ScottieThomaston
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@KayWhitlock Hey! And no problem! Right now it's kinda... we're in the middle of a slow time when nothing is happening haha. The Supreme Court cases are awaiting arguments (in two weeks) but the ones in the lower courts are all on hold. So there's less to do. It's weird. :)
I miss you all though
@nancy a heitzeg Great to see you too!
Wow. For once I don't even know what to say. Excellent piece.
I'm late here... but this is great! Thanks for this.
@nancy a heitzeg Same here. Did you see Scalia's comments a couple days ago? These cases are before the Court RIGHT NOW and he's going out and giving speeches comparing gays to murderers. He doesn't seem to care how it looks.
@KayWhitlock Good to see you too :) And thanks :)
I love doing it - especially right now at this time. It's like THE time to be writing about these issues.
@nancy a heitzeg I did want to mention: a lot of the discussion I saw came specifically from the LGBT legal organizations. Lots of them have been extremely interested and wanting to get involved in this. Lambda Legal especially was going on about it all day and had several posts. Thought that was really cool to see them so engaged.
And as far as DOMA and Prop 8 go... holy crap. You're telling me haha. That's why I've been so busy you can imagine since I work for a site that is covering these cases. I don't know if I can talk you down haha. I can say I'm more worried about Prop 8 than DOMA. I have no clue or even speculation on what will happen with Prop 8. For all we know they could end up saying they have to dismiss it for lack of legal standing to be in court.
But with DOMA I think they pretty much have to resolve the merits. It has now been struck down in two separate courts of appeals. They can't keep a federal law operable in some circuits and inoperable in others. And if I had to guess I'd say it'll be struck down 5-4 or 6-3 (6th vote would be CJ Roberts who will likely be Chief Justice for 25 years or more and probably doesn't want his legacy in ten years to be that he voted for DOMA. By then it will be common sense to support marriage equality or whatever relationships people enter into.)
I just think the arguments that it's unconstitutional are very easy to explain and obviously unconstitutional. It's hard to say that a law that says "for purposes of federal law only marriage is between a man and a woman" is rationally related to the interest of child bearing or reproduction or morality. How? These couples are still married and still having kids. So I think the Court would look really foolish if they uphold it.
Also keep in mind the case they took was the Windsor case. This is an 83 year old woman who was engaged for 40 years and got married in 2007. Her wife died in 2009 from a debilitating disease after she took care of her for years. Then Windsor was stuck with a $363,000 tax bill simply because of DOMA. I can't even imagine the headlines if they rule against this lady. They would make the Court look really bad.
So it just depends on if they care about that at all or not.
They may not. After all they took up affirmative action and a case on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. They appear to be ready to anger people and strike THOSE down.
So I am torn on what will happen.
(I'll most likely be there in the Court room for oral arguments though!)
@nancy a heitzeg Great to see you too! So happy to be able to get over here this time! (Life = busy.)
Hope you've been well!
And the main things I saw about it were just comments that it's happening and that it's unprecedented. I didn't dig too deep to see how productive the end result was to be honest.
I've been reading about the subcommittee meeting all day and following some discussion on Twitter. Really glad this is happening.
@rubyr Thank you!! :) :) I'm really happy too.
And no it's a "virtual office": I work out of my apartment in south Alabama and some others are in California, and others are in New York. So we're all spread out. Their main location is based in California, though.
@rubyr Me? At Prop 8 Trial Tracker (well, actually for Courage Campaign, who runs the site.) It is a seriously amazing job. I'm extremely happy there.
@KayWhitlock I think you're totally right. I've long thought DOMA was worse than even anti-marriage laws because it's a federal law imposing a strict definition of relationships, and I don't think that is something easily defined simply by an act of Congress. It's like, you know, why force one type of relationship onto those who don't fit into it?
And I don't know how much time you might have, but the House Report on DOMA is extremely chilling and telling. They say OUTRIGHT that DOMA is about preserving heterosexuality. They don't try to euphemize it or anything. It's actually in the text. It's very disturbing.
One odd little factoid about that: the attorney defending DOMA is Paul Clement, who also recently fought against the health care act. During the health care litigation he argued that the federal government can't channel people into an activity they were not going to otherwise participate in just for the sake of regulating their conduct.
In this litigation he is arguing that the federal government can enact DOMA as a means to channel people into heterosexual marriages, even where they weren't going to be in one.
Funny, that.
@Richard Lyon Thanks Richard :)
Great to see you over here! I should be over here myself more often. It feels like we're nearing the end of Section 3 of DOMA. Nerve-wracking haha.
@KayWhitlock Kay! Great to see you!
I'm glad it was useful. With at least one of these going to the Supreme Court, I just wanted to be as thorough as possible. The Supreme Court is a huge deal (even though DOMA itself isn't about marriage, just about the federal law that refuses to recognize already-legalized marriages.)
If you want an even <i>more</i> detailed look you could venture to the links I posted. I pretty much have gone over every filing in these cases and posted analyses of them. :)
@rubyr Thanks! I'm doing alright :) Hope you are too!
And yeah, well I do this for work now so I'm kind of immersed in the whole thing. It's fun, but tons of work and information.
@nancy a heitzeg No problem, I'm happy to help!