Some of us have raised objections for the last two years on President Obama’s conflicting positions on gay rights. Now, White House Spokesman Jay Carney was able to nail down concretely the President’s position on gay marriage: he is still “grappling” with it.
The President’s position on gay rights have been so conflicted as to be incomprehensible. For two years, his Administration opposed challenges to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy by adopting extreme arguments that denied arguments of constitutional protections based on sexual orientation and insisting that the military had the right to discharge people solely because they are known to be gay or lesbian. Notably, the Administration has always opposed claims that sexual orientation should be afforded the same type of protection as gender.
This week, Obama switched his position on DOMA and decided that, after two years of defending the law, his Administration would no longer argue for its constitutionality. Critics noted that this decision seemed driven more by politics than principle since the Administration waited until after the mid-term elections to take the position on the constitutional issue.
Holder’s explanation for switching sides was forced and unconvincing. He notably, however, did not endorse arguments for added constitutional protections akin to gender. Instead, he focused entirely on the lowest rational basis test.
In his statement, Carney would only say that Obama viewed the Defense of Marriage Act as “unnecessary and unfair.” However, the White House refused to say that this was a recognition of the right to same-sex marriage. It is just “unnecessary and unfair.” That puts same-sex marriage in the same category of other “unnecessary” acts like some redundant farm subsidy or denial of ERISA benefits.
The message may seem confusing and jumbled but it is not. The Administration does not accept that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marriage. It is only if you reject the constitutional claim that you are left like Hamlet on the Potomac — “grappling” with whether to recognize same-sex marriage as a matter of fairness . . . or politics.
Source: Yahoo
Jonathan Turley
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQsPC2n4T6Q&w=640&h=390%5D A funny video made by some GWU law students that my daughter sent to me. I hope it doesn’t offend anyone.
Mike S said:
Just thought that was worth repeating… (I couldn’t agree more).
Well Slarti…. Do tell….Be careful….a Professor in Colorado got fired even with tenure for disagreeing with someone…..
As to the drinking game….. I don’t think it is ever finished before the brawl erupts…… Now the bong game….. well… not violent….
I think that MSP has snowmobiles to catch the drunk drivers in the UP….. But its usually a short jaunt….. Bar to Bar…. they rarely get ff track…..
Now the women up there are strong like Bull…..or is that Ox… I would not want to mess with one….. They’d be doing the Domestic Violence……. So either the sheep are well fed and they better enjoy themselves or they will be out in the cold…….
But then again I may be wrong…..
I thought Jackson was where all of the men had mustaches and most of the women did too….
James,
My friend who went to Tech always referred to it as the place where ‘The men were men, the women were more men, and the sheep ran scared…’. He made a drinking game called ‘Life at Tech’ – I don’t know if it was possible to finish the game (let alone win) without acute alcohol poisoning. Do you know if they still have the largest liquor store in the US (by volume sold) in Houghton?
I’ll be thinking of you when I get a Jersey Giant for lunch tomorrow before the rally… (you too, AY)
Ah ha….Slarti……
Do you remember the MSU postcard that was really a picture of the Cotton Unit in Jackson that said Michigan State…. Now they gone and done it with the parking garage across Michigan Ave that looks like it should be attached to the Prison….
James,
Thank you for your kind words about my fjords.
I grew up in East Lansing, you know… here [pointing just below the center of my right palm…] 😉 and went to undergrad at State (plus a master’s there, too…).
Regarding missing Michigan – I’m in the waning days (or the ‘duration’ as I like to call it) of my first Michigan winter in a decade… – I’ve been in North Carolina – and I’m loving it! Shoveling snow, the cold, can’t travel – no problem. We had an ice storm a couple of days ago – just a wee one – but my attitude managed to survive shoveling an inch of slush and allow me to appreciate the beauty of driving around in the sunshine the next day. And in a few short months (kidding… but only just ;-)) I’ll get my first Michigan spring in a decade – I can’t wait! I guess I’ve known that I was a Michigainian (yes, I know it’s not the standard, but the other sounds like a goose to me…) ever since I saw an aerial shot of Spartan Stadium durning the Michigan-Michigan State game (GO GREEN!) on a beautiful fall afternoon and wished with all my heart that I was home…
“It’s not a game for me”
Jill,
Do you think it’s a game for me, for SM and the rest of the regular crew here? Just as you have, SM’s developed a body of work that clearly defines that this isn’t seen as a game. She said nothing disparaging about you. That you choose to see a hidden irony and/or malevolence in the statement made in the statement made, is really your projection. As for everyone coming down on your head, I think since you returned every regular has bent over backwards not to again make you feel you were being attacked.
I actually gave thought to whether I should write my comment, given our history, but in the end I won’t be silent when you play this victim game (See: Erich Berne M.D. “The Games People Play”) even though it is likely you really don’t realize you are playing it. This is especially so when it involves someone who is blameless. As for criticizing JT, I have done so but yes I haven’t mocked him. This is because he’s a “straight up” person
and while at times I disagree with him, I can’t dispute his integrity, or his taste in dealing with those he disagrees with.
The most ironic thing about all this is that we both are very similar in political viewpoint. My support of him in his election was never because he was my hero, but because tactically I knew what was coming if Republicans retained power.
My comments at the time prove it. While I’m extremely disappointed in him for many things, a McCain/Palin victory would have been the ultimate disaster for the entire country.
My arguments with you at the time devolved around what would happen if we didn’t support him. I suspect many of us already would be bound for camps, or worse, based on the current climate.
We live under a corporate oligarchy and our only saving grace is that the oligarchy is neither homogeneous, nor has the same specific agenda. While both Democrats and Republicans are mainly Corporate tools, the Democrats at least pay lip service to helping all the people and some are even sincere. Until the revolution reaches fruition and I think it is coming on the path of Gandhi and MLK, we need to speak truth to falsehood and recognize our allies (and potential allies)may not always agree with our take on things.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26jury.html?_r=1&hp
Jury Nullification Advocate Is Indicted
Since 2009, Mr. Heicklen has stood there and at courthouse entrances elsewhere and handed out pamphlets encouraging jurors to ignore the law if they disagree with it, and to render verdicts based on conscience.
That concept, called jury nullification, is highly controversial, and courts are hostile to it. But federal prosecutors have now taken the unusual step of having Mr. Heicklen indicted on a charge that his distributing of such pamphlets at the courthouse entrance violates the law against jury tampering.
http://fija.org/
James,
I understand…..I do…. There is something about the naturalness especially looking off the dunes at dusk into the setting sun that is a real eye opener…. Then camping in Three Rivers…. Mears…. Then life got complicated…. Kinda like playing solitaire to dawn with a deck of 51….
I am A Actual Victim. I am a Black Hispanic Female. Do you know how conflicted I feel in the morning. I want to rip those weasels heads off and shit down their Throats. To wanting to hold them down and force them to take me like the woman I was before the school teacher did somethings and my mommy moved us to Colorado maybe that is why I feel so conflicted. I live in Colorado and it is nice. The mountains are great. I had a conflict with the District Court in Denver. Has anyone ever heard of Denver. For you that have not it is in Colorado. Have you ever heard of Colorado? Well for you that have not I see public education was not wasted on you. They don’t teach you anything anyways except touch you where they should not, but it felt good at the time. I was given things that my mommy made me give back. The I was home schooled by a moron priest that used to live in Utah. That is North of here just in case you know where Utah is but not Colorado. I am acoustic too and sometimes I get things turned around. Maybe we are South of Utah at this point I am not sure. I need to get back to the story. What was the story. Oh yes, I am a victim and I am speaking out now. I was arrested for something I know I did not do. I sued somebody and they got a honeymoon in a Feral Court. I know it was a honeymoon for them I just got, well you know. We weren’t married and it was against my will. I wrote the judge after that and he put me in a cell with, well that was okay. I did get fed and the others were very friendly. They hugged me about at night, I just felt so warm inside. I am not sure which was who now. I was taking medications but it was either an assault or was that honeymoon. I just wanted to go away and die like my mule. I used to ride Pedro all the time and my mommy saw me and called some people to come and get him. For a mule he was big. That is another story. My mommy baptized me then but that is another story too. She said I was a dirty girl. What do you think? Can I be a Victim or do you have room for just one? I see that spot is already taken, so I will wait. Oh please, I want to be a victim.
AY, that is a complicated answer best summarized by chronology:
1965 b. Albion, raised in Litchfield
1972 Concord, MI
1973 Jackson Address #1
1978 Jackson Address #2
1983 Houghton (Michigan Tech)
1988 Jackson Address #3
1989 Lansing Address #1
1990 Somerset Center
1990 Jackson Address #2
1992 Lansing Address #2
1996 Okemos
1998 Lansing Address #3
2000 Los Angeles (and I’m on address #4, though I’ve been here 5 years now)
I miss Fall. I miss the Lakes. I do not miss being nomadic, now that we spell it all out…yeesh…I also miss the realism among people, and the value of disciplined hard work. In LA, I had to adjust to the truth that a much larger piece of the pie belongs to Appearances, along with the amount of effort expended in keeping them up. In MI, we’d call it “putting on airs.” It is very difficult to make and maintain friends locally, even though the city is teeming with life. I moved here for my mental health, needing the weather to smash seasonal depression into teeny tiny little pieces. And the client base is much richer than poor MI which contracts by the hour.
One thing you learn at a young age in a union state: you mess with me, you’ve messed with us ALL. The GOP does not want to tick off the Teamsters, even in 2011, they just don’t.
SwM,
🙂
James in LA, where in Michigan were you raised…..What part of the Mitt….. Or Are you a Troll rather being a Fudgie ……
Slart, I was raised in MI, and know Lansing well! Power to the People!
Oh, yes, and your exemplary work on Fjords remains the Gold Standard.
James in LA said, “I am hitting a labor rally in LA tomorrow.”
I just signed up for the one in Lansing, MI – I hope that when Nate Silver analyzes the size of the crowds that turn out tomorrow it turns out to be an order of magnitude greater than the tax day Teabaggers…
Playing the victim card:
As a victim, the one to whom injustice is being done, others are unjust, incorrect, not okay, wrong in what they do and consequently the victim is just, okay, good and right. The victim is worthy and others are not.
This tactic is obvious to everyone except the one playing the card. The trick is not to buy into the guilt and call the tactic what it is … an ego protection mechanisms that comes into play when someone feels threatened.
Oh my . . . all this conflict is giving me the vapors.
(to be read in the voice of Peter Lorre or Vivien Leigh, whichever you find funnier)
Jill,
I think SWM’s post was informational to you. There was nothing controversial in what she said. I think Mike S., hit it on the head. You play victim unless people play along the way you want. This is what she said…… I copy, cut and pasted….
Swarthmore mom 1, February 25, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Jill I thought of you the other day when I saw a “Nobama” bumper sticker.
What does that say to you…. Hey Jill I thought of you when I ……saw a NObama sticker? This is one of those signs that if you were an Obama supporter someone could yank your chain …or in this case…. she is not yanking your chain….. she is making an observation…..
Must you be combative and inflammatory to people that make casual statements here…..or are you really taking my role in waking up just to annoy…… which I take pride in around September 8th or 9th 2009, I was giving that medal of honor…..
Jill said, “I have a right to ask people not to abuse me on this site.”
Abuse? Where’s the real harm? Does reading posts you do not like cause you disability? Tremors? The Palsy? Can a physician back up such a claim?
Further, you have no right to anything here. We exist at the favor of our beneficent host who honors even your speech by allowing all of if to be made manifest without censor. It is your privilege to post here. I recommend celebration and feasting.
As to your specific point, I am conflicted about our President, and there is also no one alive and also in the GOP that could ever hope to carry his water. They know it, and hate him for it. But they cannot take him down unless they are willing to throw their heroes under the bus.
The same logic applies to a primary challenge, which isn’t going to happen because no one can raise the cash. And, no one wants President Huckleberry.
So, we’re stuck with him, and I will continue to speak out on matters of war crimes and grand theft gone without a single grand jury being seated. This tends to dilute the impact of his other achievements, as the same terminal rot in our politics still exists, now aided and abetted for two years. The dawning conclusion for me is that it is simply too much to expect from one man, however gifted.
I am hitting a labor rally in LA tomorrow. I invite you to find one near you and work out some of the victimhood. It’s too easy a pathway leading to nothing but dead-ends.
There is a joke about Soviet politics and math. For years, the state has decreed that 2+2=7. Then one day, it is announced that 2+2=6. An angry teacher protests: “No, no, 2+2=4! Four, I tell you!” A friend tells him “Be reasonable, comrade. First, 2+2=7. Now, 2+2=6. That’s progress, isn’t it?”