Jeremy Hooper's Blog, page 100

Utah marriage case fast-tracked to SCOTUS

Could June of 2015 be a particularly jubilant Pride Month?

I'm not willing to concede a 5–4 ruling the way that SCOTUSblog is. I still think Roberts, whose legacy as Chief Justice is as stake, is very gettable.

Then again, the court could not take this particular case at all. Or any case, for that matter. There are no guarantees other than that Antonin Scalia will always rule against us.

Peter LaBarbera warns Michael Sam: You sexuality earns you 'notoriety among millions of us'

In yet another act of hubris that far outpaces his platform size or political capital, Peter LaBarbera, a man who has spent virtually every day for the past few decades obsessing about LGBT people and our rights,



has penned an open letter to NFL player Michael Sam calling on him to leave his homosexuality behind. A taste of Peter's warning:

Believe it or not, no one is born “gay”; molestation, emotional deprivation, parental or peer rejection, or other traumatic factors can foster same-sex attr...

Six LGBT groups: No you can't refuse our cake and fire the gay baker too!

While I've typically gone along with them in order to achieve the goal and not make the perfect the enemy of the good, I've always been troubled by the way we are asked to cede religious exemptions that apply to us in a dissimilar and unfair way. So while I'm not necessarily aligning myself with this coalition, I do certainly understand and appreciate the reasoning:

In a dramatic move today, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced it was dropping support for the Employment Non-Discr...

Video: 'Miami Herald' reports on Florida marriage hearing

I'm kind of in love with the good side's attorney, Elena Vigil-Farinas:

In which a perfectly understandable language change leads to a reliable FRC meltdown

Because marriage equality is a reality in California, just as it is in eighteen other states, Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill that does nothing more than clear up the language used in state marriage law. For instace, rather than specify husband and wife, the law now instead addresses spouses. Because that is reality.

But here's what the concept looks like when put through the anti-gay far-right's anti-intellectual spin machine:

[Tony Perkins]

Perhaps the silliest thing about Tony's anti-i...

Catholic mag features Catholic leader of Catholic org. that wishes to impose Catholic view onto civil marriage

Legatus is that extremely anti-gay Catholic organization with which I convinced Bob Newhart from aligning himself after I presented his team with evidence of the organization's harsh views. But while those anti-gay views might not have been suitable for a beloved comedian, they are perfect for an extremely Catholic and extremely anti-gay group like the National Organization For Marriage. Which is why its president, Brian Brown (who is himself a "Legate," as members are called), is featured in...

Fox News' in-house anti-gay activist: Christians will soon engage in civil disobedience against LGBT rights

Todd Starnes, the anti-gay activist who serves as a shit-stirrer for Fox News (i.e. he reaches out to the anti-gay groups and brings concocted "victim" stories back to the network to lend them network credence), keeps getting more and more over-the-top in his fear-porting. Now he, a man who has praised truly shocking extremest Bryan Fischer as "one of the most intelligent talk show hosts in the country," is openly claiming that Christians are likely to start rising up against those pesky LGBT...

Without his bad magic, there wouldn't have been a 'Mark Regnerus witch-hunt'

For whatever reason, several different socially conservative outlets have featured pieces over the past couple of days voicing support for the now-demolished study that Texas researcher Mark Regnerus foisted onto the world with the proven help of catalysts in the anti-gay conservative movement. Even though his study designed to attack gay-headed families was recently laughed out of a court of law, even though wiser conservative political figures have distanced themselves from the junk study,...

Mat Staver: We are basically Pompeii and a volcano is going to soon end us

At an Independence Day weekend event called "Celebrate America," Liberty Counsel attorney, Fox News regular, recent congressional testifier, legal counsel arguing against same-sex marriage in Florida, and longtime anti-LGBT activist Mat Staver used his time to tell the gathered that America circa 2014 is essentially Pompeii circa 79, with something like a genocidal volcano soon to destroy us all. And of course the gays and our marriages (which he compares to denying the laws of gravity) are a...

Liberty Counsel's Staver compares FL's discriminatory marriage ban to drug laws

Florida's Republican Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has earned all kinds of negative press for her brief saying that marriage equality in the Sunshine State would cause "significant public harm." But just like he once went after the Prop 8 legal team for not being anti-gay enough, Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver is now claiming that Bondi is not being aggressive enough in her efforts to stop gay citizens from obtaining marriage parity. And to make his case against both the ban and the apparentl...