Friday, June 28, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
News of the Day: Supreme Court Gets It 90% Right
At Supreme Court, victories for gay marriage
By Robert Barnes, Updated: Wednesday, June 26, 9:24 PMThe Supreme Court’s first rulings on same-sex marriage produced historic gains for gay rights Wednesday: full federal recognition of legally married gay couples and an opening for such unions to resume in the nation’s largest state.
The divided court stopped short of a more sweeping ruling that the fundamental right to marry must be extended to gay couples no matter where they live.
But in striking down a key part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the court declared that gay couples married in states where it is legal must receive the same federal health, tax, Social Security and other benefits that heterosexual couples receive.
In turning away a case involving California’s prohibition of same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8, the justices left in place a lower court’s decision that the ban is unconstitutional. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said he would order same-sex marriages to resume as quickly as possible.
With the addition of California, more than a third of Americans will live in a jurisdiction — 13 states and District of Columbia — where same-sex marriage is sanctioned.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined the court’s four liberals in declaring unconstitutional DOMA’s prohibition on federal recognition of legally married couples — enacted when such unions were only theoretical.
“DOMA writes inequality into the entire United States Code,” wrote Kennedy, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Withholding federal recognition of same-sex married couples places them “in an unstable position of being in a second-tier marriage,” Kennedy wrote. “The differentiation demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects . . . and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify.”
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented.
The decisions on the final day of the court’s term set off a loud celebration in front of the court’s marble plaza and elsewhere in the country.
Edith Windsor, a New Yorker who brought the suit against DOMA after she had to pay an estate tax following the death of her wife, Thea Spyer, said she burst into tears upon hearing the court’s decision.
“If I had to survive Thea, what a glorious way to do it, and she would be so pleased,” Windsor said at a news conference.
President Obama, whose administration said it would not defend Section 3 of DOMA, because it believed the provision was unconstitutional, called Windsor and the challengers of Proposition 8 to congratulate them.
In a statement written on Air Force One en route to Africa, Obama said,“This ruling is a victory for couples who have long fought for equal treatment under the law; for children whose parents’ marriages will now be recognized, rightly, as legitimate; for families that, at long last, will get the respect and protection they deserve; and for friends and supporters who have wanted nothing more than to see their loved ones treated fairly and have worked hard to persuade their nation to change for the better.”
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Josh Hutcherson Is Straight But Not Narrow
Gay-Straight alliances are great, but Josh Hutcherson seems to be taking it to another level...
Straight But Not Narrow
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
SCOTUS 5-4 Republican Majority Guts Voting Rights Act
WHY WE NEED THE VOTING RIGHT ACT
After the Compromise of 1877, African American men retained voting rights,
but held little
political power in their states. Beginning in the 1890’s, a full-scale
attack on African American
civil rights began in the South that led to the legal segregation of all
aspects of everyday life,
including public transportation, education and the workplace. African
American voting rights
also came under attack through legislation and organized violence,
including the horrible act of
lynching, which was used to enforce white supremacy.
The laws to prevent African Americans from voting were complex because they
could not
directly violate the Fifteenth Amendment. Among these restrictions was the
poll tax, which
required voters to pay an additional tax to vote. It was designed primarily
to exclude African
Americans, who were usually too poor to pay the tax, but also excluded many
poor whites.
The literacy test was also a common tactic used to prevent African
Americans from voting.
During the early 1960’s, African Americans in the South formed groups like
the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
and the
Congress of Racial Equality to demand equality and register African
Americans to vote. The
people who participated in this project routinely risked their jobs and
were often thrown off
their land if they attempted to vote. Moreover, they risked their lives
against the violence of
groups of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which often
worked hand in hand
with local police, politicians and the White Citizens’ Councils.
AND TODAY, FUNDED BY PEOPLE LIKE THE KOCH BROTHERS, REPUBLICAN MAJORITIES
IN STATE LEGISLATURES CONTINUE PASSING LAWS TO LIMIT VOTING RIGHTS. THE NEED FOR
THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT IS AS URGENT TODAY AS IT WAS IN 1965. THING IS, NOW IT NEEDS
TO BE APPLIED NATIONALLY, NOT JUST TO THE OLD SOUTH!
Monday, June 24, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
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