Strange Bedfellows In Prop 8 Fight
In choosing sides over the legality of gay marriage, two of the nation's top lawyers are saying, "I do."
Opposing attorneys in the 2000 election fight for Florida - David Boies, who represented Al Gore, and Ted Olson, George Bush's lawyer and later the U.S. Solicitor General - are teaming up to ask a federal court to throw out California's ban on same-sex marriage.
The two filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that the marriage ban violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Olson said he hopes the case will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This is a federal question," he said. "This is about the rights of individuals to be treated equally and not be stigmatized."
And they may go up against Ken Starr, the former prosecutor who almost got President Clinton removed from office over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Starr successfully argued before the California Supreme Court to uphold Proposition 8.
Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the film "Milk" about the late gay activist Harvey Milk, said the case would seek to overturn a ban on same-sex marriage not just in California, "but sea to sea."
"Like so many civil right battles before the gay and lesbian movement, it's only clear we can win our full and complete right [in federal court]," Black said on CBS' The Early Show. "There will always be states and counties that will have to be pulled to full equality."
Black said part of the reason opponents of same-sex marriage succeeded in passing Proposition 8 last year was that activists did not look to history and reach out to those outside the gay community.
"Harvey Milk understood we need to reach out, educate," Black said. "Thankfully, we've now identified the community that voted against us, thanks to Proposition 8. We need to reach out to them, educate them and tell our personal stories."
In their decision, the Justices emphasized the legal issue before them was not same-sex marriage (which they voted last year to legalize) but rather the right of California voters to change the state's constitution.
Black disagreed with the Court's explanation that its decision was a matter of protecting voters' rights. "Well, it's clearly an issue of same-sex marriage," he said. "It's an issue of equality.
"It goes deeper than just my right to get married," Black said. "This goes to, I think, the feeling that I had when I was a teenage kid and I was hearing there was inequality in this country and I was seeing things that were not true about gay and lesbian people. You start to feel there's something wrong with you, you're told by your government you're a second-class citizen, and dire thoughts go through your head.
"Gay and lesbian kids are four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight brothers and sisters, and four times more likely if they come from an unaccepting environment," Black said. "I tuned in and I was watching the pundits on either side, and I was listening to the pundits who were afraid of equality saying gay marriage hurts their family and children. It's the exact opposite; it's the homophobic thoughts that hurt the citizens."
Working To Repeal
In California, supporters of the ban hailed the court's decision as a victory for traditional marriage:
"Marriage is about procreation," said Steve Macias, student body president of Sacramento City College. "There is not procreation available in same-sex marriages."
But the justices also ruled that the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the ban took effect last year will remain legal.
So Jeanne Rizzo and Pali Cooper, who wed last summer, are still married … and are still determined to win the right for others.
"We'll be back at the ballot box - we're not going away," Rizzo told Blackstone.
(Left: Emily Drenne, a same-sex marriage advocate, wears a wedding gown as she is detained by San Francisco police, after demonstrators block a street in San Francisco, May 26, 2009.)
Cooper said it was just a matter of time before the issues goes before California voters again - possibly as soon as next year.
"I'm just disappointed the court wasn't more courageous here," she told Blackstone.
Gay rights groups are starting work to gather the 700,000 signatures required to place a repeal of Proposition 8 before voters in November 2010.
The court held that the ban, which passed with 52 percent of the vote last fall, was a legal exercise of the virtually unfettered initiative power the California Constitution grants its citizens.
Both Equality California and the Courage Campaign, a political action group based in Los Angeles, said they had polled their members in recent days and found overwhelming support for going back to voters next year instead of waiting until 2012.
But they may still find an uphill battle: A poll of 600 California voters by CBS Station KPIX said that 56 percent agree with the Court's decision to uphold Proposition 8, although 60 percent agreed with the Court's decision not to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed last year.
Voicing Opposition
Several hundred protesters marched from City Hall in San Francisco last night to a downtown park to express their opposition to the state Supreme Court's decision.
Earlier in the day, police arrested at least 175 protesters after a large crowd blocked a major intersection to protest the ruling.
In New York City, more than a thousand people marched from Sheridan Square to Union Square to rally support for same-sex marriage, reports CBS Station WCBS. New York state lawmakers are poised to make a decision on same-sex marriage legislation some time next month.
Activists, politicians and religious leaders slammed the California Supreme Court's decision.
"Those who use anti-gay rhetoric in religion are practicing religious bigotry," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum.
In Los Angeles, about 100 people sat down in an intersection near the University of California, Los Angeles during rush hour, and several hundred protesters gathered at a rally in West Hollywood where actress Drew Barrymore addressed the crowd.
"Children need families, people need to love and we need to move forward, not backward," Barrymore said. "What defines a family? We do!"
"To have your rights denied is very painful," one man told CBS station KCBS correspondent Melissa McCarty.
"I just think it's very frustrating that they keep talking about 'the sanctity of marriage' and upholding that," one woman told KCBS. "We have shows like 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette' and 'Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire,' and Britney Spears can get drunk in Vegas and go marry some guy, and we can't get married and we're in love."
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Opposing attorneys in the 2000 election fight for Florida - David Boies, who represented Al Gore, and Ted Olson, George Bush's lawyer and later the U.S. Solicitor General - are teaming up to ask a federal court to throw out California's ban on same-sex marriage.
The two filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that the marriage ban violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Olson said he hopes the case will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This is a federal question," he said. "This is about the rights of individuals to be treated equally and not be stigmatized."
And they may go up against Ken Starr, the former prosecutor who almost got President Clinton removed from office over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Starr successfully argued before the California Supreme Court to uphold Proposition 8.
Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the film "Milk" about the late gay activist Harvey Milk, said the case would seek to overturn a ban on same-sex marriage not just in California, "but sea to sea."
"Like so many civil right battles before the gay and lesbian movement, it's only clear we can win our full and complete right [in federal court]," Black said on CBS' The Early Show. "There will always be states and counties that will have to be pulled to full equality."
Black said part of the reason opponents of same-sex marriage succeeded in passing Proposition 8 last year was that activists did not look to history and reach out to those outside the gay community.
"Harvey Milk understood we need to reach out, educate," Black said. "Thankfully, we've now identified the community that voted against us, thanks to Proposition 8. We need to reach out to them, educate them and tell our personal stories."
In their decision, the Justices emphasized the legal issue before them was not same-sex marriage (which they voted last year to legalize) but rather the right of California voters to change the state's constitution.
Black disagreed with the Court's explanation that its decision was a matter of protecting voters' rights. "Well, it's clearly an issue of same-sex marriage," he said. "It's an issue of equality.
"It goes deeper than just my right to get married," Black said. "This goes to, I think, the feeling that I had when I was a teenage kid and I was hearing there was inequality in this country and I was seeing things that were not true about gay and lesbian people. You start to feel there's something wrong with you, you're told by your government you're a second-class citizen, and dire thoughts go through your head.
"Gay and lesbian kids are four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight brothers and sisters, and four times more likely if they come from an unaccepting environment," Black said. "I tuned in and I was watching the pundits on either side, and I was listening to the pundits who were afraid of equality saying gay marriage hurts their family and children. It's the exact opposite; it's the homophobic thoughts that hurt the citizens."
Working To Repeal
In California, supporters of the ban hailed the court's decision as a victory for traditional marriage:
"Marriage is about procreation," said Steve Macias, student body president of Sacramento City College. "There is not procreation available in same-sex marriages."
But the justices also ruled that the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the ban took effect last year will remain legal.
So Jeanne Rizzo and Pali Cooper, who wed last summer, are still married … and are still determined to win the right for others.
"We'll be back at the ballot box - we're not going away," Rizzo told Blackstone.
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Cooper said it was just a matter of time before the issues goes before California voters again - possibly as soon as next year.
"I'm just disappointed the court wasn't more courageous here," she told Blackstone.
Gay rights groups are starting work to gather the 700,000 signatures required to place a repeal of Proposition 8 before voters in November 2010.
The court held that the ban, which passed with 52 percent of the vote last fall, was a legal exercise of the virtually unfettered initiative power the California Constitution grants its citizens.
Both Equality California and the Courage Campaign, a political action group based in Los Angeles, said they had polled their members in recent days and found overwhelming support for going back to voters next year instead of waiting until 2012.
But they may still find an uphill battle: A poll of 600 California voters by CBS Station KPIX said that 56 percent agree with the Court's decision to uphold Proposition 8, although 60 percent agreed with the Court's decision not to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed last year.
Voicing Opposition
Several hundred protesters marched from City Hall in San Francisco last night to a downtown park to express their opposition to the state Supreme Court's decision.
Earlier in the day, police arrested at least 175 protesters after a large crowd blocked a major intersection to protest the ruling.
In New York City, more than a thousand people marched from Sheridan Square to Union Square to rally support for same-sex marriage, reports CBS Station WCBS. New York state lawmakers are poised to make a decision on same-sex marriage legislation some time next month.
Activists, politicians and religious leaders slammed the California Supreme Court's decision.
"Those who use anti-gay rhetoric in religion are practicing religious bigotry," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum.
In Los Angeles, about 100 people sat down in an intersection near the University of California, Los Angeles during rush hour, and several hundred protesters gathered at a rally in West Hollywood where actress Drew Barrymore addressed the crowd.
"Children need families, people need to love and we need to move forward, not backward," Barrymore said. "What defines a family? We do!"
"To have your rights denied is very painful," one man told CBS station KCBS correspondent Melissa McCarty.
"I just think it's very frustrating that they keep talking about 'the sanctity of marriage' and upholding that," one woman told KCBS. "We have shows like 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette' and 'Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire,' and Britney Spears can get drunk in Vegas and go marry some guy, and we can't get married and we're in love."
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According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), there are 1,138[1] statutory provisions in which marital status is a factor in determining benefits, rights, and privileges. It should be noted that these rights and responsibilities apply only to male-female married couples, as the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines marriage as between a man and a woman and thus bars same-sex couples from receiving any federal recognition of same sex marriage or conveyance of marriage benefits to same sex couples through federal marriage law.
Prior to the enactment of DOMA, the General Accounting Office (as the GAO was then called) identified 1,049[2] federal statutory provisions in which benefits, rights, and privileges are contingent on marital status or in which marital status is a factor. An update was published in 2004 by the GAO covering the period between September 21, 1996 (when DOMA was signed into law) and December 31, 2003. The update identified 120 new statutory provisions involving marital status, and 31 statutory provisions involving marital status repealed or amended in such a way as to eliminate marital status as a factor.
If married man and woman will fore go their nearly 1,500 rights and priveleges protected by Our laws, then same gender marriage will not be an issue.
Can somebody name a state where gay marriage was passed by a vote of the people? No? Must be because in the 4 states where it is permissable, it was passed by some court or legislature. On the other hand, all the many states that have put the issue in their constitutions (by the people) it is forbidden.
.
Lets see, if I am a lefty, I think that killing 35 million innocent unborn is okay, but killing death row criminals is not okay. Gender is important regarding political positions,but doesn't matter in marriage. States can make decisions about gun ownership, but not about marriage.
You people are out of your friggin minds.
On the other hand, it would be terrific for the federal court to finally make it clear that there is no federal issue here, that even state laws that try to classify gays as a protected class have carried the real intent of civil rights legislation way too far, that the people of any state have the right to decide those laws that were left to the states by the US Constitution, and that the voters of a state do have a very real fundamental right to determine the content of their state constitution. I'd really love it for this to finally be settled once and for all about the same time that the voters of Maine, Iowa, Vermont, etc. begin changing their own state constitutions to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. That would be terrific!
But seriously, I have to be up again in less than 6 hours to face the demanding harpies from hell who abuse my graphics and marketing department. So, to all again, goodnight and best wishes.
Posted by democracy1 at 8:45 PM : May 27, 2009
Oh no...please stay up and read what get posted. It's not that I care what you think,
it's just nice to ruin your day!
Posted by armyoftwelve at 8:55 PM .......
Ahhhhh... Cheap Shot! :-(
Too bad you won't be able to answer that, either.
Posted by slownewday_05 at 8:37 PM : May 27, 2009
My guess is that the case that will apply is a 1970's case involving 2 guys from Minnesota who wanted to get married and were denied because of the state law. They appealled all the way to the USSC but the court refused to even hear the case.
I think the Supreme Court's decision had something to do with a lack of a federal issue.
You know, neither the courts or the constitution have overruled long-standing legal
precedents that define a marriage as between one man and one woman.
I don't remember the name of the case...you spend so much time on line I'm sure you can look it up. Of course, you won't actually learn anything unless you take the time to
READ it. One of your biggest flaws, not reading stuff--aside from the name calling and not knowing what a marriage is and the rabid support for feticide......
I'll let you and all the other creeps have the floor.
It ISN'T!
Posted by democracy1 at 8:31 PM ............
Maybe that is because marriage was around long before the constitution. For that matter, long before Christianity.
Posted by slownewday_05 at 8:35 PM : May 27, 2009
When they can't answer, especially when you ask them to provide a quote or a citation, they accuse you of not being able to read and run like hell. Must be a student of Rowdy's!
But seriously, I have to be up again in less than 6 hours to face the demanding harpies from hell who abuse my graphics and marketing department. So, to all again, goodnight and best wishes.