State Journal Backs Scott Walker in News Columns

Scott Walker received some good news today: Frontpage coverage in the Wisconsin State Journal in a long piece by Matthew DeFour who decided to double as a press aide for the Walker campaign.

DeFour covered an event in Ames, Iowa sponsored by the evangelical The Family Leader, which is partnered with the virulently misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, part of "an exclusionist religious movement in this country [that] has attempted to restore what it perceives as the ruins of a Christian nation by more closely seeking to unite its version of Christianity with state power." (Foxman, ADL (2005), citing The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America (1994)).

DeFour left out these facts in his reporting of the Family Leadership Summit, the proper biblical kind of "family."

DeFour writes this religious right Christianites' event was composed of "religious conservatives." Actually, a more apt explanation would include the word, Christian Dominionist.

And DeFour quotes Scott Walker speaking about his 'faith': "It defines not just who I am and what I believe in, but how I treat others. I hope people saw that even at the height of when 100,000 protesters occupied our Capitol and I had death threats and all sorts of vicious attacks against me, against my family, against my children, against my parents and others, that we didn’t respond in kind. That in part was driven by our faith."

No knockdown is offered.

Is DeFour prepared to state he could not find a source to knock down the religious right and the governor who compared these same Wisconsin families to ISIS, four years after Walker "dropped a bomb" on these families to use Walker's metaphor in 2011?

Or how about knocking down Walker's false narrative that he suffered "vicious attacks?" DeFour couldn't find a source to knock this nonsense down? Or at least note Walker's lies are unverified?

DeFour did note the response from the some 2,700 Christianites was more subdued than Walker's previous address at other Iowa evangelical events.

Coming into the Stephens Auditorium from the July heat perhaps makes people relaxed, even subdued in the late afternoon.

Unless Brett Favre is talking, most people tend to be subdued in mid-July.

Justices' Remarks on Same-Sex Marriage Are Foolish and Ahistorical

American University students at Court, part
of #SCOTUSmarriage! (Freedom to Marry)

Update II: See Hiltzik, Same-sex marriage: Supreme Court Justices don't know much about history.

Update: See Judge Richard Posner's opinion: on "Mindless Tradition," and "Bigotry" that struck down Wisconsin and Indiana's same sex marriage bans.
 ---
"This definition [of traditional marriage] has been with us for millennia," [Justice Anthony Kennedy] said. "And it’s very difficult for the court to say, 'Oh, well, we know better.'" (Barnes, Barbash, Washington Post) (Baker, New York Times)

The NYT's Baker notes that several justices echoed Kennedy's expressed concerns in oral argument of Obergefell v. Hodge (Question 1, Oral transcript).

What is troubling is that none of the four statist justices—Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts—expected to rule in favor of states' power to discriminate against individuals' right to simple equality in marriage have a subtle understanding of history on the matter. Thomas was silent during orals, but has demonstrated his abiding hostility towards minorities.

Marriage has changed through history, and across societies. Eighteen counties today have approved the freedom of individuals to marry. (Freedom to Marry) Criminalization of gay marriage "includes most Muslim-majority countries and much of sub-Saharan Africa," (Fisher, Washington Post) and is a mark of authoritarian and totalitarian states.

In the United States "Marriage today is not what it was under the common law tradition, under the civil law tradition. Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female. That ended as a result of this Court's decision in 1982 when Louisiana's Head and Master Rule was struck down. And no State was allowed to have such a -- such a marriage anymore.  Would that be a choice that a State should be allowed to have?" chided Justice Ginsburg. (pp. 70,71)

In the Dark Ages and Nazi Germany the state sought to abolish gays, citing the unclean nature of gays and lack of usefulness to the state:

"On April 4, 1938, the Gestapo issued a directive indicating that men convicted of homosexuality could be incarcerated in concentration camps. Between 1933 and 1945 the police arrested an estimated 100,000 men as homosexuals. Most of the 50,000 men sentenced by the courts spent time in regular prisons, and between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps. ... The Nazis interned some homosexuals in concentration camps immediately after the seizure of power in January 1933. Those interned came from all areas of German society, and often had only the cause of their imprisonment in common. Some homosexuals were interned under other categories by mistake, and the Nazis purposefully miscategorized some political prisoners as homosexuals. Prisoners marked by pink triangles to signify homosexuality were treated harshly in the camps. According to many survivor accounts, homosexuals were among the most abused groups in the camps." (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

As the Dark Ages and Nazi Germany present extreme examples of animus and ignorance, one wonders if those justices foolishly using the universe of all societies through millennia as a justification for not protecting the rights of minorities mean to exclude these nonsensical and obscene states. How about Russia today?

Norman Cohn wrote of the totalitarian phenomenon as "the urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil."

When Kennedy asked, "well, we know better," the answer is clear: 'Yes, we do.' Well, most of us do.

Kennedy's confusion is apparent as he is expected to rule in June for the right of Americans to marry because there is no rational basis for the state to deprive Americans from marrying another of the same sex. (Denniston, SCOTUSBlog)

There is only nonsensical hostility and injurious treatment.

Why Kennedy finds this difficult for the Court to state is mystifying.

Wisconsin Corrupt Atty General Reduces Himself to Partisan Troll

"After seeing the expressions of joy on the faces of so many newly wedded couples featured in media reports, I find it difficult to impose a stay on the event that is responsible for eliciting that emotion, even if the stay is only temporary. Same-sex couples have waited many years to receive equal treatment under the law, so it is understandable that they do not want to wait any longer. However, a federal district court is required to follow the guidance provided by the Supreme Court." (emphasis added)

So reads U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb's ruling in Wolf v. Walker, declaring Wisconsin's ban on  against marriages between persons solely on the basis of sex or gender to be unconstitutional.

Judge Crabb's language on implementing a temporary stay recognizes federal court decisions across the nation have found for challenges against same-sex marriage bans on the merits, and her decision against bans affirms that courts protect individual rights against incursions by state governments.

Crabb notes the need for a decisive appellate ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court as a guide for lower courts and that the stay is merely procedural until such a ruling is made (or the failure of Van Hollen to appeal her declaration and decision to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit).

Crabb cites a host of precedents in support of her opinion, including Loving v. Virginia (1967), which holds that state bans against marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In response, Van Hollen has made a host of ill-considered, even infantile public statements during litigation, going so low as to threaten to criminally convict county clerks, before backing away from his statement in the face of widespread ridicule. "Who is Van Hollen kidding? Does he really think that county clerks should be prosecuted for doing their jobs after a federal judge threw out the state's ​constitutional ​ban on same-sex marriage? It sounds like the last desperate gasp of a losing argument," reads a blistering editorial from the conservative editorial page of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (June 13, 2014).

So, Van Hollen, ever the partisan and corrupt attorney general, plays the partisan troll again early last weekend, spinning Judge Crabb's procedural and temporary stay of her own ruling as a victory for anti-marriage equity forces.

Reads Van Hollen's statement in part: "I am very pleased that Judge Crabb has followed the lead of courts across the country, including the United States Supreme Court, and fully stayed her ruling. By staying this ruling, she has confirmed that Wisconsin’s law regarding same-sex marriage remains in full force and effect."

Van Hollen's public statements are purely political intended to incite more bigotry and made in support of the current composition of the GOP's collection of hate groups, including the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and other religious right groups.

Van Hollen knows perfectly well state bans and federal court ruling finding against these bans simply need to be litigated in federal appellate court following last year's Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor—holding the federal Defense of Marriage Act is an unconstitutional violation and deprivation of liberty.

Van Hollen's refusal to publicly address the logic of judicial precedents holding states cannot violate the constitutional rights of individuals in the realm of marriage demonstrates anew the Wisconsin attorney general remains little more than a tool of narrow ideological interests against the rule of law and the liberty interest of the individual American citizen.

Hatred and Ignorance Beaten Back in Wisconsin

I hate gays, is no argument against
loving couples marrying

"Certain fundamental rights are too important to be left to the ballot box," said David Boies on March 24, 2013 on Meet the Press, a few days before oral arguments of the case that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act last year in United States v. Windsor.

Following U.S. District Judge  Barbara Crabb's opinion on Friday, all that is left of Republicans' political sledgehammer attacking the LGBTQ community is an infantile rant of I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

As political opinion begins increasingly to acknowledge the humanity of fellow humans, sentiment against marriage equity is melting away into the bigoted Republican Party's fetid brew of hatred, and diminishing fast.


There are no serious arguments against marriage equity for gays and lesbians. 'I believe what I believe' does not qualify as a serious argument (as most of us learned in elementary school composition). This is however, the argument repeated today by Republicans politicians over and over.

Judge Crabb writes in her opinion: "In reaching this decision, I do not mean to disparage the legislators and citizens who voted in good conscience for the marriage amendment. To decide this case in favor of plaintiffs, it is not necessary, as some have suggested, to 'cast all those who cling to traditional beliefs about the nature of marriage in the role of bigots or superstitious fools,' United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675, 2717-18 (2013) (Alito, J., dissenting), or 'adjudg[e] those who oppose [same-sex marriage] . . . enemies of the human race.' Id. at 2709 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Rather, it is necessary to conclude only that the state may not intrude without adequate justification on certain fundamental decisions made by individuals and that, when the state does impose restrictions on these important matters, it must do so in an even-handed manner."

No, but in the political realm outside the Court, bigotry and superstition was and is challenged and rightfully so.

Hate and superstition are much of what the bigots in the Republican Party have, and they are unscrupulous in using hate.

From March 24, 2013 on Meet the Press, attorney David Boies notes he and Ted Olsen had established that marriage is a fundamental right of the American people, and proved three things to prevail at the U.S. Supreme Court.

• "We needed to prove first that marriage is a fundamental right. And I think we did that."
• "Second, we needed to prove that depriving gay and lesbian citizens of the right to marry seriously harm(s) them and seriously harm(s) the children that they are raising. And we proved that too."
• "Even if you simply applied a rational basis test. ["Under the rational basis test, the courts will uphold a law if it is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose," notes the Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute.] There us no rational basis to justify this (gay marriage) ban. And that's because of the third thing we proved, which was there no evidence, none, that allowing gays and lesbians to marry harms the institution of marriage, or harms anyone else." ...

 

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As David Boies said on the Bill Moyers Journal, (Feb. 26, 2010):

If you didn't tell the majority of the voters they were wrong sometimes under the Constitution, you wouldn't need a constitution. The whole point of the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment is to say, 'This is democracy. But it's also democracy in which we protect minority rights.' The whole point of a Constitution is to say there are certain things that a majority cannot do, whether it's 52 percent or 62 percent or 72 percent or 82 percent of the people. They can't say, for example, that blacks and whites can't go to school together -- even though 82 percent of the people may think that. They can't say that women aren't allowed to vote, or are not allowed to work in the workplace, or not allowed equal rights or equal wages -- even though a majority of people might vote that way in some places.

Boies' colleague, Ted Olson, amplifies the point:

David (Boies) mentioned that we have a Constitution and we have an independent judiciary for the very protection of minorities. Majorities don't need protection from the courts. The original Constitution didn't have the Bill of Rights attached to it. And the framers of our Constitution had a big debate and people said, 'Well, we're not going to ratify that Constitution unless you attach a Bill of Rights, which protects individual liberty, individual freedom, the right to speak, the right to assemble,' and those sorts of things.

Over our history, the voters have decided, because they get passionate about certain things, and they may not like certain minorities. Minorities are disfavored. Blacks have been denied the right to vote. California prohibited Chinese, a Chinese person from having any kind of business in California, or getting married. Those kind of votes are not acceptable if they violate fundamental constitutional rights. ... 

The Congress and the President of the United States 50 years ago made it illegal for someone who is a gay or lesbian to have a job working for the federal government. Many states made it a crime for a homosexual to be in a bar and have a drink. We all remember the '50s. When civil rights were taken away from people because they were suspected of being a member of an organization that -- those sorts of things happened. And we frequently go to the courts and, Bill, it often happens that the measures that are passed almost unanimously in Congress, because Congress gets carried away, are overturned by the Supreme Court. And you go back to Members of Congress and you say, 'What happened there?' And they'll say, 'Well, we knew it was unconstitutional. We expected the courts to take care of that. We wanted to get reelected. The courts are the ones that come back and help us.'

Yes, calling out bigots is necessary. As David Boies writes on July 20, 2009: "The argument in favor of [California's] Proposition 8 ultimately comes down to no more than the tautological assertion that a marriage is between a man and a woman. But a slogan is not a substitute for constitutional analysis. Law is about justice, not bumper stickers."
---
A similar version of this piece appeared in 2009 here.