The Great Oregon Wildlife Refuge Standoff

I'm sure you're as heartily sick of the Bundy clan's latest adventure in armed insurrection as I am. The only redeeming feature is that it's kicked Donald Trump off the headlines for a couple of days.

Reading through some of the coverage, it occurs to me that the right wing is, quite correctly, seeing this little episode as toxic: these guys look like the fools they are, at least to a national audience, and the powers that be in the Republican party are very well aware of the optics.

Just one indicator: Megyn Kelly interviewed Ammon Bundy and wasn't really giving him a pass:

After Bundy defended his decision to lead a small militia to take over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, Kelly challenged him.

"You know the argument on the other side, which is, these ranchers — whom you support but are not directly involved — had their day in court. And they were found guilty, and it went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied their appeal. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work in our country when it comes to the rule of law?" she asked.

"Yeah, well let me ask you — and I’m sure you know the answer, but who was the plaintiff?" Bundy asked in response.

After a pause, Kelly told Bundy to "keep going."

And when Bundy asked the same question again, Kelly took another brief pause.

"I’m waiting for you to make your point. Generally I don’t answer the questions on my show; I ask them," she said.

This is Fox News, where the likes of Tony Perkins regularly get tongue baths from the likes of Megyn Kelly. (And you're probably protesting that Perkins is a different order than the Bundys. Well, yes: the Bundys are honest.)

Even more revealing is this:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Monday called for armed protesters who occupied a federal building in Oregon to "stand down peaceably."

"Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds," Cruz told reporters in Iowa. "But we don't have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence against others. So it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation."

And from Marco Rubio:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also addressed the issue Monday, telling an Iowa radio station "you cannot be lawless."

Rubio said during an interview with KBUR that he agrees "that there is too much federal control over land especially out in the western part of the United States."

"We should fix it, but no one should be doing it in a way that's outside the law," he added.

These were people who were falling all over themselves to support Kim Davis, another right-wing law breaker.

And from the moderate wing:

John Weaver, a senior aide for GOP candidate John Kasich, said in a tweet: "I know a good federal compound for Bundy and his gang: a U.S. penitentiary."

So far, I haven't seen a reaction from the Donald.

Small indicators, but they're there.

OOOH-klahoma!

Another one bites the dust.

Senior U.S. Federal District Judge Terence C. Kern has struck down the amendment to Oklahoma’s constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage, saying that the ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. But unlike in Utah, Oklahoma’s same-sex couples won’t be rushing to marry anytime soon, as Judge Kern has stayed his ruling pending an appeal.

Fortunately, Jim Burroway has an excellent discussion of the ruling at the link, so I don't have to do any heavy analysis, but I do want to note that Judge Kern hit a couple of key points head-on:

This Court has gleaned and will apply two principles from Windsor. First, a state law defining marriage is not an “unusual deviation” from the state/federal balance, such that its mere existence provides “strong evidence” of improper purpose. A state definition must be approached differently, and with more caution, than the Supreme Court approached DOMA. Second, courts reviewing marriage regulations, by either the state or federal government, must be wary of whether “defending” traditional marriage is a guise for impermissible discrimination against same-sex couples. These two principles are not contradictory, but they happen to help different sides of the same-sex marriage debate.

Wham.

The state, of course, is appealing the decision -- and unlike Utah, they managed to do it right.

Here's the full decision. I do recommend that you read it -- Judge Kern is thorough, detailed, and remorseless in demolishing the state's "arguments."

Needless to say, the governor of Oklahama, Mary Fallin (who by all accounts is real piece of work*) has responded with predictable outrage:

In 2004, the people of Oklahoma voted to amend the state's constitution to define marriage as ‘the union of one man and one woman.’ That amendment passed with 75 percent support.

The people of Oklahoma have spoken on this issue. I support the right of Oklahoma's voters to govern themselves on this and other policy matters. I am disappointed in the judge's ruling and troubled that the will of the people has once again been ignored by the federal government.

She obviously didn't bother to read the opinion, which states quite clearly:

Equal protection is at the very heart of our legal system and central to our consent to be governed. It is not a scarce commodity to be meted out begrudgingly or in short portions. Therefore, the majority view in Oklahoma must give way to individual constitutional rights. The Bishop couple has been in a loving, committed relationships for many years. They own property together, wish to retire together, wish to make medical decisions for one another, and wish to be recognized as a married couple with all its attendant rights and responsibilities. Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment excludes the Bishop couple, and all otherwise eligible same-sex couples, from this privilege without a legally sufficient justification.

Emphasis added, for the Governor's benefit.

* This is from commenter Jodene at the BTB post:

Our governor had previously first refused to accept applications for benefits by same sex Guard couples. When that was found to be discriminatory she briefly just stopped accepting applications from any Guard member. In a state that is heavily military, that didn’t last. She was forced to obey federal law.

The current joke is she will soon refuse to have any marriages in Oklahoma.

I know, I know. . . .

I haven't been posting much lately. That's what reading the news these days will do to you. Let me see if I can find something of interest. . . .

First off, one of the Liars for Jesus(TM), Brian Brown, who has this to say in the wake of Maryland's successful ballot initiative to recognize same-sex marriages:

Well, actually no. No one's being "forced" to do anything.

"We’re a Christian-owned company, and we just can't support gay marriages," Grubbs said. "We're not trying to make a statement. We're not trying to make a point. We're just trying to be faithful Christians."

A couple of things about this: Maryland has had a gay-inclusive non-discrimination law on the books for a while. Suddenly, when it involves legal recognition of same-sex relationships, it's an intolerable burden on the religious beliefs of the owner of a public accommodation. Interesting timing, isn't it?

And yes, he is trying to make a statement -- if you read the story, he's petitioned for a religious exemption to the non-discrimination laws on the basis of his personal religious beliefs. The statement he's making is that his private beliefs trump everyone else's right to be treated equally under the law.

Read the comments at the article -- the ones about "government guns" are a scream.

And there you have a sterling example of why "Christian" has come to be synonymous with "bigot."

Oh, and Brian Brown is lying, but we sorta figured that. It's Brian Brown, after all, who I think gets today's Tony Perkins Award.

And next, the Liberty Counsel, trying to push the idea the belief is fact:

Pay special attention to the first sentence, and then read the rest. "Drug addiction"? That's certainly respectful, isn't it? It occurs to me that one could draw the same parallels, with a stronger correspondence, between drug addiction and adherence to certain forms of Christianity -- that certainly becomes a dependency, which, if you know anything about the science of sexual orientation, homosexuality is not.

The whole screed comes from some alternate universe, it really does.

Via.

On the home front, so to speak, marriage equality is coming to Illinois, one way or another, pretty soon. Some interesting numbers from PPP:

Fifty-eight percent of voters under age 45 support marriage equality, compared with 37 percent who oppose it, the poll found. Black voters supported same-sex marriage 60/16, PPP said. Latinos supported Illinois marriage equality at 70/23. The majority of white voters did not support same-sex marriage in Illinois with 40 percent supporting and 51 percent opposing.

The overall figure is still a plurality, and there's no way to figure how that's going to translate into votes in the legislature, but there's a court case that the state if refusing to defend, so the whole question of legislative action may become moot.

Maybe I should start husband-hunting.

The "fiscal cliff." Gods! what a bunch of bullshit. Margaret and Helen, bless 'em, have the best take:

In truth, I am pretty disgusted with all politicians right now. They’ve all gotten a little too predictable for my taste. Republicans want more money for the wealthy and more war. Democrats want to take care of the poor, the elderly and want more money for education programs… On second thought, I’m really just disgusted with Republican politicians.

If this is the best we can expect from Republican leadership, we have a bigger problem than going over some cliff. How about we just pass the President’s plan? If it fails, the Republicans might actually stand a chance in the next election. If it succeeds, the Republicans might finally have to move into the 21st Century.

Show me a fiscal cliff and I will gladly push McConnell and Boehner over the edge. Maybe then the grown ups can roll up their sleeves and get something done. Because how the hell is any deep thinking going to happen if those two insist on spending the whole day pissing in the baby pool? I mean it. Really.

Footnote: This is just the frosting on the cake:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced legislation to raise the debt ceiling on Thursday, apparently with the intent of showing that even Democrats would not support such a bill.

However, McConnell’s plan backfired after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a vote on the legislation, which would have given the president the authority to raise the federal debt ceiling on his own. The top Senate Republican was forced to filibuster his own bill.

And here I though Rand Paul was the stupidest sitting senator.

This is the Republican-controlled Senate:

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And on the happy side, Washington State began issuing marriage licenses at 12:01 am yesterday. And lots of couples were there to take advantage of the early opening.

Jane Abbott Lighty and Pete-e Petersen, a West Seattle couple of 35 years, were the first couple to get a license, after waiting decades to get marrired. As the clock struck midnight, a crowd led by King County Executive Dow Constantine clapped and cheered, and Lighty, 77, and Petersen, 85, raised their hands to take an oath.

"People who have been waiting all these years to have their rights recognized should not have to wait one minute longer," said Constantine, who stayed up into the wee hours to issue the county's first marriage licenses.

"To have our 35-year loving relationship publicly honored and celebrated and have this be a legal marriage means everything to both of us," said Lighty, a former nurse. She and Petersen, a former Korean War flight nurse, will be wed at a Seattle Men's Chorus concert at Benaroya Hall this weekend.

Because of Washington's three-day waiting period, the first weddings will take place on Sunday.

And in Maryland, which also began issuing licenses yesterday, the couples have to wait until Jan. 1 to be married, although the attorney general said it was OK to issue post-dated licenses.

Maine's marriage law takes effect on Dec. 29, a Saturday, but there's no waiting period. And the Portland City Hall will open at 12:01 am.

There, that's enough of a catch-up.

Clarification

This post by Scott Lemieux points out some of the obvious bullshit in Steve Chapman's post about "backlash". I was actually just going to make an additional point about the quote that Lemieux cites, but when I followed the link (which you should do from here, not there -- it's seriously messed up there) and started to read Chapman's piece, I discovered a bonanza of ignorance and misinformation. The subhead sort of says it all:

Voters should decide the future of same-sex marriage—not federal judges.

Now, granted that Chapman didn't write that himself, but one only need start reading to hit the dogsquat.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker struck down Proposition 8 because it "fails to advance any rational basis for singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license." But it's silly to believe only nut jobs and bigots could rationally oppose same-sex marriage, or that millions of Californians who accept other laws protecting gays were acting irrationally.

They might reasonably fear that in some subtle way, the legalization of gay marriage may gradually weaken the appeal of marriage among heterosexuals. They might think it will modestly increase out-of-wedlock childbearing. They might believe our understanding of the possible repercussions is so limited that we shouldn't tinker with an age-old institution in this way.

Are those concerns persuasive? Not to me. But they are plausible enough to contradict Walker's assertion that the only real justification for the ban is "the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."

Those very notions were addressed head-on by the plaintiffs in Perry and in Walker's opinion, beginning at Par. 79 on p. 107:

79. The Proposition 8 campaign relied on fears that children exposed to the concept of same-sex marriage may become gay or lesbian. The reason children need to be protected from same-sex marriage was never articulated in official campaign advertisements. Nevertheless, the advertisements insinuated that learning about same-sex marriage could make a child gay or lesbian and that parents should dread having a gay or lesbian child. . . .

80. The campaign to pass Proposition 8 relied on stereotypes to show that same-sex relationships are inferior to opposite-sex relationships. . . .

and on to the Conclusions, beginning on p. 123, which I am not going to insert here because they are long and legal and, all else being equal, the court has dealt with those issues quite thoroughly, but according to Chapman, that's not good enough because everyone knows that vague, unfounded fears trump reality and form a legitimate basis for limiting others' rights.

Chapman goes on to the Biblical right's favorite slippery slope: but what about polygamy?

What about it? That's not the question under discussion. If you want to sue for the right to marry your friend's 14-year-old niece and her sisters, go right ahead. We'll talk about it then.

This final bit is the icing on the cake:

The decision may very well lead the Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex marriage. If so, it would be the most polarizing decision since Roe v. Wade in 1973, which we are still fighting about.

It would spark a furious backlash from Americans who, whatever their views about homosexuality, think such decisions belong with them and their elected representatives. It could even lead to a constitutional amendment overturning the decision.

Thanks to Judge Walker, the debate is no longer about whether gays deserve protection from the law, a debate they were steadily winning. It is more about whether democratic processes should be trusted to resolve the question. That's a debate they are likely to lose.

1. Yes, Roe vs. Wade has been, although a consistently popular decision, polarizing because a minority on the right have chosen to make it so. They are well-funded and indefatigable and won't take "No" for an answer because God said so, or something.

2. No, it's not going to spark a furious backlash from Americans in general. It's going to spark a furious backlash from the wingnuts (see #1 above).

3. The courts are part of the democratic process in this country, a valuable and necessary part. Because of their unique and critically important role in upholding the rights of minorities, they have become a favorite target of the right, particularly those who have no love for our democratic institutions. Chapman seems to want to be counted among that number. The only way gays are going to lose the debate as Chapman frames it is if writers like Chapman continue to lie in print about the way our country really works for an audience that doesn't know any better (although it should).

Oh, and ignore the repeated protestations of Chapman's social liberalism. I'm calling bullshit of the Obama school: I believe in equal rights for all, but. . . .

Clueless

I just ran across this quote from B. Daniel Blatt, also known as "GayPatriot West," at Joe.My.God.

"Walker’s ruling, however, is not a policy brief, but a judicial decision striking down a popular provision in the California Constitution stipulating that the state only recognize unions between one man and one woman as 'marriages.' With his decision, the judge prevented the people from settling the controversial issue of how states could recognize same-sex couples and personally assuming the responsibility for determining how the state may regulate the unions it recognizes as married.

"To be sure, he makes a good case for gay marriage, but a lousy one for usurping the power from the people to decide this issue. In this sense, his ruling becomes a political boon for the GOP — as it can tie his decision to the increasing sense that our governing bodies (e.g., Congress and the various bureaucracies it has created) are disregarding the popular will as they make laws and set policy."

In the interest of fair play, here's a link to the full article.

I'm not going to deal with Blatt's full essay right now because I'm actually just taking a break from other things. It does seem on first reading, however, to be largely incoherent. (Granted, maybe it's not as bad as it seems, but I'll have to come back to it.)

However, just in this portion, Blatt makes a major error that he appears to have adopted wholesale from the anti-gay right, in his reference to the District Court "usurping the power of the people to decide this issue."

Y'know, I've got a copy of the Constitution sitting here on my desk, and I'm damned if I can find the part where it says the majority can rescind the fundamental rights of minorities by plebiscite. Nor have I ever run across a court decision affirming that right. I invite Dan to send me a citation from either the Constitution or the case law in support of his statement. (And I might note that Judge Walker does have precedent for his statement that in matters of fundamental rights, referenda are irrelevant.)

On top of everything else, the mere existence of the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment, which enjoins the states from abridging those rights, as integral parts of the Constitution (under Article V) argues against Blatt's statement: these are fundamental rights that cannot be abridged or rescinded except by an amendment to the Constitution itself. The "will of the people" is in fact, as Judge Walker pointed out, irrelevant.

Blatt is also playing into the cheap mantra about "activist judges," although he doesn't use the term (which would make his essay even more of a cliche than it already is). Point of fact, however, regarding his last sentence: the federal judiciary is not a "federal bureaucracy" created by Congress -- it is a separate and co-equal branch of government created by the Founders. (Are we making a little bid for some Tea Bagger support here?)

I am just so tired of reading this kind of crap from people who know better, or should, and quite frankly, if Blatt doesn't want to be lumped with those cynical politicians masquerading as "family values" activists -- as in, Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Andrea Lafferty, and their ilk -- he should just drop this sort of thing.