Jeremy Hooper's Blog, page 63
October 19, 2014
Caught ya: Far-right's latest marriage 'victim' edited website to make more solid legal case
Back in May, I wrote about a place called The Hitching Post, a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, business that marries couples for profit. At the time, I opined about how the ordained minister who owns the business has every right to not perform same-sex marriages, if he so chooses. However, if he is going to make that choice, then he is going to lose that right to run a for-profit, "all comers welcome" business that says it marries opposite-sex couples in civil ceremonies, regardless of faith.
And in May...
October 17, 2014
Read: Wyoming to become our 32nd marriage equality state
In a temporarily stayed ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl has ruled against Wyoming's discriminatory marriage ban. Once the stay is lifted (on Oct 23rd, if not before), this will make Wyoming the 32nd marriage equality state:
2:14-cv-00200 #44 Wyoming Injunction & Temporary Stay by Equality Case Files
Only eighteen (!) to go.
***
*UPDATE: WYOMING: Governor Will Not Appeal, Marriages To Commence By Friday [J.M.G.]
What fake victimization sounds like in Arizona
Cathi Herrod, Arizona's longtime voice of discrimination for LGBT people, weighs in on today's decision bringing marriage equality to her state:
PHOENIX – “I am heartbroken for a country and a state that has had the redefinition of marriage forced upon them by an out of control federal judiciary.
In what amounts to the de-facto Roe v Wade of marriage, voters throughout the nation have watched their voices be silenced, and their votes voided. Now, Arizona’s marriage amendment and our voters are...
Federal judge strikes Arizona's discriminatory marriage ban; marriages should begin today!
US District Judge John W. Sedwick has just ruled that marriage equality can begin in Arizona
If this sticks, then that brings us up to thirty-one states and counting. And just as social conservatives have long predicted, the rapid developments have prompted Americans to take to the streets in angry mobs, dragons are now terrorizing major cities, and straight parents are leaving their babies on the roadsides to instead be raised by wolves.
NOM's latest desperation: Relying on hearsay James O'Keefe video to smear Democrat for 'secretly' not opposing equality
James O'Keefe, the controversial conservative filmmaker whose big thing is to secretly film progressives in what are often lazily twisted versions of incomplete truths, released a latest video wherein a leader with the Arkansas Young Democrats' gay caucus intimated that Sen. Mark Pryor, one of the only Democratic Senators who still publicly opposes marriage equality, is actually less against it than he says he is. Here's the truly lame video:
Now, even on its face, this is a pretty ridiculous...
Shun-employment: NC state employee quits job to avoid happy gay couples
Priorities, folks:
WENTWORTH — A Rockingham County magistrate submitted his resignation Thursday, saying he couldn’t marry same-sex couples because it violates his religious beliefs.
Magistrate John Kallam Jr. sent a letter to Chief District Court Judge Fred Wilkins and said he couldn’t fulfill his oath of office after same-sex marriage became legal in North Carolina. His resignation is effective Oct. 31.
FULL: Rockingham magistrate resigns over same-sex marriage [Winston-Salem Journal]
It's uncl...
October 16, 2014
NOM wasted a lot of money on IRS "scandal," aint getting it back
The National Organization For Marriage today suffered what should be its final and most crushing blow in its years long, wholly concocted attempt to create an IRS "scandal." The same court where NOM lost its case earlier this year, receiving only $50,000 from the government for an inadvertent leaking of its unredacted Schedule B form in 2012, has now determined that NOM does not deserve even one penny of reimbursement for the ludicrous legal fees that the anti-gay organization was seeking. Da...
State employees must actually perform duties state pays them to perform; shocking, I know
This is the kind of thing that the anti-gay far-right will surely turn into another "poor, pitiful us" routine:
North Carolina magistrates have been directed to perform civil marriages for same-sex couples or face suspension or dismissal from their state jobs. A memo to state magistrates Wednesday said they would be violating their oaths of office if they refuse to marry gay or lesbian couples
Gay marriage developments: North Carolina mandate [AP]
(h/t: Joe)
But those who try to portray this as s...
October 15, 2014
'Christian' is not suitable stand-in for 'discriminatory business owner'
This is the a headline running at the American Family Association's "news" site:
The subject is the supposed "right" of public accommodations to flout fairly enacted nondiscrimination laws when they don't feel like serving a same-sex couple. The opinion piece posing as a news article runs down those same handful of cases that the far-right keeps trying to turn into some sort of national scourge. Well covered territory on this site, and I won't be covering it again here.
But...
