Oh look! Fitz — still pecking away at the Weasels. Been awhile since we had a weasel report — this one is pretty good. A major face … hopefully portent of things to come.
Jude
In the Libby Case, A Grilling to Remember
Carol D. Leonnig
Friday, October 27, 2006
With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president’s former chief of staff.
If I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was not afraid of the special counsel before, the former Cheney aide, who will face Fitzgerald in a trial beginning Jan. 11, had ample reason to start quaking after yesterday’s Ginsu-like legal performance.
Fitzgerald’s target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony. Loftus asserted that, after copious scientific research, she has found that many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and that Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.
But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense.
Her defense-paid visit to the federal court was crucial because Libby is relying on the “memory defense” against Fitzgerald’s charges that he obstructed justice and lied to investigators about his role in the leaking of a CIA operative’s identity to the media. Libby’s attorneys argue that he did not lie — that he was just really busy with national security matters and forgot some of his conversations.
When Fitzgerald found a line in one of her books that raised doubts about research she had cited on the stand as proof that Libby needs an expert to educate jurors, Loftus said, “I don’t know how I let that line slip by.”
“I’d need to see that again,” Loftus said when Fitzgerald cited a line in her book that overstated her research by saying that “most jurors” consider memory to be equivalent to playing a videotape. Her research, however, found that to be true for traumatic events, and even then, only 46 percent of potential jurors thought memory could be similar to a videotape.
There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom.
One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in New York.
Libby’s defense team declined to comment. ++
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
October 27th, 2006
“We believe marriage is a fundamental institution of civilization. Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage.”
~ King George, yesterday in a stump speech in Iowa
Well. Isn’t that special! WE believe … WE, the sexually insecure, the bigots and homophobes, WE the christocrats and uber-conservatives … We will speak for the entirety of this nations citizens [who already have doubts about the institution of marriage, with divorce statistics hovering in the mid-40 percentile ... down from 50-something in the early 90's, and with born-again's chalking up a higher percentage than secular couples.]
The New Jersey ruling is a return to civil union, a concept that got lost in the Fundy rhetoric and wedge issues of the last few elections — and, flawed or not, it will serve as a bridge to the next thing that we’re evidently not ready for; on the other hand, we’re not willing to make gay-bashing part of the Constitution either. This is at least a list back toward middle ground … and the public has other issues than this tired old wedge to fret about.
This is a civil liberties issue, folks — religious bias has no place in this. This churchy stuff is exhausting and anachronistic — if we wanted to be led by the Taliban [who are still in charge after four years and billions 'o dollars] we could all move to Afghanistan.
The hypocrisy of this administration is legion, with the extensive gay underground in the Pub party taking a licking [pun, obviously] during this election period. They don’t even believe the talking points — at a gathering recently, Condi Rice swore in a new U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and introduced the mother of the gay man’s partner as his mother-in-law.
I threw in the last piece because it amazes me that in the 21st century, we’re talking about ANY of this. It’s a nod to the archaic, the uninformed and … frankly … uninitiated, except for covert grappling and forbidden groping.
Pfffffft!
Jude
N.J. Ruling Mandates Rights for Gay Unions
State Court Does Not Specify ‘Marriage’
Michael Powell and Robin Shulman, WaPo
Thursday, October 26, 2006
NEWARK, Oct. 25 — The New Jersey Supreme Court left the door ajar for the approval of same-sex marriage Wednesday, ruling that gay couples are entitled to rights no different from those of heterosexual couples.
The court gave state legislators 180 days to craft a bill offering same-sex couples the same rights as opposite-sex couples, though it appeared to leave open a choice between calling the status “marriage” or “civil unions.”
“Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this state, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our state constitution,” the court said in its 4 to 3 ruling.
The New Jersey decision could stoke the fires for social conservatives elsewhere in the nation, who during this election cycle have complained loudly of their unhappiness with the Republican Party. New Jersey, however, tends toward social liberalism — albeit with strong pockets of social conservatism. As the court’s decision stops short of mandating same-sex marriage, few expected it to unhinge a taut race for the U.S. Senate between Sen. Robert Menendez (D) and Republican Thomas H. Kean Jr., according to political observers. Menendez and Kean oppose same-sex marriage, although Kean has gone further and called for a state constitutional amendment to ban it.
“If the Supreme Court had flatly forced the state to recognize gay marriage, it would have had a negative effect and rallied the conservative Republican base in New Jersey and hurt Robert Menendez,” said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. “As it stands, he should be okay, but this could rally evangelicals elsewhere.”
New Jersey’s governor and legislature have danced warily around the question of same-sex marriage. The legislature passed a domestic-partnership law in 2004 but has been reluctant to touch the politically sensitive question of marriage. Under existing law, same-sex couples can enjoy some of the legal rights of marriage, such as health coverage for the partners of state workers and the right to inherit possessions if a partner leaves behind no will. But such couples still lack dozens of legal rights accorded to married couples, including some governing taxes and adoption.
Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) has supported domestic partnership but not same-sex marriage. Yesterday he hailed the decision, without precisely tipping his hand about which legislative remedy he favored. “The Court ruled that same sex couples are entitled to equal rights,” he said in a statement. “And I look forward to the legislative process implementing the Court’s decision.”
Seven gay couples had sued in state court for the right to marry but lost their cases in lower state courts. On Wednesday, they gathered in the offices of their attorneys in Newark to await the court’s decision.
When the high court’s ruling was announced shortly after 3 p.m., there was less jubilation than stunned puzzlement. Karen Nicholson-McFadden of Aberdeen, N.J., gave a little laugh, and then the tears came. Her partner, Marcye Nicholson-McFadden, held Karen’s hand.
“I’m supposed to feel relief, right?” said Karen, who sat beside the couple’s two children, Kasey, 7, and Maya, 3.
Marcye noted that their relationship to each other has been questioned at the most critical moments. They pay higher premiums for car insurance and health insurance, and they have spent thousands of dollars to secure joint property ownership and custody of their children. She is choosing to be hopeful.
“Our neighbors, after being told we deserve our fair rights, will not relegate us to a separate class,” Marcye said later at a news conference.
Elsewhere, opponents of same-sex marriage expressed disappointment but promised to gear up for a legislative battle.
“We are saddened that the Supreme Court of New Jersey continues on a parade of legislating from the bench,” said John Tomicki, executive director of the League of American Families, a politically conservative group opposed to same-sex marriage.
New Jersey state Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R) has already proposed a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Now he says he will press for the people of New Jersey to limit marriage in a referendum in 2007. “The court is asking the legislature to make new laws and is prescribing what those laws can be,” Cardinale said. “That is absurd.”
After a similar state Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts permitted same-sex marriage in 2003. But in recent years, courts in the states of Washington and New York have ruled against same-sex unions, and voters or legislators in 20 states have passed constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage. Seven more are on the ballot this year.
New Jersey is one of only five states without either a statute or a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex unions, but its lower courts have said that marriage laws apply only to opposite-sex couples. The state was home to 20,677 same-sex couples last year, according to American Community Survey.
Supporters of same-sex marriage expressed hope that the country has grown more accepting after witnessing same-sex weddings in Massachusetts and the advent of civil unions in Vermont. “The sky didn’t fall,” said David Buckel, a lawyer at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who helped argue the New Jersey case. “People see that some families are helped and nobody else’s families are hurt.”
Changes in New Jersey could set a more momentous precedent. New Jersey has no law like the one in Massachusetts that bars nonresidents from marrying there if the weddings could not be recognized in their home states. Thus, same-sex couples from across the nation have hoped New Jersey might offer a refuge for those seeking to marry. ++
Marriage Equality in New Jersey: Should Democrats Remain Silent?
Aaron Belkin
10/27/06
It took less than a day for traditional values groups to celebrate the boost they think they are about to receive from the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that gay couples must enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals. According to the Court, gay couples must receive the same privileges and benefits as heterosexual couples, although the state is not required to refer to gay unions as “marriages”. In a 4-3 decision, the Court said that New Jersey’s legislature must decide whether gay unions will be referred to as marriages or civil unions.
Leaders of traditional values groups could not have been happier. Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, portrayed the ruling as a strategic opportunity for Republican leaders who are trying to rally the far-right base of their party: “I have to think there are Democratic strategists out there thinking the words of the old Japanese admiral: ‘I fear all we’ve done is wake a sleeping giant.’” Others concurred. Reverend Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention suggested that, “Pro-traditional-marriage organizations ought to give a distinguished service award to the New Jersey Supreme Court.”
The White House is somewhat desperately shifting into high gear, seeking of course to bolster turnout on November 7. President Bush hopes to energize far-right conservatives by making the election about gay marriage, and during an Iowa campaign stop he said that, “Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage.”
Should Democrats respond? Evidently not. A search through official Democratic Party web sites reveals nothing about the New Jersey decision, and party leaders are only weighing in when asked directly by journalists.
There are certainly important reasons why Democrats may choose to remain silent, or as silent as possible, about gay marriage at this time. On the one hand, marriage equality has been portrayed as a wedge issue that divides key Democratic constituents from one another. Just as many gay activists are intensely pro-marriage-equality, many African American ministers are dead-set against it. On the other hand, Democrats rightly hesitate to divert attention from the issues that are turning people away from the Republican party: the incompetent management of the Iraq war, the leadership’s hypocrisy in protecting Mark Foley, widespread corruption, and a pattern of flip-flops, the latest of which involved staying/not staying the course.
What makes matters worse is that many Reagan Democrats in the South and Midwest now appear to be ready to return to the fold. The last thing that the party wants to do is to alienate conservative Democrats at this crucial moment.
All that said, didn’t the attacks that derailed John Kerry’s bid for the White House illustrate the dangers of remaining silent while one is being swift-boated? The Democrats need take a clear stand in favor of gay marriage, not just civil unions, and they need to do so now. There are three reasons for taking the offensive.
First, the President’s reaction to the New Jersey decision provides an outstanding opportunity to portray Bush as a flip-flopper of the worst kind. Bush has clearly stated that he supports civil unions. Now, he mocks a ruling that allows civil unions. Democrats can and should portray Bush as a flip-flopper about what he believes.
Second, the social scientific evidence shows quite decisively that marriage equality is good for children. (There are some studies that suggest otherwise, but these were conducted by conservative activists using bogus methodologies. All of the methodologically rigorous, peer-reviewed research shows that marriage equality helps kids). Democrats should not shy away from advocating policies that help children, regardless of the politics.
Finally, third, if Democratic leaders do not take a clear stand for what is right and for what most (behind closed doors) say that they privately believe, they will be portrayed as wimps and flip-floppers who don’t stand behind their convictions. Just today, for example, the New York Times reported that after New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine came out in favor of allowing civil unions rather than gay marriage, he was attacked for having supported gay marriage on previous occasions.
Supporting marriage equality may seem frightening. But there’s a good chance that the public will reward a brave stand that helps children, even if that stance is seen by many as being too liberal. By contrast, flip-flopping and shying away from convictions makes the party seem weak. That is not something Democrats can afford at this time. ++
Winning On Gay Marriage
Evan Wolfson, TomPaine
October 27, 2006
Once again , America is heading into an Election Day with another round of ballot-measure attacks on gay people. While a shifting mood in the electorate may give our cause a boost—and as the public begins to wise up to Karl Rove’s gay-scapegoat-distraction plan—we are still likely to lose most, if not all, of the ballot measures aimed against us this year. We need to be ready to explain that loss to ourselves, our media and the public so the right-wing cannot spin these defeats into a false claim that our cause undermines candidates or other concerns we share.
At a similar juncture before the election in 2004, in a speech entitled The Scary Work of Winning, I described why we lose these battles. Most basically, civil rights movements rarely win early votes. After all, if it were as simple as a minority turning to the majority and saying, “Please stop discriminating against us,” we wouldn’t need constitutions or courts. Many of these attacks are cruelly aimed at gay people in states with already beleaguered communities, underfunded infrastructure, and few if any existing legal protections—this year’s wave includes Alabama, Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.
But, as I said in 2004, the other reason we are likely to lose in some places is that we have not fully fought the fight; we have not fully engaged in the conversation necessary—sustained and to scale—to move hearts and minds. When we run campaigns that flee from describing who local gays are and why marriage matters—campaigns that fail to connect the dots between fairness and how the denial of marriage harms families and helps no one—we are not giving people what they need over enough time to move them to our side.
In The Scary Work of Winning, I laid out a several “lessons” from civil rights struggles that we need to embrace. One was what I called “losing forward,” or progressing toward the long-term win. It followed the first lesson, “wins trump losses”—and I am an optimist who believes in fighting to win. But we can’t always win on the enemy’s timeframe, we can’t win without envisioning what victory means and what it takes, and we can’t win if we run from a fight.
When I push campaign leaders, activists and funders on the need to talk specifically about gays and marriage—and not run away from what the battle is really about—it is not merely to win down the road. I push this repeatedly because it is our best chance of winning, period. But I also believe that if we fail to at least lose forward, then we not only lose once, but twice, because we do not advance our cause.
So far, too many of our state campaigns—both the short-term election efforts and the longer-term public education work—fail to offer the voting public real content and an authentic engagement. Too often they have not used the airtime of an election battle to talk about gay people and marriage—the two things these ballot measures are most about—instead relying on generic appeals to fairness. Too many of our side’s campaigns have chosen to emphasize collateral effects on non-gay families, as if voters will really be persuaded that what the media will always refer to as “the marriage amendment” is somehow not about gay people’s freedom to marry. Worst of all, many campaigns and activists have gone with the message that people should vote the measure down simply because it is “unnecessary” or “goes too far.” That subliminally suggests—unintentionally, but in a way that is still damaging to our long-term movement—that some discrimination is okay and that it would indeed be a problem if we really did have gay couples marrying.
So what should a campaign message be—both in the short-term burst of an election and, more importantly, in the conversations over time? Its core should be something like this:
Local couples such as Jane and Judy of Kenosha Falls, Wisconsin [substitute a locality in your state here], who are in love and have been together X years and are raising Y kids and caring for Judy’s aging parents [paint a picture— personal, local, emotionally compelling—ideally giving the names/ages of people, including the kids] suffer real harm when excluded from marriage. Being denied marriage means that Jane and Judy don’t get the legal commitment to match the personal commitment they’ve made in life, and thereby are denied X and Y [specify some of the tangible and intangible concomitants of marriage, to be found in my book or on the Web]. Denying them marriage does nothing to help anyone else, but it does hurt their family—that’s not our Wisconsin values. Discrimination like this has no place in Wisconsin or in our constitution. And by the way, this constitutional amendment is deliberately sweeping and vague, and is intended to deny them civil unions, partnership, health benefits and more, depriving Jane, Judy and their kids of any measure of protection, large or small, for their family. That’s cruel and unfair.
The campaigns should use the time to introduce non-gay people to their gay neighbors. For instance, the 2000 Census tells us 13,802 same-sex couples live in Virginia, which is surely an undercount. Of those, 17.9 percent are African-American and 29.9 percent of them are raising children, meaning there are more than 4,000 couples with kids, and, thus, thousands of Virginia children who are being harmed by the denial of marriage that undermines their families.
Note the “by the way” in the message above. This may, indeed, be the part of the message that is easiest for a critical group of people to get to first. But they can’t get there until we have spent enough time and given enough information in the first part of the campaign (over many months) to connect the dots to the denial of marriage. This includes diffusing or reducing the anxieties and misconceptions around marriage at least enough to get them ready to take in the “by the way” message regarding the breadth and cruelty of the “second sentence” of many of these amendments, which seek to go beyond barring same-sex couples from marriage to denying those couples, and unmarried heterosexuals, any measure of protection, large or small. This is why we need to start earlier and use time more wisely than we have in any of these battles. And campaigns—electoral or educational—that think they can make the whole conversation and vote about the “by the way” from the get-go are kidding themselves, no matter what a pollster or consultant may tell them is the easier lift.
The effort to wall us off from marriage and cement discrimination and permanent second-class citizenship into constitutions, the precious charters of freedom and national unity, is cruel and despicably un-American. The good news is that even these unfair and harsh amendments are not the last word—unless we allow them to be. As evidenced by this week’s unanimous decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court opening the door to marriage equality, ours is the generation that will live to see the exclusion from marriage ended in all 50 states, if we do the work—in all 50 states, using our time wisely to do it right. ++
Evan Wolfson is author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry (Simon & Schuster, 2004), and executive director of Freedom to Marry, the gay and non-gay partnership for marriage equality nationwide.
Catholic Bishops Find New Way to Insult Gays
ANDY HUMM, Gay City News
10/26/2006
[Note: the authors name is NOT a pun ... but should be]
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has drafted new guidelines on ministering to people with “homosexual inclinations.” The bishops won’t use the word “orientation.” The proposal, to be finalized at their meeting November 13-18 in Baltimore, lumps homosexual lovemaking in with “acts such as adultery, fornication, and contraception, that violate the norms of human sexuality.”
While the Vatican holds that same-sex orientation is “disordered,” the American bishops’ draft maintains that “saying a person has a particular inclination that is disordered is not to say that the person as a whole is disordered.” The draft claims that homosexual “passions are not fixed” and that “repeated good actions will modify the passions that one experiences,” a nod to discredited “reparative therapies” that promise to turn gay people straight.
The bishops say that “those who carry out the Church’s ministry must not use their leadership positions to advocate views contrary to Church teaching.” They also take pot shots against adoption by gay couples and any legal recognition for their relationships, following on the heels of Pope Benedict’s exhortation in Verona last week to oppose legalization of “weak and deviant” unions.
Sam Sinnett, president of Dignity/USA, the LGBT Catholic group, said the bishops’ document was drafted “by none of us for whom it was intended.” He added, “They speak in willful ignorance about homosexuality-sexuality in general.” Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, “It’s an insult to compare an orientation that leads to love to ‘inclinations’ that lead to harm.” Rev. Troy Plummer, director of the Reconciling Ministries Network for United Methodists, said, “Such hug-and-slug theology and destructive ‘pastoral care’ sin against lesbian and gay families and harm the church.” ++
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
October 27th, 2006