As many of you know, Advocates for Faith & Freedom filed a petition to get back into the courtroom after the 9th Circuit ruled the deputy county clerk has no standing. From the Associated Press a few weeks ago:
In its new petition, Advocates for Faith & Freedom argues that Storey, whose official legal duties include certifying marriages, will be directly impacted by the outcome of this case.
Conservative groups are hopeful Imperial County will be able to re-enter the case because of the wording of the Jan. 4 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which denied standing to the the county’s conservative Board of Supervisors and a deputy county clerk.
In the ruling, the three-judge panel disqualified the deputy clerk on the grounds that she reported to the county clerk and as such had no power herself.
“Were Imperial County’s elected County Clerk the applicant for intervention, that argument might have merit. A County Clerk is not before us, however, so we need not, and do not, decide now whether a County Clerk would have been permitted to intervene under the circumstances present in this case,” the panel wrote.
Yesterday, The Washington Post profiled Chuck Storey, the newly elected county clerk who decided to step up and intervene in the case. And he’s not entirely supported:
EL CENTRO, Calif. — Chuck Storey ran for county clerk-recorder in a remote, desert corner of southeast California on a pledge to run a lean operation in churning out government documents like property deeds, birth certificates and marriage licenses.
“Imperial County needs a businessman,” he said during last year’s campaign.
Less than two months in office, the low-key real estate agent became something else: a very public face against gay marriage in California. Storey asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month to let him be the primary defendant in a lawsuit to uphold Proposition 8 — if a coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored the measure is removed.
Though Storey represents a county that voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage, his hometown critics say he was disingenuous when he didn’t raise his intentions earlier. Many voters thought the county’s role in the contentious issue ended Jan. 4 when the appeals court ruled its board of supervisors and deputy clerk had no legal standing to defend the ban.
Aaron Popejoy, president of the El Centro Chamber of Commerce, said the new clerk didn’t mention gay marriage, or give any hint of the legal bombshell he was about to drop, at a Rotary Club lunch Feb. 24, the day before he stepped into the lawsuit.
“I’m a little disappointed that he would open up this can of worms for us,” said Popejoy. “It’s one of those huge red flags that draw the wrong kind of attention to our community. We need to be a little more warm and welcoming.”
The Imperial Valley Press editorialized that Storey was inviting misguided stereotypes that the region is “bad or backward” — the kind of attention it got after becoming the only California county that tried to defend the marriage ban in 2009.
“We can’t think of one bit of good to come out of this effort in retrospect. It was a waste of time, energy and was damaging to the county’s reputation. And it’s happening again thanks to one self-aggrandizing man in Storey,” the newspaper wrote.
[...]
Gail Pellerin, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, knows of no other county clerks who have expressed interest in defending Proposition 8.
Imperial County supervisors say Storey is on his own. He is being represented by Advocates for Faith & Freedom at no charge.
“We were not involved in any way, shape or form,” said Supervisor Gary Wyatt, who has opposed the county’s involvement. “It’s a case of an individual who happens to be the clerk-recorder.”
The rest of the article is also worth a read. Storey has lost and is losing support, at the expense of the people he represents.
This week: Finger-pointing in Maryland, along with some disturbing new racial rhetoric. Meanwhile, pressure to repeal DOMA heats up in Congress and in the courts.
Though Storey represents a county that voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage, his hometown critics say he was disingenuous when he didn’t raise his intentions earlier. Many voters thought the county’s role in the contentious issue ended Jan. 4 when the appeals court ruled its board of supervisors and deputy clerk had no legal standing to defend the ban.
On one side you have what’s commonly called Gay, Inc: The Human Rights Campaign, Gill Action Fund, Freedom to Marry, Equality Maryland, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. They all supported postponing the Maryland vote to next year. Their argument was that we didn’t have enough votes this year, and that losing in in one state might trigger setbacks in other states, such as New York and Rhode Island.
On the other side you have a few independent players and anonymous sources who say that Gay Inc doesn’t understand how Maryland politics work, and that one-year delays have a habit of actually lasting a lot longer.
Now, Gay Inc’s been wrong before. But it’s also really easy to second-guess from the sidelines, and most of the critics in this case are bit players, or unwilling to even go on the record. Meanwhile, every major organization involved, and the LGBT caucus, say that delaying for a year was the right decision. And the Baltimore Sun, which knows a thing or two about Maryland politics, fully expects the issue to come back in 2012.
We’ll know for sure who was right and who was wrong one year from now.
But in the mean time, there’s something else going on in Maryland that’s worth pointing out. Something bad.
Maggie Gallagher started it on March 3rd when she said, “the gay marriage machine appears to be re-focusing its attacks from Black Democrats who oppose gay marriage to an easier target: Indian-Americans.”
Crazy, right? Our side was in talks with lots of legislators. Some white, some black, one was Indian-American, but nobody was being attacked, and why would she start pointing out everyone’s race?
Then March 12, NOM’s Brian Brown latched onto race again, accusing Senator Allan Kittleman of making racially loaded statements. But all Kittleman actually said was, “everyone, regardless of race, sex, national origin or sexual orientation, is entitled to equal rights.”
In the same press release, NOM says that African-Americans, “played a particularly key role in this effort,” and that one anti-gay legislator was attacked by racists who, conveniently, they don’t identify.
And there’s more. Anti-gay legislator Don Dwyer said, “the black churches were tremendously responsible for stepping up to the plate.”
And a March 17 article in the Catholic News Agency didn’t even bother being subtle. They complained that in some states, anti-gay groups weren’t able to force a popular vote on civil rights, but here’s how they chose to frame it: “a small group of political elites (almost all of them white) … deny one of the most fundamental rights in a constitutional democracy — the right to vote — to the masses of black citizens.”
Again — why keep bringing up race?
Well if I had to guess. My guess is that they think they can drum up support among people of color by convincing them that marriage equality is a whites-versus-blacks issue.
Now, obviously, that’s just plain not true. But it’s a meme that refuses to die, going all the way back to Prop 8, when bad polling data made it look like African Americans supported Prop 8 in greater numbers than they actually did.
It’s easy to debunk this lie.
First, they can’t make sweeping generalizations about peoples’ values based on their race. That’s the definition of what racism is.
Second, it’s not hard to find people of color who support the freedom to marry. Al Sharpton, Christine Chavez, George Takei — this is obviously not a whites-only issue. To claim that it is seriously marginalizes LGBT people of color and bi-national couples.
Third, if you want to talk about, “a small group of political elites, almost all of them white,” just take a look at NOM’s board of directors.
This race thing is an ugly lie that we can stop now, by making sure that when we fight for marriage, we do it with a coalition that reflects how fully inclusive our community really is.
And another case, this coming week, is going to break new ground, with a bi-national couple arguing against the deportation of Monica Alcota. She fled homophobia in Argentina over a decade ago, and even though she’s now legally married in the US, she might be sent back.
On Tuesday, she’ll ask immigration officials to exercise what’s called “prosecutorial discretion” to halt the deportation proceedings and keep their family united. It’s the first time this has been attempted since the Justice Department decided that DOMA is unconstitutional, a decision that has particular weight in this case because the Board of Immigration Appeals is a part of the Department of Justice.
There are now nearly a dozen separate legal challenges to DOMA, so one way or another, it’s going away. We’ve just gotta be patient, and keep building inclusive coalitions that derive strength from diversity.
If you need to get up to speed on the DOMA situation, you can check out our DOMA for dummies special, along with all of our other recent episodes. And don’t forget to subscribe for more weekly updates, and connect over at facebook.com/stop8.
Keep an eye out for their ugly race-bailing rhetoric, and shut it down the moment it pops up. See you next week.
If you haven’t yet heard a behind-the-scenes interview with Ed and Derence, here’s one. This week’s Same Sex Sunday podcast (on iTunes and elsewhere) featured Derence from Palm Springs, discussing his life with his partner, Ed, who now has Alzheimer’s and would like to get married. The 9th Circuit is still considering a motion to lift the stay, and Derence and Ed penned an open letter to the court here. If you haven’t seen their video (now up to 80,000 views), it’s below:
I was also on a politics roundtable discussing the beginning of our campaign to repeal DOMA, how it came about, and marriage bills in various states.
It’s a nice listen. You can listen on the page here at The Bilerico Project by clicking the play button the widget at the bottom. We also discussed a transgender rights bill in Nevada and other topics. Phil and Joe, the co-hosts, always do an extremely professional and knowledgable job. The Facebook page for the podcast is here.
This is an interesting challenge. Via Towleroad, a press release from the couple:
“This is the first time a married same-sex couple will appear in court to seek termination of such proceedings since the Obama administration reversed its position on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on February 23, calling it unconstitutional and announcing that it would not defend DOMA in pending and future federal court challenges.”
“Cristina Ojeda and Monica Alcota have been together since July 2008 and live in Queens, New York. In August 2010 they married in Connecticut. Cristina filed a marriage-based alien relative petition on behalf of Monica in September 2010. That petition is currently pending before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Alcota came to the United States in October 2000. She is a law-abiding, hard-working and talented antiques restorer and devoted, loving wife to Cristina.”
“The couple’s lawyer, Lavi Soloway, will argue that removal proceedings should be terminated consistent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s long-standing policy of prosecutorial discretion which favors family unification and the accommodation of sympathetic humanitarian circumstances. ICE and the Court should consider the rapidly changing landscape of DOMA. That changing landscape includes the Obama administration’s new position on DOMA which is expected to dramatically alter the course of future litigation against DOMA, but it also includes other significant developments.”
According to the couple’s website, Monica faced severe homophobia and intolerance in Argentina that forced her to leave the country.
I was reading an interview of 10 questions that TIME Magazine did with Dan Savage, founder of the It Gets Better Project. Here’s one I definitely agree with:
Q: Who hasn’t made a video yet who you hope will?
A: Rick Santorum. Tim Pawlenty. Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. The Prime Minister of Britain, who leads the Conservative Party there, made a video, and we haven’t seen one from anyone on the right in the U.S. to even say, You’re 14 and gay. Don’t kill yourself.
Tell me about it. Is that so hard a message? I’m not even sure a Santorum or a Palin would come out the worse for wear, politically speaking. Sure, they’d get some fundies interpreting it as “Palin is saying it’s okay to be gay! Aaaaiiiieeeee!” but on the whole, I bet she’d get a lot of people applauding for courage and just for a telling good message. And hey, maybe it’ll help her with her remarkably negative approval ratings. How ’bout it, Sarah?
The Washington Blade has obtained excerpts of the speech that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer will deliver tonight.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) intends on Saturday to call on supporters of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal to monitor the transition to end the gay ban “diligently” to ensure quick and fair implementation of open service.
The Washington Blade obtained excerpts of the remarks that Hoyer plans to give at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s 19th annual dinner, which is set to take place Saturday at the National Building Museum.
“But tonight, I’m here to urge you: keep working,” Hoyer is slated to say. “Let’s monitor the transition to open service diligently; let’s ensure that it’s implemented quickly, fairly, and professionally. Let’s partner with our military leaders, who are doing an outstanding job in educating our troops about repeal and what it means. Let’s keep an eye on the process until it’s done.”
According to the excerpts obtained by the Blade, Hoyer also plans to say he was proud to work with former Rep. Patrick Murphy to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Murphy, an Iraq war veteran, was the sponsor of the standalone legislation that repealed the anti-gay law. Murphy lost re-election last year to Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
“I was proud to fight for repeal, to ensure that it had the votes to pass and become law,” Hoyer is set to say. “I was proud to make the case for the patriotism, the dedication, and the courage of gay men and women in uniform.”
[...]
The excerpts obtained by the Blade follow:
“I was proud to co-sponsor the repeal of DADT and ensuring that it got a vote on the House floor. I was proud to stand beside Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran who understands that it is wasteful and wrong to say no to the service of men and women who would take a bullet for our country, simply because of their sexual orientation. I was proud to fight for repeal, to ensure that it had the votes to pass and become law. I was proud to make the case for the patriotism, the dedication, and the courage of gay men and women in uniform.”
“Now, repeal is law. And that is a civil rights triumph—for every single American. I want every one of us to be proud about what we did to make this a safer and more just country.”
“But tonight, I’m here to urge you: keep working. Let’s monitor the transition to open service diligently; let’s ensure that it’s implemented quickly, fairly, and professionally. Let’s partner with our military leaders, who are doing an outstanding job in educating our troops about repeal and what it means. Let’s keep an eye on the process until it’s done.”
We’ve said from the beginning that repeal should take months, not years. So far we’re on that track, but Hoyer is right — quickly is one of the most important words here.
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