Tuesday, June 14, 2011

NOM's no good, stinky bad day

I am presently in a hotel room in Minnesota gearing up, putting on the armor and making battle plans. God I love this stuff.

While I was on a plane to Minnesota, the National Organization for Marriage - and those opposing marriage equality - was getting a small degree of kismet for all of their nasty ramblings and such over the years.

First, to the surprise of no one, federal judge James Ware said no to the motion from Prop 8 supporters that the judgement against them by former judge Vaughn Walker should be overturned on the grounds that he is gay and in a long-term relationship:

In his 19-page decision – a response to the first attempt in the nation to disqualify a judge based on sexual orientation – Ware had a bigger message. Gay judges, he said, are just like minority and female jurists: They can be impartial, too, even in cases that might affect them.

"We all have an equal stake in a case that challenges the constitutionality of a restriction on a fundamental right," he wrote. "The single characteristic that Judge Walker shares with the plaintiffs, albeit one that might not have been shared with the majority of Californians, gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits than would exist for any other judge or citizen."

. . ."The presumption that Judge Walker, by virtue of being in a same-sex relationship, had a desire to be married that rendered him incapable of making an impartial decision, is as warrantless as the presumption that a female judge is incapable of being impartial in a case in which women seek legal relief," he wrote.

Of course folks are going to try to appeal it so I say go ahead, waste your money.

This ruling is like winning an Oscar after months of knowing that you are the front runner. You know you are going to win, but it's still nice as hell to stop on that stage and receive the award.

The second item pertains to New York. It would seem that all of NOM's hyperbole, lies, and playing groups against one another may backfire (finally) in the organization's face because at press time, the New York Senate is one vote away from allowing same-sex marriage in the state:

New York is within a single vote of legalizing gay marriage after a second Republican state senator said on Tuesday that he would support the measure should it come to the floor this week.

The senator, Roy J. McDonald, from the capital region, made his comments to reporters amid growing indications that Republican leaders would bring the bill to an up-or-down vote on Thursday or Friday.

Three other Republican state senators, speaking on condition of anonymity because their conference had not yet formally debated the measure, said they believed the bill was almost certain to come up for a vote and that it would likely pass, making New York the sixth, and largest, state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

The vote tally in the State Senate now stands at 31 of 62 members, with one more vote needed to approve the law. The Assembly has passed the measure several times before and is likely to do so again this week if the Senate moves ahead.

Let us all pray and keep our fingers crossed that this turns out excellent for the lgbt community. I think this could very well happen.



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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Alvin - Have a great time at Netroots. Minneapolis is a wonderful city and and you deserve to be there. :)