No surprises here: California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional, according to a ruling announced Tuesday by an appeals court. The long-awaited ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court is likely to lead to more appeals, and marriages probably will remain on hold until that process ends. The case was pending for months because the court wanted a ruling from the state Supreme Court on whether proponents of Proposition 8 had legal standing under the state’s citizen’s initiative process to appeal the ruling. Here’s the decision: 10-16696 #398_Decision What’s next? Appeals and more appeals : ProtectMarriage, the backers of Proposition 8, can appeal Tuesday’s decision to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit or go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court is expected to be divided on the issue, and many legal scholars believe Justice Anthony Kennedy will be the deciding vote. Gays and lesbians were entitled to marry in California for six months after the California Supreme Court struck down a state ban in May 2008. The state high court later upheld Proposition 8 as a valid amendment of the California Constitution. While the Proposition 8 case was still pending in state court, two same-sex couples sued in federal court to challenge the ban on federal constitutional grounds. *** Tweet of the day: @ arizonashane “Given the opportunity, the 9th Circus would strike down the Constitution as unconstitutional.
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Document drop: Lib 9th circuit panel rules Proposition 8 unconstitutional
And the Court’s ruling not only back-slapped the gay rights extremists, but Govenor Brown and Attorney General Harris as well. At Los Angeles Times , ” Backers win right to fight for Prop. 8 “: Reporting from San Francisco — The California Supreme Court ruled that the sponsors of Proposition 8 have the right to defend the measure, clearing the way for federal courts to decide the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans. Thursday’s unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, strongly affirmed that ballot sponsors may represent California in defending initiatives when elected officials fail to do so. Gov. Jerry Brown and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris have refused to challenge last year’s federal ruling against Proposition 8. “Neither the Governor, the Attorney General, nor any other executive or legislative official has the authority to veto or invalidate an initiative measure that has been approved by the voters,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote for the court. Legal scholars said the state high court’s decision was so adamant that the U.S. Supreme Court, which could decide marriage rights as early as 2013, was unlikely to limit its ruling to the narrow and technical issue of “standing,” a legal term for the right to go to court. “It’s a gangbusters opinion,” said Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, an expert on the state high court.
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California Supreme Court Gives Huge Boost to Backers of Proposition 8
Delivered by President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I spend time discussing the Gettysburg Address during my coverage of Chapter One in Bessette and Pitney’s, American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship . Yesterday, as I pulled the speech up onto the projection screen, I asked students in class what they thought of it. Not a single student raised their hand. And this has been a pretty lively discussion group so far, so they honestly weren’t familiar with it. That’s why I spend extra time on it. I feel it’s important and also that students are shortchanged by not knowing so powerful a statement on human freedom. It’s such a vital affirmation of our liberty and the promise of equality. I love Abraham Lincoln. I’ll be discussing the speech all day today: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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The Gettysburg Address
My column today spotlights the latest attempt by the Left to use campaign finance disclosure as a weapon to intimidate and silence political opponents. Both Big Labor and open-borders forces have scheduled their usual May Day protests this weekend, with a special emphasis on Wisconsin and GOP Gov. Scott Walker. Be careful out there. And be sure to support the businesses (H/T Vicki McKenna ) that are supporting fiscal responsibility and standing up to the prog mob. *** The Wisconsin Witch Hunt Goes National by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2011 On May 1, left-wing vigilantes will target companies across the country that have committed a mortal sin: sending donations to GOP Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Rest assured, such intolerable acts of political free speech will not go unpunished by tolerant Big Labor activists. They’re calling for both a national boycott of Walker’s corporate donors and a coordinated sticker vandalism campaign on GOP-tainted products. The Wisconsin Grocers Association is bracing for the anti-Walker witch hunt. Anonymous operatives have circulated sabotage stickers on the Internet and around Wisconsin that single out Angel Soft tissue paper (“Wiping your (expletive) on Wisconsin workers”), Johnsonville Sausage (“These Brats Bust Unions”) and Coors (“Labor Rights Flow Away Like A Mountain Stream”). Earlier this week, a “Stick It To Walker” website boasted photos (now deleted) of vandalized Angel Soft tissue packages at a Super Foodtown grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Screencap above.) This destruction of private property is illegal . Not that it matters to anti-Walker protest mobsters, who trampled Wisconsin’s Capitol at an estimated $5 million in security, repair and cleaning costs to taxpayers. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , “The identity of the backers of the sticker effort is unknown, although many assume it is being orchestrated by public employee unions. This latest effort follows boycotts organized by members of the Wisconsin State Employees Union AFSCME 24.” AFSCME 24 is the same union affiliate that recently disseminated intimidation letters throughout southeast Wisconsin, demanding that local businesses support unions by putting up signs in their windows. The letter threatened not just Walker supporters, but any and all businesses that have chosen to sit on the sidelines and stay out of politics altogether: “Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means ‘no’ to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members.” Others on Big Labor’s hit list: Kwik Trip, Sargento Foods Inc. and M&I Bank. Walker, of course, has been at the forefront of government pension and budget reforms. Similar measures are being advanced by Democratic governors and Democrat-run legislatures from Massachusetts to New York to California . But union bosses have yet to sic their goons on individual and corporate donors to Democratic politicians imposing long-overdue benefit and collective bargaining limits for public employee unions. How convenient, yes? Just as they secured a big fat waiver from the federal health care mandate and tax scheme they lobbied to impose on the rest of America, Big Labor is giving Democratic legislative water-carriers who have been forced to adopt cuts and cost controls a big fat waiver from their organized wrath and vandalism. Now, a few hundred or thousand ruined grocery store items may not seem to matter much to the average reader, but this little property destruction campaign spotlights a nasty tactic increasingly employed by the left: campaign finance disclosure as a speech-squelching weapon. We saw it last fall when Democratic operatives targeted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for donating to Obamacare opposition ads. We saw it in 2008 when a top MoveOn.org alumnus launched attacks on Republican donors with the express purpose of “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” We saw it when Obama campaign committee lawyers lobbied the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute a GOP donor for funding campaign ads exposing Obama’s ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. We saw it during the Proposition 8 traditional marriage battle in California, where gay rights avengers compiled black lists, harassment lists and Google target maps of citizens who contributed to the ballot measure. We saw it when “progressive” zealots smeared Target Corporation and Chick-fil-A for daring to associate with social conservatives. And we’re seeing it again this month as the Obama White House readies an executive order that would force federal contractors to disclose all political donations to candidates and independent groups in excess of $5,000 made not just by a corporate entity, but by all of its individual executives, directors and officers. Former Federal Election Commission official Hans von Spakovsky obtained the sweeping draft executive order, which — surprise, surprise — exempts unions and predominantly left-wing federal grant recipients from the mandate . On Wednesday, GOP senators spelled out the bullying agenda in an open letter objecting to the Obama order: “Political activity would obviously be chilled if prospective contractors have to fear that their livelihood could be threatened if the causes they support are disfavored by the administration.” Join the club. When disclosure’s a bludgeon, all but Obama’s cronies are nails. *** Related: Wisconsin AFL-CIO Lies About Boycotts Here’s the boycott list from the anti-Walker mobsters themselves.
Original post:
May Day: The Wisconsin Witch Hunt Goes National
Supporters of California’s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, filed a motion seeking to reinstate the law because the judge who overturned the ban recently disclosed he is gay and in a relationship.
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Judge’s Prop 8 Ruling Contested
Today on Uncommon Knowledge, John Yoo criticizes Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to overturn California’s Proposition 8.
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Uncommon Knowledge Interview with Yoo and Epstein (Part Three)
How’s that civility thingy going? Not too well at The Mahablog , it turns out. As we can see at the screencap, Barbara O’Brien viciously attacks WSJ ‘s James Taranto, who called out the progressive left for its continuing derangement campaign against Sarah Palin. That’s just a “small exaggeration,” of course. Taranto’s piece is here: ” Palinoia, the Destroyer: What’s Behind the Left’s Deranged Hatred .” Taranto’s a national treasure. You gotta love this, from the essay : For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics in a way that it is not for any other group (possibly excepting gays, though that is unrelated to today’s topic). An important strand of contemporary liberalism is feminism. As a label, “feminist” is passé; outside the academic fever swamps, you will find few women below Social Security age who embrace it. That is because what used to be called feminism–the proposition that women deserve equality before the law and protection from discrimination–is almost universally accepted today …. To the extent that “feminism” remains controversial, it is because of the position it takes on abortion: not just that a woman should have the “right to choose,” but that this is a matter over which reasonable people cannot disagree–that to favor any limitations on the right to abortion, or even to acknowledge that abortion is morally problematic, is to deny the basic dignity of women. To a woman who has internalized this point of view, Sarah Palin’s opposition to abortion rights is a personal affront, and a deep one. It doesn’t help that Palin lives by her beliefs. To the contrary, it intensifies the offense. He hits the bullseye so directly (if I may use that metaphor) that Barbara O’Brien just can’t continue : Anyway, I didn’t get past the sentence about sexual identity … That’s gold. Barbara obviously can’t handle the truth. Her progressive sensibilities immediately erect a cognitive road block preventing comprehension that, oh noes! , Taranto’s got her number!
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Civil Discourse at Barbara O’Brien’s Mahablog
