffield UK; Sonoma Co, CA; Spencer, IN; Springfield, MA; Staten Island, NY; Tulsa, OK and Warsaw, Poland.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Beaver Lake, NY; Boston, MA; Clinton, NY; Long Beach, CA and Syracuse, NY.

Other Events This Weekend: AIDS Lifecycle, San Francisco to Los Angeles; Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Gay Days at Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL.

Paul Guilbert and Aaron Fricke

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Male Couple attends Senior Prom: 1980. Aaron Fricke was a Senior in High school when he publicly came out as gay and stated dating Paul Guilbert and decided to ask him the Cumberland (Rhode Island) High School senior prom. His principal prohibited their attendance, saying the move “upset other students, sent the community abuzz, and rallied out-of-state newspapers to consider the matter newsworthy.” It also earned Fricke five stitches under his eye when he was attacked in the hallway. Fricke filed a lawsuit in Federal court, charging that the school district was infringing on his first amendment right to free speech. “I feel I have the right to attend,” he told the judge. “I feel I want to go to the prom for the same reason any other student would want to go.” The judge agreed (PDF: 60KB/7 pages), and not only ordered the school district to allow the couple to attend, but to beef up security in case there were any problems. And on this day in 1980, Frike and Guilbert attended the prom, and the case of Frike v. Lynch became an important legal precedent for other gay couples across the nation since then.

Fricke later wrote about his experiences in Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story about Growing Up Gay. He also collaborated with his father on another book about coming out, Sudden Strangers: The Story of a Gay Son and His Father.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Christine Jorgensen: 1926. She was born in the Bronx, and described herself as “frail, tow-headed, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games.” She was also known as George. After a stint in the army following World War II, her identity as a woman was overwhelming — and her physical development as a man was underwhelming. As she attended dental school, she began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol on her own and began researching the subject of sexual reassignment surgery. At the time, the only surgeries being performed were in Sweden. But at a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, she discovered Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Denmark’s Minister of Justice allowed her surgery to take place.

Christine’s surgery was not the first of it’s kind, but that’s how it was presented on December 1, 1952 when the New York Daily News carried the front-page headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.” When she returned to New York the following February, she became an instant celebrity. She was reputedly the most written-about person in 1953, and she tried to use her celebrity as an opportunity for education. Educating the entire world turned out to be a huge task, but it was a task she was ready to take on. She acted in summer stock, toured the lecture circuit, wrote an autobiography, and made countless radio and television appearances. After her surgery, she was engaged to marry John Traub, but that engagement was called off. In 1959, she announced her engagement to Howard J. Knox, but the couple were unable to obtain a marriage license because Jorgensen’s birth certificate still listed her as a male. By the time the engagement was called off, Knox had already been fired over the publicity. Shortly before she died in 1989, she said she had given the sexual revolution “a good swift kick in the pants.” She died of bladder and lung cancer just a month shy of her 63rd birthday.

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?

Dharun Ravi Apologizes for “Childish Choices”

Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student who was convicted in the spycam case, has issued an apology:

I accept responsibility for and regret my thoughtless, insensitive, immature, stupid and childish choices that I made on September 19, 2010 and September 21, 2010. My behavior and actions, which at no time were motivated by hate, bigotry, prejudice or desire to hurt, humiliate or embarrass anyone, were nonetheless the wrong choices and decisions. I apologize to everyone affected by those choices.

Garden State Equality’s Steven Goldstein questions the timing of the apology:

We have mixed emotions, and so rather than take an organizational stance just yet, we have posited the question to our members on (the group’s) Facebook page to ask what they think,” Goldstein said.

Garden State Equality has said Ravi deserves more jail time than he received but “nowhere near” the maximum sentence he could have received.

“We have said that our hearts would be open to an apology had Ravi opened his heart up to us all,” Goldstein said. “He could have apologized in a way that would not have compromised his legal position. But he came across to many of us as unremorseful both before the trial and in engineered media appearances after the verdict.”

Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail, three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service, and nearly $11,000 in fines and restitution. He will begin serving his jail sentence on May 31. Because the state is appealing the sentence, it is automatically stayed. But he does have the right to go ahead and serve it to get it out of the way, as long as he waves any double jeopardy claim. He will appear in court tomorrow to formally waive that claim.