One Judge, Parts Missing

There’s only one way to explain it. While the rest of the world—or at least the world I know—has gotten over it, there are four or five guys in Washington that still get really jittery when the topic of homosexuality and gay and lesbian issues blows in the room.

Which is why a man whom everybody grants has a fine legal mind said something incredibly stupid. And here it is, courtesy of the New York Times:

He expressed irritation that the case was before the court, saying President Obama’s approach — to enforce the law but not defend it — was a contradiction.

“I don’t see why he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions,” the chief justice said. He said Mr. Obama should have stopped enforcing a statute he viewed as unconstitutional “rather than saying, ‘Oh, we’ll wait till the Supreme Court tells us we have no choice.’ ”

The White House took umbrage at the remark and said the president was upholding his constitutional duty to execute the laws until the Supreme Court rules otherwise. “There is a responsibility that the administration has to enforce laws that are on the books,” said Josh Earnest, a deputy White House press secretary. “And we’ll do that even for laws that we disagree with, including the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Ahh, Roberts? If the president decided that the two-term limit was unconstitutional and set about running again in 2016, would that be OK? If he decided to stop payments of Social Security, would that be all right?

And by the way, isn’t that what we pay you guys the big money to do? What are you doing up there if you’re not interpreting the law and ruling on constitutionality? Playing checkers, smoking cigars?

Well, what do I know, so I called the family lawyer, and got his take. And John’s reading is that Roberts was peeved, and probably peeved from the day before. Both cases, of course, are screwy. The state of California had no interest in defending the overturning of Proposition 8, so a bunch of archconservatives got in the act. And the big question is—do they have any right to appear before the court? How have they been harmed, which is another way of establishing standing?

That’s pretty much the same deal with DOMA—which Obama and his justice department also declined to defend. But in this case, there’s somebody with standing—an 83 year-old lady who got stuck with a inheritance tax for over $300,000 because her marriage wasn’t recognized. Right, but what about the screwy Republican legislators who hired the lawyers to defend DOMA—what standing do they have?

Short of stomping on the floor and having a nice good hissy fit, Roberts could not be shouting “why me” louder and more petulantly.

At one point, in fact, Roberts suggests that he will walk away from the fight and let the politicians take the heat.

Public opinion has been shifting rapidly over the past decade in favor of gay marriage, and Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that perhaps gays and lesbians don’t need special protection from the court anymore.

“As far as I can tell, political leaders are falling all over themselves to endorse your side of the case,” Roberts told the lawyers who would like to see the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, struck down.

Special protection? Did he really say special protection? Isn’t the DOMA case simply about asking the court to rule on whether the federal government can give benefits to one group of married people but not to another group of married people? What’s special about that?

Oh, and say that I’ve been transferred to Fort Hood, and like a patriotic soldier I go. And then I head for Iraq, where I’m killed. If I’m straight, my wife Dora gets the visit from the two soldiers carrying the folded American flag. If I’m gay, my husband Donald will have to read about it in the newspapers.

You know, I don’t know about anybody else, but seeing the Supreme Court squirm and try to pass the buck is making me crazy. That, of course, is of no consequence to the Supreme Court. What should matter, however, is that a group of people is legally disenfranchised, and suffers real consequences—read harm—as a result of a bigoted piece of legislation. Yeah—I’m married in Massachusetts but not in Puerto Rico. So am I supposed to move to Massachusetts in order to collect Social Security if Raf dies before me?

And does anyone really think that places like Georgia and Mississippi are going to legislate gay marriage on their own? There are states that would still have Jim Crow if not slavery if the courts hadn’t stepped in. We need the Supreme Court to rule on DOMA and on the constitutionality of the 40 states with “defense” of marriage laws.

Put your hand in the center of your back, Chief Justice. Feel that hard thing?

It’s called a backbone.

Two Phelps and a Geek

Some days it’s a challenge, a daily blog. Is anybody reading? Is it worth it? And what to write about, today?

It happened, though, that Mr. Fernández announced the topic last night at the computer.

“Wow—two of Phelps’s kids have left the church!”

“WHAT!”

“Yeah, and they’ve issued an apology and been excommunicated or whatever from the church.”

OK, if you’re gay or Jewish or Chinese or even just sane, you do what I did: click off the iPad Sudoku and pop over to the computer. No, not because of any tendency of Mr. Fernández to lie—there’s just some stuff you’ve got to see.

For the benefit of anybody who’s been living in a salt mine for the last twenty years, the “Reverend” Phelps has been traveling the country for the last two decades protesting at fallen soldiers’ funerals, since God hates fags, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are God’s revenge or curse on the United States for being Godless and endorsing homosexuality.

This, practicing the understating for which I am famed, raised eyebrows of all of America and a good part of the world.  

They certainly practice no discrimination in who they hate. Actually, I’ll do it the opposite way, since compiling the hate list would wear the skin off my fingers. Here, then, is the one group they love.

The Phelps family!

Who make up the Westboro Baptist Church, which carries surprising weight for a congregation of forty (most named—guess what—Phelps! One thinks of Mark Twain, out in Utah, discovering that nine of ten Mormons were named Smith….) Well, if you stand outside a Matt Shepard’s funeral with a sign like the one below, you’ll get attention.

So much attention, in fact, that a British filmmaker, making a documentary, titled his work “The Most Hated Family in America.”

And one not unfamiliar with courtrooms. In fact, they sailed into the biggest court in the nation—you know, the one in Washington DC with the big steps—and came out an 8 to 1 victor. Oh, and Chief Justice Roberts wrote the decision favoring Phelps, saying that sure, it wasn’t pretty, but Phelps had every right to stand outside the funeral of Matthew A. Snyder and hold up signs like the one above. The father, feeling that the funeral had been trashed—gee, so many people with thin skins!—had taken Phelps to court.

Alito, the one dissenter, wrote:

Justice Samuel Alito, the lone dissenter, said Snyder wanted only to "bury his son in peace". Instead, Alito said, the protesters "brutally attacked" Matthew Snyder to attract public attention." Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case," he said.  (Note—gotta give some money to Wikipedia….)

Well, you know where I weigh in, of course. Look closely at the photo, and you’ll see the little child’s head beaming out against the American flag. And I think that’s child abuse—warping and twisting a loving child into a hate and attention-oops-that’s notoriety-seeking maniac.

But—steering hard here back to the head of the post—the two daughters of Phelps say no. Here’s what one of the wrote in her blog, medium.com:

We know that we dearly love our family. They now consider us betrayers, and we are cut off from their lives, but we know they are well-intentioned. We will never not love them.

Gonna have to think about that. As are the two sisters, Megan and Grace, who, according to The Guardian, are in hiding—at least nobody knows where they are.

I think of them, “trying to figure it out,” as they write in their blog, as they love the family that has cut them off, as they ponder the hurt and pain they have caused so many victims of their “well-intentioned” family. Nobody knows where they are, maybe even they themselves.

I know where I am—in front of my computer with my husband twenty feet away. I’m writing for my blog that from time to time addresses LGBT issues. On National Coming Out Day, I came out to my brother, who was slightly puzzled. I explained—having come out to everyone years ago, I had decided to start the whole over again.

I also know where Keith Orr is—somewhere in Ann Arbor, Michigan—probably working at his bookstore / café. And Keith was the guy who first thought up the most effective way of dealing with the Phelps family. Quick on his feet, Keith heard that his business was going to be picketed on 17 Feb 2001. Instead of a counter demonstration—which just gives Phelps more publicity—Keith sent off an email, asking people to spread the word and join the campaign.

Campaign?

Yup—donate what you can for every minute that the Phelps family pickets the café. The money—over 6000 dollars—went to the Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project, and yes, Sharp Reader, it’s exactly what you think.

Oh, and where was Keith? Inside with the hundred people of so who had donated, and who were having a party and counting minutes.

A curious thing—Keith inside with a hundred people, the Phelps outside with four adults and two small children. February in Michigan can be many things, but warm it is almost never. They were standing alone outside in freezing cold weather, their feet cold and wet, the wind whipping snow into their faces.

They had a message of hate; they were alone and isolated. Keith was warm, at a party, surrounded by support and love.

And Grace and Megan—one of whom ran the website godhatesfags.com—where are they now?

Cut off from their family. Alone, confused, wondering what they’ve done, and perhaps afraid.

Time for confession. I call him Keith, but he’s not. Not to me, or the handful of characters who made up a musical clique at West High in the 70’s.

Great work, Geek!