Connect with us

Guess How Much Fighting Same-Sex Marriage Just Cost The State Of Michigan?

Published

on

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and his GOP Attorney General, Bill Schuette, fought same-sex marriage all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and were just forced to pay the bill.

For years, the women who today are April and Jayne DeBoer-Rowse fought the State of Michigan for the right to marry, because they wanted to jointly adopt their children. Both women are pediatric nurses and each had adopted one or two of their three children, some of whom have special needs. (Today, they have four children.) In fact, originally they filed suit against Michigan not for the right to marry, merely for the right to co-adopt, in case something happened and one or the other parent wasn’t legally recognized.

Every step of the way, Gov. Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette fought them. When they won their federal case, Snyder and Schuette appealed to the 6th Circuit, and that’s where April and Jayne lost, creating a constitutional crisis that forced the case to the Supreme Court. 

April and Jayne and couples from three other states finally won in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Along the way, Schuette’s battle against them and same-sex marriage was atrocious.

One of Schuette’s expert witnesses, a professor who has ties to NOM, told the court he believes gay people are going to hell.

Schuette also offered up Mark Regnerus, author of a massively discredited “study” that falsely claimed to find children raised by same-sex parents grow up with a host of problems not seen by their peers raised by different-sex couples. The judge tossed his testimony out.

Gov. Snyder along the way decided that 322 couples who had been legally married after the first case was won, no longer were and his government would “suspend” and not recognize their marriages. AG Schuette even said at one point those marriages “never existed.”

And finally, the bill has come due.

Thanks to Gov. Snyder and AG Schuette, the taxpayers of the state of Michigan just paid $1.9 million in attorney fees.

Money that never should have had to have been spent in the first place.

Dana Nessel and Carole Stanyar are the attorneys who worked tirelessly on the case.

“Four years without a paycheck, fronting costs in a case of this magnitude, was certainly hard on our families,” Stanyar told the Detroit News. “The fee statute was enacted to empower and encourage the vindication of civil rights. I do feel empowered, and very encouraged. So I guess the law is working as Congress intended.”

“If our case motivates younger lawyers to stand up for people, do the right the thing, that would be great,” Stanyar says.

April and Jayne married in August. Here’s video:

 

Image: Screenshot via WXYZ-TV Detroit/YouTube

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Like Al Capone Complaining About Organized Crime’: Jim Jordan Slammed for Demanding Manhattan DA Testify

Published

1 hour ago

on

March 21, 2023

By

House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is under fire after sending notice to Alvin Bragg on Monday demanding the Manhattan District Attorney currently investigating Donald Trump’s possibly unlawful payoff to Stormy Daniels testify before Congress to explain the ongoing case.

Legal experts have said Jordan’s letter, which was also signed by the powerful House Oversight Chair Jim Comer, could be considered obstruction of justice.

Late Tuesday morning Jordan took to Twitter to defend his actions, which many see as an attempt to intimidate the Manhattan DA and interfere with the potential prosecution of the ex-president.

“Democrats think it’s ok for them to examine and defund local police,” Jordan said. “But not ok for Republicans to examine a local prosecutor in Manhattan abusing his power to take down a political opponent.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Lawyer in Stormy Daniels Case Back in 2018 Called Hush Money Payoff ‘Illegal’: Report

The Judiciary Chair, who has a law degree from Capital University in Ohio, appeared to not understand that he does not have oversight authority over a duly-elected county district attorney.

Attorney Ron Filipkowski, a Republican turned Democrat, slammed Jordan’s remarks.

“This makes literally no sense whatsoever. Local police are funded locally. Democrats aren’t seeking to haul local prosecutors in front of Congress for anything. This is a naked abuse of federal power over something Congress has no jurisdiction over.”

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, now an NBC News and MSNBC Legal Analyst, called Jordan’s and Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s actions “a dramatic and transparent abuse of power.”

READ MORE: Republicans Are ‘Obstructing Justice’ and ‘Becoming Accessories’ to Trump’s ‘Crimes’: Former Prosecutor

Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) called Jordan’s letter, “stupid and embarrassing” three times, and, called Jordan’s attempt at oversight of a county DA “is invalid, unconstitutional, inappropriate, stupidly pretextual and political.”

District Attorney Bragg, Fritscher continued, “will be on rock solid legal ground if he should decide to use their letter to kill insects or remove avian waste, but in the meantime we who have seen and written legitimate oversight letters in the past imo should mock Jordan, Comer et al for their hilarious incompetence.”

Others on Capitol Hill also mocked Jordan.

“A kangaroo investigation has been opened by Jim Jordan and the House GOP into the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg,” U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) tweeted. “Republicans complaining about the weaponization of government is like Al Capone complaining about organized crime.”

Continue Reading

'DOESN'T PASS THE STRAIGHT FACE TEST'

Trump’s Lawyer in Stormy Daniels Case Back in 2018 Called Hush Money Payoff ‘Illegal’: Report

Published

3 hours ago

on

March 21, 2023

By

Joe Tacopina, billed as a “powerhouse attorney” and “one of the country’s top trial attorneys” when Donald Trump hired him in January to sue a former prosecutor, back in 2018 weighed in on Trump’s $130,000 hush money payoff to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, calling the payment “illegal,” and “a potential campaign finance issue.”

According to a March 15, 2018 CNN transcript, and video (below) unearthed by Twitter user Acyn, Tacopina said the $130,000 hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels is “fair game” for prosecutors.

Tacopina told host Don Lemon,”if there is an issue with that payment to Stormy Daniels being — that it was made on behalf of the candidate, OK, and it was not declared, that is fair game, unfortunately, if that is the case.”

READ MORE: ‘All-Out War’: Trump’s Attorney Tells Kimberly Guilfoyle Ex-President Will Be ‘Loud and Proud’ When Showing Up for Indictment

He went on to discredit the defense some now appear to be making, at least in the court of public opinion, that Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels on his own, without Trump knowing.

“And you know, quite frankly, you know, Michael Cohen, again has made statements that would give rise to suspicion for any prosecutor to say, that doesn’t make sense that a lawyer took out a home equity loan with his own money, paid somebody that he didn’t even know on behalf of a client who, by the way, had the where with all the money to afford $130,000, and by the way, didn’t tell the client about the settlement agreement,” Tacopina said. “It’s an illegal agreement. It’s a fraud. If that’s in fact is the case, it doesn’t make sense,” he added.

“Doesn’t pass the straight face test. And quite frankly, if that is what happened we have a potential campaign finance issue.”

Less than two months later, in May of 2018, NPR reported Trump admitted to authorizing the payoff.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake Tuesday morning adds: “Per a CNN transcript, now-Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina in 2018 said the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment was ‘illegal, by the way.'”

READ MORE: Republicans Are ‘Obstructing Justice’ and ‘Becoming Accessories’ to Trump’s ‘Crimes’: Former Prosecutor

Trump is expected to be indicted this week or next, on what some experts believe could be charges related to falsification of business records and campaign finance related issues.

Watch the videos and see the transcript above or at this link.

Image via Shutterstock

Continue Reading

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Powerful GOP Committee Chair Admits He Can’t Control Marjorie Taylor Greene

Published

5 hours ago

on

March 21, 2023

By

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who’s leading Republican investigations into President Joe Biden and his family, compared firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to NBA superstar Lebron James.

The Kentucky Republican chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, where he’s been tasked by GOP leadership and his constituents to investigate wild claims about the president, his son Hunter Biden and other Democrats, reported the New York Times.

“You know, the customer’s always right,” Comer said, referring to the conspiracy theories presented to him by constituents. “I say, ‘Let me see it,’ because I want to see where the source is. They don’t know that it’s QAnon, but it’s QAnon stuff.”

Greene, one of the Republicans who serves on his committee, has expressed support for QAnon conspiracies herself, but Comer admitted that he had little authority to rein in the influence she holds within the GOP caucus after a little more than two years in Congress.

DON’T MISS: C-SPAN caller blows off Trump’s Stormy Daniels payment: ‘He’s our salvation!’

“It’s hard for a coach to tell LeBron James what he’s doing wrong,” Comer said.

In addition to her history of spouting QAnon conspiracy theories, Greene has also questioned whether the Pentagon was really attacked during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has called multiple school shootings “false flag” operations staged by the American government, and has even suggested that the Rothschild family is funding giant space lasers that are starting forest fires in California.

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.