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DOMA Case Analysis And Arguments: A Lesbian Love-In Small Screen Celluloid Moment

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It was lesbian heaven on the small screen celluloid world last night when Rachel Maddow kicked off her show with a loving treatise to Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during a segment filled with and defined by  powerful women  who have changed our world for the better

Yesterday’s Defense of  Marriage Act (DOMA) arguments in United States v. Windsor were followed by a lovely lesbian evening which was kicked off by Rachel Maddow herself, at the top of her broadcast as she delivered an adoring ode to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguably the most incisive jurist at the Supreme Court during the Windsor arguments.

Indeed, Maddow was completely captivated by Ginsburg’s reference to same-sex marriages as “skim milk,” not “full,” or whole,  like heterosexual marriages, which benefit from approximately 1,100 different statutes, although effectively denied to gay couples by DOMA.  Her show plastered “Skim-Milk Marriage” at the bottom of the screen continuously throughout the DOMA segment.

I knew that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would love Windsor, because of its intricacies of benefits and taxes and because of the blatant discrimination; and while a reverse would be hugely significant, it could be decided with a jurisdictional state’s rights argument, or maybe on the constitutional merits. We all hope for the latter.

But of course  Maddow played tape from the arguments, and who could have not been inspired by the arguments posed by the charismatic litigator Roberta Kaplan, who fought brilliantly for Edie Windsor’s claims (the ACLU filed the lawsuit against the government on behalf of Windsor).

Let me just admit to The New Civil Rights Movement readers that I am in love with Kaplan’s rigorous and brave defense of Windsor and her tete de tete with Chief Justice Roberts which ends the argument on behalf of Windsor:

Roberta A. Kaplan: The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chief Justice, is that no other group in recent history has been subjected to popular referenda to take away rights that have already been given or exclude those rights, the way gay people have.

And only two of those referenda have ever lost.

One was in Arizona; it then passed a couple years later.

One was in Minnesota where they already have a statute on the books that prohibits marriages between gay people.

So I don’t think — and until 1990 gay people were not allowed to enter this country.

So I don’t think that the political power of gay people today could possibly be seen within that framework, and certainly is analogous — I think gay people are far weaker than the women were at the time of Frontiero.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts: Well, but you just referred to a sea change in people’s understandings and values from 1996, when DOMA was enacted, and I’m just trying to see where that comes from, if not from the political effectiveness of — of groups on your side of the case.

Roberta A. Kaplan: To flip the language of the House Report, Mr. Chief Justice, I think it comes from a moral understanding today that gay people are no different, and that gay married couples’ relationships are not significantly different from the relationships of straight married couples.

I don’t think–

Chief Justice John G. Roberts: I understand that.

I am just trying to see how — where that that moral understanding came from, if not the political effectiveness of a particular group.

Roberta A. Kaplan: –I — I think it came — is, again is very similar to the, what you saw between Bowers and Lawrence.

I think it came to a societal understanding.

I don’t believe that societal understanding came strictly through political power; and I don’t think that gay people today have political power as that — this Court has used that term with — in connection with the heightened scrutiny analysis.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts: Thank you, Ms. Kaplan.

In straining to listen to Kaplan’s articulation and prevented from watching, I got in touch with my ‘inner lesbian’. I was wowed by her. Not able to watch her, I hung onto to every word, imagining her before the Chief Justice, hammering on the reality of our lives and the suffering as a result of this terrible law.

But the chief lesbian on this night is Maddow, who is not done with her examination of DOMA yet, before she interviews none other than Mary Bonauto, an attorney (and lesbian) and GLAD‘s director of the civil rights project  who made history in America when she successfully argued in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that civil unions were not constitutional, laying the legal groundwork for the DOMA challenge at the US Supreme Court.

So now we have two open lesbians talking to each other on the small celluloid screen of a major network, which I believe is unprecedented.  This just does not happen everyday, or on any day…and I was just loving it.  It was wonderful. I feel like I had died and arrived to  lesbian celluloid heaven for a women’s only party.

I freely admit that I am taken with all these powerful women.  And because it happens so infrequently, when we see just one lesbian on television, as in Rachel Maddow, we rightly celebrate.  And now there was two.  I just wanted to jump up and down and cheer on all these lesbians, who are powerful women in the ways that attracts all of us to one another!

 

http://www.aclu.org/sites/all/plugins/jwflvplayer/player.swf

 

But the two lesbians that matter the most right now are Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, who loved each other for 42 years and were married in Canada the last year before Thea died.  In Thea’s death, Edie was hit with a whopping $360,000 tax penalty on property inheritance because their marriage was not recognized by the IRS due to DOMA’s prohibitions. Edie chose to fight and it is because of her love for Thea and her compunction to fight back–that the oppressive walls of DOMA  may just come tumbling down in June.  All because of these two lovely lesbians. Who could not love and adore Edie Windsor?

So let me leave you with one more brilliant lesbian that people should follow, as we await the Prop 8 and DOMA decisions: Georgetown Law Professor Nan Hunter and the author of the engaging “Hunter of Justice blog  where she has analyzed the Prop 8 and DOMA cases (among many other issues).  Follow her regularly because of her trenchant legal analysis and know this about her as well:  Hunter has been a ground-breaking advocate for women and LGBT people throughout her storied and dedicated career of service to our community.

DomiheadshotTanya L. Domi is the Deputy Editor of the New Civil Rights Movement. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and teaches human rights in East Central Europe and former Yugoslavia. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi was a nationally recognized LGBT civil rights activist who worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force during the campaign to lift the military ban in the early 1990s. Domi has also worked internationally in a dozen countries on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights and gender issues. She is chair of the board of directors for GetEQUAL. Domi is currently writing a book about the emerging LGBT human rights movement in the Western Balkans.

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News

Trump Won’t Commit to Accepting Election Results if He Doesn’t Win State He Falsely Claims He Won

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May 2, 2024

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Falsely claiming he won the state of Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election Donald Trump is now refusing to commit to accepting the 2024 results for the Badger State this November.

In an interview with Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Trump appeared to dance around the issue, declaring he would only accept the official results “if everything’s honest.”

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump told the paper’s Alison Dirr and Molly Beck in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

“But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” he said.

The Journal Sentinel reports Trump “offered similar conditions when asked the same question by news outlets in 2016 and 2020.”

READ MORE: ‘No Place for Antisemitism’: Biden Denounces Violent Campus Protests, Hate Speech and Racism

“I’d be doing a disservice to the country if I said otherwise,” he said.

In that interview Trump once again falsely claimed he won Wisconsin in 2020, a state President Joe Biden actually won by more than 20,000 votes.

“If you go back and look at all of the things that had been found out, it showed that I won the election in Wisconsin,” Trump told the newspaper. “It also showed I won the election in other locations.”

Trump’s “Big Lie,” that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him, along with his support for the January 6, 2021 insurrection, have been central to his 2024 campaign.

“Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the last presidential election in Wisconsin and his new comments placing conditions on when he would accept the results of the next election come as Republicans are seeking to persuade GOP voters to restore their trust in the state’s system of elections and embrace absentee voting,” the Journal Sentinel reported. “There’s no evidence to support that Wisconsin’s election was tainted by cheating or fraud in 2020. The results have been confirmed by recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties that Trump paid for, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and a study by the conservative legal firm Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty, among other analyses.”

READ MORE: Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

In October of 2016, weeks before Election Day, during the final presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would make the commitment “that you will absolutely accept the results of this election?”

“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied. “I’m not looking at anything now, I’ll look at it at the time.”

He then went on to sow doubt about the credibility of the election.

Trump’s refusal to accept election results stretches back more than a decade, even before he ran for president.

After he refused to accept his loss in 2020, ABC News reported “Trump has longstanding history of calling elections ‘rigged’ if he doesn’t like the results.”

“On election night in 2012, when President Barack Obama was reelected, Trump said that the election was a ‘total sham’ and a ‘travesty,’ while also making the claim that the United States is ‘not a democracy’ after Obama secured his victory.

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!” Trump wrote on Twitter

One month later, in December of 2012, Trump tweeted, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Ironically, four years later he became president after losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but winning the Electoral College.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

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‘No Place for Antisemitism’: Biden Denounces Violent Campus Protests, Hate Speech and Racism

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May 2, 2024

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President Joe Biden made rare, unscheduled remarks from the White House Thursday morning, denouncing the recent violent protests on college campuses, and telling Americans there is “no place” for antisemitism anywhere across the nation. He also denounced “hate speech” and “racism,” while declaring his support for the right to peacefully protest.

“There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students,” President Biden declared. “There is no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s un-American.”

“Violent protest is not protected,” Biden said strongly. “Peaceful protest is.”

Stressing “the right to free speech,” and the people’s right “to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard,” President Biden also declared the importance of “the rule of law.”

READ MORE: Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” the President also said, praising the ideal of peaceful protests, which he said are in the “best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”

“But,” he added, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society and order must prevail.”

America is a “big, diverse, free thinking and freedom-loving nation,” Biden said, denouncing those “who rush in to score political points.”

“This isn’t a moment for politics, it’s a moment for clarity.”

“It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest,” he warned. “Threatening people, intimidating people. instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Dissent is essential to democracy but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish a semester and their college education.”

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

“Look. It’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked.”

“I understand people have strong feelings and deep convictions in America. We respect the right and protect the right for them to express that. But it doesn’t mean anything goes. It needs to be done without violence. Without destruction, without hate, and within the law. And I’ll make no mistake. As President, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong standing up for the rule of law. That’s my responsibility to you the American people. My obligation to the Constitution.”

The President also responded to reporters’ questions, including saying he saw no need to call up the National Guard.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

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May 2, 2024

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Embattled South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, under fire the past week after an excerpt from her new book revealed her boasting about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy she “hated,” has repeatedly defended her actions as proof she can do hard things that need to be done.

Governor Noem, who has been considered a leading contender to become Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, appeared on Fox News Wednesday night and blamed the “fake news” for publishing excerpts from her book, which she has not claimed were inaccurate.

She also insisted the 14-month old wirehaired pointer named Cricket was “not a puppy,” appearing to suggest that made the killing justified, as she again promoted her book so Americans can “find out the truth.”

“Well, Sean, you know how the fake news works,” Noem told Hannity (video below). “They leave out some or most of the facts of a story. They put the worst spin on it, and that’s what’s happened in this case. I hope people really do buy this book and they find out the truth of this story, because the truth of this story is that this was a working dog, and it was not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had come to us from a family who found her way too aggressive. We were her second chance and she was, the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were a part of our neighbors, she attacked me and it was a hard decision.”

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

“The reason it’s in the book is because this book is filled with tough, challenging decisions that I’ve had to make throughout my life,” she added.

Noem’s dog shooting, which she recently said took place 20 years ago, has been strongly criticized by the left and right.

Earlier this week two people close to Donald Trump, his former Senior White House Counselor Steve Bannon, and his son, Donald Trump Jr., “questioned Noem’s judgement Monday on Donald Trump Jr.’s show ‘Triggered,'” USA Today reported, noting also that “both men laughed” about it.

“Bannon called Noem ‘a little too based,’ using a slang term popular on the right to describe someone who, among other qualities, speaks and acts without fear of being politically correct, and Trump Jr. said shooting the dog ‘was not ideal.'”

The Guardian, which broke the news of Noem’s dog shooting last week, reported Tuesday “apparently even [ex-president Donald] Trump sees the bad optics in having a ‘puppy killer’ as a running mate.”

RELATED: ‘Let’s Get a Warrant for Her Backyard’: Noem ‘Done Politically’ Right Wing Pundits Say

Meanwhile, criticism, which had been subsiding over the past few days, returned after Noem’s remarks on Fox News.

“She honestly think boasting about killing a dog who was too happy makes her tough,” observed former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman. “I have served with women in combat. They endured horrible conditions. Got blown up. They were tough. Her two examples of tough are killing animals and keeping her state open as hundreds of thousands died. That’s not tough. That’s psycho.”

Calling Noem “broken,” former Republican and former U.S. Congressman Denver Riggleman said: “She wrote the book. She allowed those words to be published. Her ghost writer seems to have despised her. Exposed her. And Kristi liked it… thought it was ‘cool’.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., responding to video of Noem on Fox News, commented: “Here’s donald trump’s leading contender to be vice president defending her butchering a puppy and hawking her crummy book on rightwing propaganda tv. This is the republican party.”

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold offered this criticism:

Jared Ryan Sears, who writes “The Pragmatic Humanist” at Substack, said, “Yes, the issue is the debate on whether or not a 14 month old dog should be called a puppy and not the fact that you murdered it because you refused to train it and could not think of any other possible solution than shooting a young dog in a gravel pit.”

“Keep hawking that book,” he added.

Watch Noem’s remarks below or at this link.

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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