David Boies’ WSJ Gay Marriage Triumph
The big news today is David Boies’ Op-Ed, “Gay Marriage and the Constitution,” in The Wall Street Journal. Boies is the lawyer who represented presidential candidate Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, and is now, along with former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, whom he faced in Bush v. Gore, suing the State of California to overturn Prop 8.
Boise makes some eloquent and sound observations, which I’ll share, but I also thought it would be interesting to share with you a few of the almost 300 comments readers made on the Op-Ed.
It’s important to note that The Wall Street Journal is, perhaps, if not the last bastion, certainly the largest mass media representative, of America’s conservative financial elites. For such a “liberal” attorney to appear in the Journal’s hallowed pages is itself a triumph for us, and for his words to be so clear and inarguable, and read by millions of American conservatives who actually has the ability to make change in the fabric of this nation’s thinking is, perhaps for us, the greatest triumph.
That said, I give you a few selections from Boies’, “Gay Marriage and the Constitution”:
“…this is not a Republican or Democratic issue, not a liberal or conservative issue, but an issue of enforcing our Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and due process to all citizens.”
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the right to marry the person you love is so fundamental that states cannot abridge it.”
“The occasional suggestion that marriages between people of different sexes may somehow be threatened by marriages of people of the same sex does not withstand discussion. It is difficult to the point of impossibility to envision two love-struck heterosexuals contemplating marriage to decide against it because gays and lesbians also have the right to marry; it is equally hard to envision a couple whose marriage is troubled basing the decision of whether to divorce on whether their gay neighbors are married or living in a domestic partnership.”
“The ban on same-sex marriages written into the California Constitution by a 52% vote in favor of Proposition 8 is the residue of centuries of figurative and literal gay-bashing.”
“…the ban on permitting gay and lesbian couples to actually marry is simply an attempt by the state to stigmatize a segment of its population that commits no offense other than falling in love with a disapproved partner, and asks no more of the state than to be treated equally with all other citizens.”
Now, an array of comments from readers of the Op-Ed:
JAMES WRIGHT: “When I say I am married people assume my spouse is of the oppisite (sic) sex as that is what the term has always meant.”
Juan Diaz: “When someone tells me they are married, I assume they are married to the person they love. Why are people so obsessed with sex and sexual acts that they cannot think of marriage as having to do with two people who love each other and are legally committed to each other?”
Bill Jones: “The only solution here is choice and free markets.”
Joseph Lewis: “When Mr. Boies says that choosing to engage in homosexuality is like being black, at what point does the homosexual become a black person? When they are born with the potential to choose homosexuality? When they first experiment? When they become addicted to homosexuality? Are white people like heterosexuals in your analogy? What about people born with anger management control issues, what race are they like? Are people who choose to turn from homosexuality to heterosexuals like white or black people?”
David Grossman: (quoting another reader:)”If any homosexual couple, civil or otherwise, find that they require the legal imprimatur of the state as a condition for the success of their relationship, they need a lot more help than the state can or should offer.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(commenting:) So why exactly do heterosexual couples require the legal imprimatur of the state and not homosexuals?”
Murdoch Bird: “So let me get this straight, Gary (no pun intended). You want undisputable scientific proof that gays are “born gay”, but you forcefully believe that “God placed Adam and Even (sic) in the Garden of Eden.”
You’re funny.
If we have to explain precisely why gays are gay before they are entitled to equal rights, perhaps we could also strip away all of Christians’ equal rights – and for that matter, special rights to things like tax exemptions for their churches – until we’ve conclusively determined the cause of Christianity and satisfied ourselves that it is not a lifestyle choice. After all, we give away a tremendous amount of our tax dollars to faith-based initiatives and there are lots of Christians out there who ADMIT their lifestyle is a choice!! Why should people who chose a ridiculous lifetyle that believes that the human race decended from a couple named Adam and Eve get a dime of my money?”
Nicholas Divita: “…heterosexuals have done a fine job, all by themselves, of corroding marriage as an institution. To suggest that same sex marriage will destroy marriage is silly. Divorce, adultery, alcoholism, drug abuse, piles of debt, and other rampant forms of dissolute individual behavior over the past 50 years have done a superb job of undermining marriage with little or no help from the homosexuals of the world.”
Bill Jones: “It is a FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION to be for free markets, free people, and liberty, and to be opposed to gay marriage.
It makes no sense.”
Mike Chambers: “Do you think attempting to get a majority of southerners to vote for integration would have been a better way to go then by judicial “fiat”?”
Michael Schmidt: “Gay people just can’t seem to get a break. For years, they were castigated as sex-crazed abberants engaging in a non-stop orgy of multiple sex partners and hedonistic behavior. Now they seek to marry, set up committed relationships, raise kids (gasp!) and basically pursue the traditional version of the American dream – and they’re still criticized!”
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President Donald Trump is promising mass pardons to White House staff, and has done so repeatedly, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting, to laughs, the Journal reported, citing people familiar.
“That radius,” the Journal added, “appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.”
Trump at one point said he would hold a news conference to announce the mass pardons.
“The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said,” the Journal reported.
The Journal did not state if the pardons would be blanket pardons, but reported that those familiar with his remarks “said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts.”
READ MORE: White House Fires Back After President’s Doctor Is Asked to Test Trump’s Mental Fitness
The report also noted that Trump has often seriously pursued actions he initially had joked about.
“It seems like he previewed many times his intent to use the pardon power to bail out those who carry out his agenda faithfully,” Liz Oyer, a former Trump Justice Department pardon attorney told the Journal. She also “said the offers could spur Cabinet officials and administration officials to behave more aggressively.”
While Trump did not pardon White House or other officials in conjunction with the events of January 6, 2021, on his first day back in office he did issue sweeping pardons to roughly 1,500 of those who were at the Capitol that day and later arrested.
READ MORE: ‘Only Reason They Are Alive’: Trump Again Threatens Iran in Unhinged Truth Social Post
Image via Reuters
The White House is fighting back after a prominent House Democrat demanded that the Physician to the President test Donald Trump’s mental fitness, citing the president’s recent remarks.
“At a time when our country is at war—especially when the war was initiated by the President without congressional declaration or consent—the American people must be able to trust that the Commander-in-Chief has the mental capacity to discharge the essential duties of his office,” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin wrote to the President’s Physician, Captain Sean P. Barbabella, D.O., in a letter published by Punchbowl News.
“I therefore request that you conduct a comprehensive cognitive assessment of President Donald Trump, provide those results to Congress, and make yourself available to brief Congress on your findings.”
Congressman Raskin noted that experts “have repeatedly warned that the President has been exhibiting signs consistent with dementia and cognitive decline.”
“And, in recent days, the country has watched President Trump’s public statements and outbursts turn increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening. His apparently deteriorating condition has caused tremendous alarm across the nation (and political spectrum) about the President’s cognitive function and continuing mental fitness for the office of President, and prompted concerns about the President’s well-being.”
Raskin noted that during the Biden presidency, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer called President Biden’s mental acuity “one of the greatest scandals in our nation’s history,” and subpoenaed the White House Physician.
He also noted that during that time, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan declared that a president who is not cognitively fit, “isn’t fit for office.”
Raskin offered some examples, including Trump’s recent message to Iran, which the Congressman described as combining “vulgarity and profanity, unprecedented threats of mass civilian destruction, and a sarcastic invocation of Islam on Easter morning—a bizarre display that shocked tens of millions of Americans and astonished observers across the political spectrum.”
Trump had written: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——’ Strait, you crazy b——, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
The New York Times had described Trump’s remarks as a “blistering threat” that “would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.”
Raskin is insisting that Dr. Barbabella conduct “a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment of the President, including a formal cognitive screening instrument, and publicly release the results.”
Also, it asks him to provide “a detailed report on the President’s current mental and physical health status, including any medications he is currently taking and their potential,” and make himself available for a briefing under oath.
The White House wasted no time in responding, telling Courthouse News’ Benjamin S. Weiss: “Lightweight Jamie Raskin is a stupid person’s idea of a smart person.”
“President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the past four years when Democrats like Raskin intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people,” the White House added.
Image via Reuters
Ahead of diplomatic talks starting Saturday, President Donald Trump once again threatened Iran with violence as critics charge his tenuous cease-fire has fallen apart.
“As Vice President JD Vance was heading to Pakistan on Friday for peace talks with Iran, a senior Iranian official laid out new conditions for the negotiations, adding even more uncertainty about the durability of the cease-fire and whether the two sides could reach a long-term deal,” The New York Times reports, noting that President Trump “warned Tehran not to overplay its hand.”
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” the President wrote on Truth Social.
“The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” he declared.
His remarks seemed to echo his highly-criticized comments earlier this week:
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
On April 1, Trump wrote, “we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
Some ridiculed the president.
“Completely controlling the Strait of Hormuz and charging ships a $2 million toll to pass through seem to be a couple of pretty good cards,” noted attorney Adam Cohen.
Reason’s Matthew Petti added, “You might say that Iran’s only cards are…a strait flush.”
Image via Reuters
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