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Start Acting Like It

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Despite the 72 degrees here in Manhattan, there’s a crispness in the air. It’s fall, the season that is supposed to represent the beginning of dormancy, a shortening of summer’s long days and fun times, a letting-go of play and a return to the seriousness of work.

And yet, I don’t think America had a fun summer.

We had the attack of the birthers and deathers. We had play-cowboys with real guns attend presidential speeches and congressional town halls. For all our focus on health care this summer, few have realized the tremendous irony shooting us in the face: America is a country in the midst of a nervous breakdown.

Bob Herbert reminded me of this, in his New York Times column this week when he wrote,

“Looking back at the past few months, it’s fair to wonder if the country isn’t going through a nervous breakdown… We need therapy… The first step, of course, is to recognize that we have a problem.”

A Problem, Indeed

I often write about the “gay community.” Truth be told, there isn’t one. Like the “straight community,” there are many. Both have many different ideas, ideals, morals, goals, and behaviors. And yet, across very different camps, many within the “gay community” spent a good part of the spring trying to get what the “straight community” already has: civil marriage.

Legal recognition of our equality is what a great many of us are trying to obtain. But there are a few things, perhaps more important, that we need to achieve first: an across-the-board recognition within the gay community that we actually want and deserve full equality, with all its rights and responsibilities, and that we are willing to fight for it. And the one pre-requisite that has to happen before any of this: we have to start acting like it.

Herbert wonders if America is going through a nervous breakdown. I wonder if the gay community is. I do know that our fractured, disinterested, distracted collective is neither doing enough to get better nor to make things better.

And yes, it’s been a constant game of win-lose-win-lose.

Taking a Toll

Despite our marriage equality wins this spring, despite our communal temper-tantrum that led to the Hate Crimes Bill making its way through Congress and the talk of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the gay community is too silent on matters that affect us just as much, if not more deeply, than those the rest of the country is confronting.

Take California. Less than one year after Prop 8 passed, less than four months after it was upheld by California’s Supreme Court, we can’t even get enough people to call Governor Schwarzenegger’s office to voice support for the proposed Harvey Milk Day bill. 100,000 people called – the majority reportedly in opposition to the bill.

Yes, there are bright spots. Grass-roots organizations and individuals are making a difference every day. My fellow gay writers and bloggers work long days, often with little or no compensation, to help move the ball forward. And we’re having some success.

But those in straight community, in the form of conservatives, gay marriage opponents, and the religious right, have enslaved us for far too long. And it’s taken its toll.

Because most of us can’t get married, we’ve approached relationships differently. Our opponents like to say we have all the rights we need – and deserve. What they don’t talk about is the security they have that comes in the form of societal recognition. We know that the bond of marriage is not only a goal, but an aid to maintaining a relationship through troubled times. It’s a lot easier to walk away when there are no legal issues, common property, children, or even the reaction of family, friends, and neighbors to stop you.

Acting Like We Want It

And because we don’t have this responsibility, some of us often don’t act with the same level of responsibility that straights purport to have. Much to our detriment, and, dare I say, much to the secret delight of our foes, many in our community are still acting as teenagers, more interested in having fun and sex today than taking a healthy interest in achieving equality tomorrow.

David Phillips wrote me about this, saying,

“DADT is perhaps the best word to describe most male couples I’ve known.”

I refuse to believe that’s true across the board.

While there are a great many long-term same-sex relationships, many gay relationships aren’t necessarily long-lasting – not because we’re not capable or desirous of long-term relationships, but – in part -because society has not put the same focus on same-sex marriage that it has on “traditional” marriage. Remember, the Bush administration spent $300 million a year to promote “traditional” marriage.

And no, I’m not blaming our shortcomings on society.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

So, as we move into the fall season, as we look to fight new battles for marriage equality, perhaps in New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and as we move back to fight again for Maine and California, maybe we should pause for a moment and ask ourselves, does the majority of the gay community really want marriage equality? And if we do, are we going to start acting like it?

Note: This post was originally published at The Bilerico Project.

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News

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

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29 mins 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.”

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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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News

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

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3 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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The county clerk for Ingham County, Michigan blasted Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump after the ex-president’s daughter-in-law bragged the RNC will have people to “physically handle” voters’ ballots in polling locations across the country this November.

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots,” Trump told Newsmax host Eric Bolling this week, as NCRM reported.

“Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?” Bolling asked.

“Yup,” Trump replied.

Marc Elias, the top Democratic elections attorney who won 63 of the 64 lawsuits filed by the Donald Trump campaign in the 2020 election cycle (the one he did not win was later overturned), corrected Lara Trump.

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

“Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots. She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices,” Elias warned on Wednesday.

Barb Byrum, a former Michigan Democratic state representative with a law degree and a local hardware store, is the Ingham County Clerk, and thus the chief elections official for her county. She slammed Lara Trump and warned her the RNC had better not try to touch any ballots in her jurisdiction.

“I watched your video, and it’s riveting stuff. But if you think you’ll be touching ballots in my state, you’ve got another thing coming,” Byrum told Trump in response to the Newsmax interview.

“First and foremost, precinct workers, clerks, and voters are the only people authorized to touch ballots. For example, I am the County Clerk, and I interact with exactly one voted ballot: My own,” Byrum wrote, launching a lengthy series of social media posts educating Trump.

“Election inspectors are hired by local clerks in Michigan and we hire Democrats and Republicans to work in our polling places. We’re required by law to do so,” she continued. “In large cities and townships, the local clerks train those workers. In smaller cities and townships, that responsibility falls to County Clerks, like me.”

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She explained, “precinct workers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Michigan.”

“Among the provisions in the Michigan Constitution is the right to a secret ballot for our voters,” she added.

Byrum also educated Trump on her inaccurate representation of the consent decree, which was lifted by a court, not a judge’s death, as Lara Trump had claimed.

“It’s important for folks to understand what you’re talking about: The end of a consent decree that was keeping the RNC from intimidating and suppressing voters (especially in minority-majority areas).”

“With that now gone, you’re hoping for the RNC to step up their game and get people that you train to do god-knows what into the polling places.”

Byrum also warned Trump: “If election inspectors are found to be disrupting the process of an orderly election OR going outside their duties, local clerks are within their rights to dismiss them immediately.”

“So if you intend to train these 100,000 workers to do anything but their sacred constitutional obligation, they’ll find themselves on the curb faster than you can say ‘election interference.'”

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

 

 

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OPINION

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

Published

19 hours ago

on

April 24, 2024

By

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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