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Mississippi Again Tries To Hide Ceara Sturgis Because She’s A Lesbian

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Ceara Sturgis in 2009 wore a tuxedo for her 2010 high school yearbook senior photo (image, right.) School officials in her home state of Mississippi didn’t like that so they simply didn’t include her in the yearbook. Don’t like lesbians? Hide them from the public. Sturgis is now holding a commitment ceremony — Mississippi doesn’t allow same-sex marriage — and wanted to use a local museum for the event, after attending a wedding there. State officials at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum said no, because  a commitment ceremony is like a wedding — and Mississippi doesn’t allow same-sex marriage. So Mississippi officials are trying once again to hide Sturgis from the public and deny her her rights.

The concept that something is illegal because it is like something that is illegal is illogical at best and absolutely wrong in this case. Fortunately, the Southern Poverty Law Center is representing Ceara Sturgis and her partner, Emily Key, and have given the museum until July 25 to concede.

Noting the “state-owned museum refused to allow a similar ceremony for two men earlier this year,” Fox News of course published an antigay article titled, “Lesbian demands ceremony at Mississippi museum.”

The museum has said it interprets commitment ceremonies to represent a union and cites a 2009 opinion by Attorney General Jim Hood saying it could decline such ceremonies because same-sex marriage is banned in Mississippi.

The SPLC is not challenging Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage, but says the museum should allow commitment and marriage ceremonies to take place even if the couple won’t be recognized under state law.

“The Museum’s policy is premised on a misguided and erroneous interpretation of Mississippi state law and, further, violates the United States Constitution. We intend to challenge the Museum’s policy in federal court if the Museum does not rescind its policy against same-sex commitment and marriage ceremonies and honor our clients’ request,” the letter said.

Sturgis told The Associated Press Thursday that she went to a friend’s wedding at the museum and liked it, so she thought it would be the right place for her and Key to publically profess their love. She said they’re not asking the state to recognize them as a married couple, but they just want to be able to rent the venue for a celebration like a heterosexual couple could.

“Emily and I just want to have the same fair treatment as everyone else. We want to share our love with our friends and family,” Sturgis said.

Zack Ford at Think Progress notes:

Hood’s argument fails on its face. If it were true, then it would technically be illegal to have any kind of same-sex wedding or commitment ceremony. There is a difference between not recognizing same-sex unions and declaring them to be unlawful. What Hood seems to have suggested is that Sturgis and Key could be arrested simply by declaring their love for each other in front of their family and friends, which would obviously violate their right to free speech and expression. Given the growing number of religious denominations that recognize marriage equality, such a precedent would also be a clear violation of religious freedom.

For the state of Mississippi to declare that a same-sex commitment ceremony is unlawful behavior is an egregious attack on gay community and its personal liberties. It’s nothing more than a pathetic excuse for blatant anti-gay discrimination.

The American Family Association’s One New Now also published an article, quoting Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver:

“Now they’re being threatened by the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC], which is an organization that supports radical homosexual agenda items,” [Staver] reports. “This particular situation, I think, is one where in Mississippi, same-sex marriage is not recognized. And so it would be impermissible, I think, completely wrong to use government facilities to recognize something that is absolutely banned in the state of Mississippi.”

But Staver emphasizes that “the agenda of the sexual anarchist movement” is “to put this issue up — homosexuality, lesbianism and whatever the nomenclature of the alphabet may be from day to day — to simply push this into your face and to shove it down the throats of the American people. I believe that this threat of homosexuality and same-sex unions is the biggest threat to our family, to our morality and to our freedom that we face here in America,” the attorney concludes.

As for Mississippi, he believes the state stands on solid ground as it faces the threat of a lawsuit if it does not approve the ceremony by July 25.

Jeremy Hooper at Good As You responds to Staver:

I seriously can’t even comment on this. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go join my husband (aka fellow family threatener) at dinner (aka menu-based morality molester), where we we will consume pasta (aka freedom—fouling fusilli) and drink red wine (aka sexual anarchy’s chosen lubricant). Until tomorrow, my dear readers (aka nuclear bombs lying wait to destroy all that is holy).

According to readers, comments at One New Now are being deleted if they criticize Christianity.

Ceara Sturgis won her lawsuit against her high school last year.

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OPINION

‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is mocking House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer over a CNN report revealing the embattled Kentucky Republican who has been alleging without proof President Joe Biden is the head of a vast multi-million dollar criminal bribery and influence-peddling conspiracy, has given up trying to impeach the leader of the free world.

CNN on Wednesday had reported, “after 15 months of coming up short in proving some of his biggest claims against the president, Comer recently approached one of his Republican colleagues and made a blunt admission: He was ready to be ‘done with’ the impeachment inquiry into Biden.” The news network described Chairman Comer as “frustrated” and his investigation as “at a dead end.”

One GOP lawmaker told CNN, “Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out.”

“He is fed up,” the Republican added.

Despite the Chairman’s alleged remarks, “a House Oversight Committee spokesperson maintains that ‘the impeachment inquiry is ongoing and impeachment is 100% still on the table.'”

RELATED: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Last week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) got into a shouting match with Chairman Comer, with the Maryland Democrat saying, “You have not identified a single crime – what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going?” and Comer replying, “You’re about to find out.”

Before those heated remarks, Congressman Raskin chided Comer, humorously threatening to invite Rep. Moskowitz to return to the hearing.

Congressman Moskowitz appears to be the only member of the House Oversight Committee who has ever made a motion to call for a vote on impeaching President Biden, which he did last month, although he did it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

It appears the Moskowitz-Comer “bromance” may be over.

Wednesday afternoon Congressman Moskowitz, whose sarcasm is becoming well-known, used it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

“I was hoping our breakup would never become public,” he declared. “We had such a great thing while it lasted James. I will miss the time we spent together. I will miss our conversations. I will miss the pet names you gave me. I only wish you the best and hope you find happiness.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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OPINION

‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case centered on the question, can the federal government require states with strict abortion bans to allow physicians to perform abortions in emergency situations, specifically when the woman’s health, but not her life, is in danger?

The 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), signed into law by Republican President Ronald Reagan, says it can. The State of Idaho on Wednesday argued it cannot.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, The Washington Post’s Kim Bellware reported, “made a clear delineation between Idaho law and what EMTALA provides.”

“In Idaho, doctors have to shut their eyes to everything except death,” Prelogar said, according to Bellware. “Whereas under EMTALA, you’re supposed to be thinking about things like, ‘Is she about to lose her fertility? Is her uterus going to become incredibly scarred because of the bleeding? Is she about to undergo the possibility of kidney failure?’ ”

READ MORE: Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

Attorney Imani Gandy, an award-winning journalist and Editor-at-Large for Rewire News Group, highlighted an issue central to the case.

“The issue of medical judgment vs. good faith judgment is a huge one because different states have different standards of judgment,” she writes. “If a doctor exercises their judgment, another doctor expert witness at trial could question that. That’s a BIG problem here. That’s why doctors are afraid to provide abortions. They may have an overzealous prosecutor come behind them and disagree.”

Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito appeared to draw the most fire from legal experts, as his questioning suggested “fetal personhood” should be the law, which it is not.

“Justice Alito is trying to import fetal personhood into federal statutory law by suggesting federal law might well prohibit hospitals from providing abortions as emergency stabilizing care,” observed Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

Paraphrasing Justice Alito, Kreis writes: “Alito: How can the federal government restrict what Idaho criminalizes simply because hospitals in Idaho have accepted federal funds?”

Appearing to answer that question, Georgia State University College of Law professor of law and Constitutional scholar Eric Segall wrote: “Our Constitution unequivocally allows the federal gov’t to offer the states money with conditions attached no matter how invasive b/c states can always say no. The conservative justices’ hostility to the spending power is based only on politics and values not text or history.”

Professor Segall also served up some of the strongest criticism of the right-wing justice.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

He wrote that Justice Alito “is basically making it clear he doesn’t care if pregnant women live or die as long as the fetus lives.”

Earlier Wednesday morning Segall had issued a warning: “Trigger alert: In about 20 minutes several of the conservative justices are going to show very clearly that that they care much more about fetuses than women suffering major pregnancy complications which is their way of owning the libs which is grotesque.”

Later, predicting “Alito is going to dissent,” Segall wrote: “Alito is dripping arrogance and condescension…in a case involving life, death, and medical emergencies. He has no bottom.”

Taking a broader view of the case, NYU professor of law Melissa Murray issued a strong warning: “The EMTALA case, Moyle v. US, hasn’t received as much attention as the mifepristone case, but it is huge. Not only implicates access to emergency medical procedures (like abortion in cases of miscarriage), but the broader question of federal law supremacy.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

 

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Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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