Same-Sex Marriage: Does National Strategy Trump Private Citizens’ Right To A Trial Decision?
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
A federal judge yesterday was expected to hear and rule on a same-sex marriage and adoption case that could have found Michigan‘s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Instead, the judge, who had scheduled the hearing of the case at a Michigan law school because he thought it would be instructional for the Wayne State University students, quickly announced he was delaying his ruling until after the Supreme Court had decided the Prop 8 and DOMA cases, which surprised most people in the room.
READ:Â Same-Sex Marriage Might Be Legal In Michigan By The End Of The Day Today
But as it turns out, some were likely not surprised, namely, state and national LGBT organizations that filed an amicus brief that offered support — albeit somewhat tepid, one could argue — for overturning the Michigan ban on same-sex marriage and for finding in favor of the couple’s right to jointly adopt their three toddlers, aged three and four, two of whom have special needs.
In fact, as Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed reported, the LGBT organizations that signed the amicus brief “wrote that before resolving the Michigan couple’s case, ‘this Court may determine that it is prudent to await decision’ in the California Proposition 8 case at the Supreme Court.”
“Although the LGBT groups’ moves have been out of the spotlight as the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases took center stage,” Geidner added, “they shed light on the careful approach LGBT legal advocacy organizations have taken in the past couple of years. Although courtroom successes have been plenty in challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, more direct marriage-rights cases have met with mixed results. Although courts in the Proposition 8 challenge have found the California amendment to be unconstitutional, federal marriage equality lawsuits in Hawaii and Nevada were rejected by trial courts.”
Regular readers of The New Civil Rights Movement are very familiar with this Michigan case. Jayne Rowse and April Deboer are a lesbian couple, together more than ten years, both nurses, who have singly but not jointly been allowed to adopt three toddlers, Nolan, Ryanne, and Jacob, (one of whom, frankly, was expected to not live) and sued the state at first only for the right to adopt their children as a couple. When the federal court judge suggested they amended their case and ask the court to overturn as unconstitutional Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage, they took some time to consider it, and ultimately decided to move forward to challenge the marriage ban.
“The case, initially filed in January 2012, came only after several LGBT organizations declined to participate, Dana Nessel, one of the couple’s attorneys, told BuzzFeed Thursday,” Geidner reports:
“What they told us is that they refuse to touch anything in the Sixth Circuit [Court of Appeals].”
The fear: they would lose.
Jay Kaplan of the ACLU of Michigan told BuzzFeed Friday that Nessel’s assessment was accurate, saying, “If you’re going to bring a marriage equality claim, you want to be sure that you’re going to be successful at all stages of the process.” Of the Sixth Circuit, he said, “There is not a progressive majority on the court.”
At issue here is strategy. And rights — not the right of the couple to adopt and to marry (which should be a foregone conclusion, and hopefully someday soon will be,) but the right of LGBT organizations who have contributed absolutely not one penny to support the case, and almost zero support otherwise, with the exception of the amicus brief.
(In fairness, Equality Michigan has publicly expressed support of the couple’s case in the Huffington Post and elsewhere.)
The brief easily could be seen as not wildly supportive — and perhaps that’s a legal strategy too. It hems and haws and is written in a manner that might lead someone to conclude the signatories are nervous.
But most if not all of the LGBT organizations who drafted and/or signed the amicus brief are pros in the field: the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Fund of Michigan, Equality Michigan, the Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRC), Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., National Center for Lesbian Rights, Family Equality Council, Affirmations Community Center, Ruth Ellis Center, and KICK.
And there was an option: say nothing. Or, a better option: say something to argue unequivocally and unwaveringly.
April, Jayne, Nolan, Ryanne, and Jacob desperately need help, support, and relief from the state. (Try raising three special needs toddlers on the salaries of two unmarried nurses.)
The LGBT organizations are tasked with strategizing and ultimately securing equality for all. But has their long-term strategy hurt or harmed the chances of a short-term win for Jayne and April?
Imagine what would have happened had the judge struck down as unconstitutional Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage, less than three weeks before the Supreme Court took up two landmark same-sex marriage cases?
We’ll never know, but it certainly can be said that there are many who felt optimistic about where the judge was headed.
“This court may find that denying same-sex couples the ability to obtain second parent adoptions is unconstitutional without addressing the question of whether Michigan may deny same-sex couples the ability to marry because these two claims are separate,” part of the amicus brief reads.
“Second parent adoptions are at the core of the relief sought by the plaintiffs, and can be granted regardless of whether ams-sex couples are allowed to marry in Michigan,” reads another section.
Here’s the amicus brief. You decide. Did April Jayne, Nolan, Ryanne, and Jacob deserve unfettered support?
Â
Adoption Amicus Curiae Motion and Brief by davidbadash
http://www.scribd.com/embeds/129357946/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-1dmlrbn3jjbt981ajxl5
Editor’s note:Â The New Civil Rights Movement reached out to several of the LGBT orgs who signed the brief. Only one responded before publication.
Â
For more, read The New Civil Rights Movement’s Jean Ann Esselink‘s reports:
On Our Radar – Do Children In Same-Sex Families Have A Right To Be Equal?
Federal Judge Encourages Lesbian Couple To Take On Michigan’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Michigan Couple Take Judge’s Suggestion To Challenge State’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Oakland County Refuses To Defend Michigan’s Ban On Same-Sex Marriage And Adoption
Â
You can help support April and Jayne through the Deboer Rowse Fund, which is also on Facebook.
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Americans — it is becoming increasingly clear — are struggling to pay for basic necessities, like groceries, utility bills, health care, housing, and transportation. This is President Donald Trump’s “blind spot” and “Achilles heel,” according to Politico Playbook, based on a just-released Politico poll which calls its findings “a grim portrait of spending constraints.”
“Half of those surveyed said they find it difficult to pay for food. And a majority, 55 percent, blame the Trump administration for the high prices — even as the White House emphasizes its focus on affordability and the economy ahead of the midterm,” Politico noted.
On health care — one of the top concerns along with food and housing — nearly half of American adults find it “difficult” to afford. About one quarter of Americans (27%) have skipped a doctor’s visit or a prescription dose (23%) because of cost.
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Pointing to Trump’s Tuesday night Pennsylvania rally, where he read the script and ad libbed his thoughts — “calling affordability a ‘hoax’ — before admitting he’s no longer ‘allowed’ to use the phrase,” Playbook reported that the president “made clear his lack of conviction in the whole premise.”
He mocked the word “affordability,” his own price charts, his pre-prepared speech, and “admitted he was only on tour at the urging of chief of staff Susie Wiles.”
“Trump revived his ill-advised line that it’s fine if parents can’t afford so many toys and pencils for their kids now prices are higher due to tariffs. ‘You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter,’ he told the crowd. ‘Two or three is nice.'”
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This speech was supposed to be — according to the White House — “a positive economic, a focused speech, where he talks about all that he and his team has done to provide bigger paychecks and lower prices for the American people.”
After detailing many other off-script remarks, Playbook reported, “None of this should be surprising. We all know Trump likes to ramble. ‘I love the weave,’ he mused at one point. ‘If I read what’s on the teleprompter, you would all be falling asleep right now.’ On this topic, his heart just ain’t in it.”
“How much does all this matter?” Playbook asked. “Potentially, quite a lot. In theory, this was the first date of a multi-leg tour running right through 2026. If Trump doesn’t hone his messaging on affordability, it’s going to create a lot more ammunition for opponents over the next 11 months.”
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Image via Reuters
A Wall Street Journal opinion columnist is blasting President Donald Trump’s policies and remarks, warning that the affordability issue “could sink” his presidency.
Trump is underwater on his handling of inflation, and will deliver a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening that the White House says will be “a positive economic, a focused speech, where he talks about all that he and his team has done to provide bigger paychecks and lower prices for the American people.”
But columnist William A. Galston says “there’s a problem: Mr. Trump isn’t buying it. He has denounced the focus on affordability as a Democratic ‘con job,’ a ‘scam’ and a ‘hoax.'”
READ MORE: ‘Loyalty to the President’: Former Civil Rights Staff Expose Trump-Era ‘Purge’ Inside DOJ
“Starting the day I take the oath of office,” Trump told voters last year on the campaign trail, “I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again.”
Galston noted: “The American people were listening, and they expect Mr. Trump to honor his promises. Right now, they couldn’t be blamed for thinking he isn’t even trying.”
And he blasted the president for ignoring the situation.
“’The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows it is far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden,’ he said at a recent White House event. In other words: Keep moving, folks, nothing to see here.”
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Galston noted that economist Stephen Moore, an outside Trump adviser, “says that the president’s low standing on the affordability issue is a ‘messaging problem.’ It isn’t; it’s a reality problem.”
Americans know the problem when they see that some items “are especially unaffordable,” Galston added.
He pointed out that the cost of shelter — rents and mortgage — are up 3.6% over the past year.
Home insurance premiums, he said, are expected to rise 8%. Electricity is up 11% since January, the month Trump took office.
By “rescinding duties on some agricultural goods last month, including beef, bananas and coffee, Mr. Trump tacitly conceded that tariffs put upward pressure on prices,” Galston wrote, adding that removing those tariffs is not enough.
READ MORE: ‘Upend Political Map’: Trump Aides Expect Supreme Court Rulings to Help GOP in Midterms
Image via Reuters
About 200 former attorneys and staff from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice are warning of the “near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel,” and what they call Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “demand” for “loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
“For decades, the non-partisan work of the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has protected all Americans—especially the most vulnerable—from unfair treatment and unequal opportunities,” they write in a letter dated Tuesday. They added that “after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave—along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys.”
Bloomberg Law reported on Tuesday that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will now focus only on “intentional discrimination,” and not “policies that may appear neutral but disproportionately affect racial minorities and other protected classes.”
READ MORE: ‘Appearance of Quid Pro Quo’: Sotomayor Confronts GOP Lawyer in Campaign Finance Argument
In their letter, the former attorneys and staff specifically state that they left the Civil Rights Division “because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights,” and that it “achieved this goal by discarding much of the Division’s most impactful work.”
The group blasted Attorney General Bondi, who, they said, “issued a series of memos that subverted the Division’s mission in favor of President Trump’s political agenda.”
“One stood out: it insinuated that DOJ attorneys were Trump’s personal lawyers, an assertion that struck at the heart of the agency’s independence. Bondi’s demand to us was obvious: loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
In another scathing section, they charged that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon “focused her efforts on ‘driving [the Civil Rights Division] in the opposite direction’ of its longstanding purpose.”
READ MORE: ‘Upend Political Map’: Trump Aides Expect Supreme Court Rulings to Help GOP in Midterms
They allege she issued mission statements “that included fighting diversity initiatives instead of race-based discrimination, investigating baseless allegations of voter fraud rather than protecting the right to vote, and dropping any mention of the Fair Housing Act, a landmark 1968 law that protects Americans from landlords’ racial discrimination and sexual harassment.”
And they charge that the administration “demanded that we find facts to fit the Administration’s predetermined outcomes.”
“Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out,” they wrote. “The campaign to purge staff culminated in Dhillon encouraging everyone to resign after a period of paid leave while threatening layoffs if enough staff did not accept.”
Christine Stoneman, one of the letter’s signatories, told Bloomberg Law, “It is a sad commentary that in this anniversary of the Civil Rights Division, the Trump administration has chosen to eliminate a regulation that, for nearly 60 years has helped root out illegal race and national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds.”
READ MORE: White House Tees Up Trump Speech With ‘Con Artists’ Blast at Democrats
Image via Reuters
‘Appearance of Quid Pro Quo’: Sotomayor Confronts GOP Lawyer in Campaign Finance Argument
‘Reality Problem’: Columnist Says Trump ‘Isn’t Even Trying’ to Honor His Promises
‘Upend Political Map’: Trump Aides Expect Supreme Court Rulings to Help GOP in Midterms
‘Loyalty to the President’: Former Civil Rights Staff Expose Trump-Era ‘Purge’ Inside DOJ
‘His Heart Just Ain’t in It’: Report Reveals Trump’s ‘Achilles Heel’
‘His Heart Just Ain’t in It’: Report Reveals Trump’s ‘Achilles Heel’
‘Reality Problem’: Columnist Says Trump ‘Isn’t Even Trying’ to Honor His Promises
‘Loyalty to the President’: Former Civil Rights Staff Expose Trump-Era ‘Purge’ Inside DOJ
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