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STANDING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY: ‘Like, Is America Ready For The Big Gay Super Bowl?’

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STANDING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY examines ideas, events, places and people standing on the wrong as well as the right side of history.

I come from a family of sports fans. My dad, and mom and sister, our uncles and our aunts, most everyone but me, loved football. When they weren’t freezing in the stands, they were huddled around the TV watching “the  game.” Holidays were marked with a succession of games blaring at full volume. My mother could name every quarterback in the NFL and most of the coaches; when she died at 87 we had to cancel her subscription to Sports Illustrated. From her hospital bed, two days before her death, she reminded us to collect the $387 that Glenn — her bookie — still owed her. Glenn paid up and even sent flowers to the funeral home. At the funeral I spotted him in the back row.

I learned late in life to like the game; to appreciate the elegance of a well thrown pass; the athleticism of a spectacular catch and the thrill of watching someone kick a 63 yard field goal. Twenty-two hot men in spandex, huddling, hugging and patting each other on the butt only added to the allure. My new husband, my companion of 35 years, and I even went to a Sports Bar in Puerto Vallarta while on our honeymoon to root for the Seahawks who narrowly lost their exciting playoff game. And we’ll be watching Super Bowl XLVII with the other 100 million fans.

So Thursday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when I heard The Edge of Sports’ Dave Zirin say, “From the political perspective, this is like the LGBT super bowl in some respects. Like, is America ready for the big gay super bowl?” I almost dropped the cup of coffee I was holding and gave him my full attention.

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Zirin went on to contrast Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, a supporter of gay rights, and San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver, whose homophobic comments resulted in the 49ers’ management hurriedly issuing a formal statement rejecting his remarks and an unconvincing apology from Culliver  which had obviously been crafted by a 49ers’ public relations person. The 49ers, Zirin reminded viewers, was the first NFL team to produce a video for the It Gets Better campaign, an anti-bullying project aimed mostly at LGBTQ youth.

Adding fuel to this public relations fire in San Francisco, at the same time a proposal to rename San Francisco International Airport in honor of gay rights activist Harvey Milk was being discussed, two of Culliver’s team mates, Ahmad Brooks and Isaac Sopoaga, denied having participated in the video in which they can clearly be viewed, and when confronted with the evidence exacerbated the kerfuffle by saying if they had known the video was aimed at LGBTQ youth, they wouldn’t have participated. Dan Savage has since yanked the video from the It Gets Better website.

The week got curiouser and curiouser for the 49ers when it was revealed that former teammate, 30-year-old Kwame Harris, may face criminal charges after allegedly assaulting his ex-boyfriend last year. Outed by the news of his arrest, Harris took time out from his own problems to opine, “It’s surprising that in 2013 Chris Culliver would use his 15 minutes to spread vitriol and hate. I recognize that these are comments that he may come to regret and that he may come to see that gay people are not so different than straight people.”

Not everyone on the team shares Colliver’s, Brooks’, and Sopoaga’s attitude. Harris, who played for the 49ers from 2003 to 2007, had never revealed he was gay in public nor to his fellow players. Upon learning his former friend is gay, tight end Delanie Walker, who played alongside Harris for two seasons, said he didn’t see his former teammate any differently. “It probably wouldn’t affect me, but other guys might feel different,” Walker told USA Today. “If that’s what he’s into, that’s what he’s into. I can’t judge a person for how he feels. Things happen. He was a great player. And long snapper Brian Jennings observed, “We’re all there for the common purpose of winning football games. I don’t know if it mattered or if anyone was aware of his sexual orientation.”

In Baltimore, the Ravens’ Ayanbajedo sees the upcoming game as a platform to talk about marriage equality and anti-bullying. “It’s a message of positivity. It’s a message of equality. And it’s a chance to get it out. It’s not going to affect the way I play football, but it’s going to affect a lot of people’s lives off the field.”

His teammate, outside linebacker Terrell Suggs, when asked if he would have a problem with a gay teammate answered, “Absolutely not.” Suggs observed that the rest of the team would also welcome a gay teammate. “We wouldn’t have a problem with it,” he said. “We don’t care. Our biggest thing in the locker room is to just have fun and stay loose. We don’t really care too much about that. We’re a football team. I said it yesterday; everybody deserves a certain amount of privacy. Who cares? Whatever a person’s choice is, it’s their choice. On this team, with so many different personalities, we just accept people for who they are and we don’t really care too much about a player’s sexuality,” added Suggs. “To each their own. You know who you are, and we accept you for it.”

The next day, I watched MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interview Wade Davis, a former NFL cornerback who came out as gay last year after playing with the Tennessee Titans, and later with the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Redskins, from 2000-2004. On the show which aired February 1, the former NFL player said, “We need more straight allies [in sports] to speak up for the LGBT community.” His interview included reflections on why homophobia is so rampant in the sports world.  “I think that the real issue is the idea that a gay man can play sports is an attack to a straight guy’s masculinity.”

When asked about Chris Culliver’s remarks,  Davis, who has said, “at least three NFL players are ‘semi-openly’ gay,” which means they’re only open to their teammates, responded, “I was very hurt by it,  I thought, wow, this is going to help us have this conversation during the biggest game of the year, but then I also thought that, wow, there’s a lot of players who are closeted in the NFL that are going to go deeper into the closet  because of these comments.”

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And just this very Super Bowl morning, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry asked, “Is this going to be the gayest ever Super Bowl in history?”

Lest fans think that the NFL was embracing Ayanbajedo’s “positivity” and his teammates’ welcoming acceptance, on Friday the league-sanctioned Fourteenth Annual Super Bowl Gospel Celebration featured a lineup of homophobic religious singers and preachers who have said things so extreme they make Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum appear reasonable by comparison.

Why does any of this matter? Dave Zirin’s article in The Nation, “Is It Getting Better? Homophobia Rocks Super Bowl,” explains:

Well, it matters for a multitude of reasons. First, whether we like it or not, athletes are role models. Complaining about this fact of American life is like complaining that the sky is blue or John Boehner is orange. Therefore it makes a difference if they are modeling inclusion and respect for our LGBT friends and family. As Hudson Taylor, founder of the organization Athlete Ally said in a statement, “Chris Culliver’s comments are disrespectful, discriminatory and dangerous, particularly for the young people who look up to him.” It also matters because as long as there has been football, from its inception when Teddy Roosevelt would lash out at “sissies” who refused to play, it has been one of the ways manhood has been defined in the United States. Being a “real man” means playing through pain, harming others and limping away when the game is done. To be gay means, as Culliver said in a modern incarnation of Teddy Roosevelt, you are bringing “that sweet stuff in the locker room.” When NFL players like Ayanbadejo, Chris Kluwe, and Scott Fujita speak out for gay rights, they are also implicitly speaking out against these rigid, crushing, social constructions that are long overdue to be thrown in the dustbin of history.

Of course I have no idea what the outcome of the game will be. As I write this, odds-makers in Las Vegas are calling the 49ers the favorite by 3½ points. (They also give a 36% chance Beyonce’s hair will be straight, not curly – $100 wins $150.) If they were still alive, Glenn would be telling my mother, “Sylvia, the Ravens are the underdogs.” But I don’t see it that way. Regardless of the final score, the Ravens are clearly the winners. And Brendon Ayanbadejo and Terrell Suggs are standing on the right side of history.

Image, top, by Joe Brokken

 

Stuart Wilber believes that living life openly as a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Allied person is the most powerful kind of activism. Shortly after meeting his partner in Chicago in 1977, he opened a gallery named In a Plain Brown Wrapper, where he exhibited cutting edge work by leading artists; art that dealt with sexuality and gender identification. In the late 1980’s when they moved to San Clemente, CA in Orange County, life as an openly gay couple became a political act. They moved to Seattle 16 years ago and married in Canada a few weeks after British Columbia legalized same-​sex marriage. When Marriage Equality became the law in Washington State, they married on the first possible day permitted which was the first day of their 36th year together. Although legally married in some states and some countries, they are still treated as second class citizens by the federal government. Equality continues to elude him. (Photo by Mathew Ryan Williams)

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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April 25, 2024

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

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Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

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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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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7 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

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

She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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

 

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