Last week, on the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, Barack launched another attack on America's LGBT community and some were outraged that it would take place on that anniversary. That's because they're idiots. January 13, 2008, Ava and C.I. explained at this site that Barack Obama, alleged 'Constitutional' 'scholar,' didn't understand the first thing about that landmark case:
Loving v. Virginia was a breakthrough, a legal landmark, for the United States. In a debate, Barack Obama was asked, "Senator Obama, the laws banning interracial marriage in the United States were ruled unconstitutional in 1967. What is the difference between a ban on interracial marriage and a ban on gay marriage?" Obama mouthed a lot of nonsense about 'equality' and then went on to state it's a decision for different denominations to make. There should have been a gasp heard round the country.
Barack is a lawyer, a trained legal mind. Though we find it difficult to believe he's never studied Loving v. Viriginia (as difficult to believe as Clarence Thomas Senate testimony that he'd never thought about Roe v. Wade), we'll allow that maybe it fell into some gap in his education. But as a trained legal mind, he does grasp court billing. "v. Virginia" means versus state. Not versus a denomination.
In that historic case, the Supreme Court of the United States found the laws of the state of Virginia to be unconstitutional and illegal. That finding meant that all states could no longer refuse to issue marriage certificates to couples of different races. Obama's weak-ass response should have been considered weak ass. (John Edwards also embarrassed himself in that debate noting he was against "gay marriage" and "I do not" support it leading us to shout back at the screen, "Gee, John, we weren't aware you were being inundated with proposals!") But it was also dishonest. A law student, forget the former president of the Harvard Law Review, grasps that Loving v. Virginia was not about whether "denominations" could make a decision, it was about what the government could do. To provide perspective, imagine the issue was illegal search and seizure on the part of the government (forbidden by the Constitution) and Obama had responded, "I think it's up to denominations." The government was discriminating and the Supreme Court stood up for the rights of all. A trained legal mind should grasp that. If Obama didn't, he's either not much of a student or he's a really bad liar.
He's either not much of a student or he's a really bad liar. Since Ava and C.I. wrote that, Barack's done everything in his power to demonstrate he's actually not much of a student and actually a really bad liar.
On Friday, the US Justice Department filed a brief in Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer v. US, State of California and DOES. Smelth and Hammer are a married couple in California who argue that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act infringes upon their rights as a married couple.
The Justice Department would tell Ben Smith:
As it generally does with existing statutes, the Justice Department is defending the law on the books in court. The president has said he wants to see a legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act because it prevents LGBT couples from being granted equal rights and benefits. However, until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system.
Generally does? The Justice Department doesn't have to issue any brief and often doesn't. But if it does issue a brief, it certainly has no excuse for issuing one that includes and endorses homophobia. Queerty sums up: "it's clear Team Obama isn't just hoping to keep DOMA alive, but they've taken the position that gays=incest, DOMA is good for the nation (and neutral, not anti-gay!), DOMA is a good fiscal policy, gays have less of a right to privacy, and -- here's the kicker -- 'DOMA, understood for what it actually does, infringes on no one's rights, and in all events it infringes on no right that has been constitutionally protected as fundamental, so as to invite heightened scrutiny'."
Read the brief and be offended but, at some point, grasp how stupid it is on the most basic of grounds. The brief argues that the issue does not belong in the state courts and then goes on to argue that it doesn't belong in the federal courts. Exactly where would a citizen of the United States be able to argue for redress?
And grasp that a lot of alleged legal 'scholars' are whoring whatever's left of their name to say the Justice Department had to, HAD TO, file a brief. They didn't have to file such an insulting brief and, no, they didn't have to file a brief at all.
Travel back with us to May 19, 1992. Keith Meinhold uttered the following words on ABC's World News Tonight, "Yes, I am in fact gay." The Navy immediately moved to discharge him. The legal issues and appeals went on forever. Finally in November of 1994, Stephen Labaton ("U.S. Drops Effort to Oust a Gay Sailor," New York Times, November 29, 1994) would report: "The Government's decision not to appeal the Meinhold case was announced today by Joseph Krovisky, a Justice Department spokesman, who said it was made by Solicitor General Drew S. Days 3d, who represents the Administration before the Supreme Court." How did that come about? David Johnston ("Gay Sailor Claims a Victory As Court Case Deadline Passes," New York Times, October 17, 1994) explained: "A Government lawyer said today that the Justice Department had not ignored the deadline, but was intentionally allowing the decision to stand without asking for a review by the full appeals court. But the official added that the Justice Department had not decided whether to petition the Supreme Court. The Government has more than a month to decide whether to seek a review by the High Court."
The Justice Department can file or not file as it sees fit and has always filed or not filed as it sees fit (and anyone who claims otherwise doesn't really know their Civil Rights history and isn't much of a 'legal' scholar). And it actually makes sense to link DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell because they were both in the news last week.
"He's a coward, a bigot and a pathological liar. This is a guy who spent more time picking out his dog, Bo, and playing with him on the White House lawn than he has working for equality for gay people," Gulf War and Iraq War veteran James Pietrangelo II told Mark Thompson (TIME magazine). Pietrangelo's appeal to the Supreme Court was passed on. Monday, Free Speech Radio News' Nell Abrams had explained, "The High Court let stand a decision that holds the current policy is rational. In so doing, the Court has allowed the Justice Department to avoid arguing in support of Don't Ask Don't Tell -- a policy that President Obama said in the past he would move to repeal." The following morning, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observed, "The Obama administration had urged the court to throw the case out. In a brief, the Obama administration had said the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is 'rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.' While running for president, Senator Obama campaigned to end the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January."
America's LGBT community was thrown under the bus not once but twice last week by the homophobic Barack. Homophobic. Not just calculating. He stayed silent at Trinity while Jeremiah Wright preached homophobia, he stayed silent when that church's gay choir director was murdered (he stayed silent and so did the press). Jeremiah Wright and his supporters love to whine that he was misunderstood. But the reality is he was much filled with hatred than the snippets let on.
In the midst of the minor firestorm over Jeremiah Wright's hate speech, Bill Moyers invited him to sit down and make his case to America. Though Bill just nodded and grinned, Ava and C.I. called out Crackpot Jeremiah's comparison of sodomy (anal intercourse) with rape, lynching and other crimes. It was homophobia Crazy Ass Jeremiah was expressing. The man Barack elected to listen to and be mentored by for over two decades. But he had a lot of homophobes behind him, for example James Meeks.
Last week, Barack revealed what most paying attention would have grasped long ago: He's a homophobe.
He practices homophobia, he traffics in homophobia.
And shame on all the ones who let him get away with it.
The stab in the back last week? He was only able to do that because he'd stepped on so many for so long without ever being called out. Self-loathing lesbian Laura Flanders stayed silent while homophobes paraded onstage in South Carolina. She stayed silent all along and she was far from alone in that.
Shame on her. Shame on her and everyone else who allowed homophobia to spread throughout the Democratic Party. It was always there. But it wasn't the dominant thread and the Democratic Party was certainly more friendly to the LGBT community than was the Republican Party. And then came Barry O.
And they dropped every standard they had, every belief they held dear, all to ram through this illegitimate candidate that they knew nothing about. Now the whole country has to live with what they pushed through. And it's not pretty.
Recovery for the Democratic Party starts with calling out homophobia -- especially when it comes from the White House.