Another state’s ban on gay marriage has been struck down by a federal judge. This is beginning to look like an avalanche.
Also, the judge in this case was John E. Jones III — familiar to us all as the judge in the Dover anti-creationism decision. That guy is growing on me, despite his Republican roots.
In case you’re following along at home:
(via Joe.My.God)
Equally good news, Dinesh D’Souza plead guilty to campaign finance fraud. Comeuppance. The usual right wing crowd is predictably whining on how this is political payback for his idiotic but racist smear of a movie he made during the last election. It isn’t payback but is poetic justice.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/20/right-wing-star-dinesh-dsouza-pleads-guilty-in/199389
Another step forward!
Amen. It appears he decides the cases on their legal merit, not party line. Sigh, it is so refreshing….
Maybe the judge is a bit more of a Lincoln Republican. Or at least one who actually has read the Constitution and comprehended it.
Way to go Pennsylvania!
(I wonder if we’ll see the unconstitutional laws overturned in LA, MS, FL, GA, AL, TN before any SCOTUS ruling)
Seconding Nerd @3!
Can someone please explain to me why the linked article included a (predictable) quote from the Philadelphia archbishop, as if his opinion here matters in the slightest?
@7: Because think of all those poor priests in PA being forced to perform same-sex marriages at gunpoint! And then being herded into FEMA camps, where they’ll be forced to repeat Muslim prayers.
And there sit the Dakotas, one big ass embarrassing lump. *sigh*
I think it’s so cool that it’s Judge Jones of all people. An ornament to the legal profession!
Saw this while having dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
Wow.
Just . . . Wow.
Why does a professional bachelor think he has anything to say about marriage?
Woohoo, Missouri. Blue on two sides of it, but still red as a bluejay’s ass in pokeberry time.
I hadn’t known we had a constitution AND a law against treating people fairly. Shirley, we are tough enough to manage with just one.
The kids that I see in school are not going to support that crap, but I hope we get rid of it sooner. All we need is a federal judge ….
The decision is, like Kitzmiller, a great read:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2014/05/20/the-pennsylvania-decision/
Pennsylvania is two world-class cities separated by Kentucky. So, pretty much the same as Missouri. Seems like just a matter of time.
The speed of this collapse is pretty stunning, though that it took so long is itself surprising. This happened a bit over 10 years ago in Canada.
I’m sure the media were hoping for a “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog Toto too!” moment.
Who would have thought a Bush II-appointed judge would uphold teaching evolution and strike a blow against a state’s gay marriage ban? I guess it’s possible to make a good “decision point” at least once in your administration.
@Ichthyic: 16
Well, the Wicked Witch of the East did have the ruby red slippers.
IIRC, she had flying monkeys too.
damn, she was cool.
so, she had anger management issues. so what?
FLYING MONKEYS.
Does anyone have a count of the Appeals Circuits that are dealing the appeals?
(And…it was amusing that the 9th Circuit rejected NOM’s attempt to appeal the Oregon ruling based on the USSC’s holding that the the Prop. 8 “defendants” lacked standing.)
This is one reason why, despite the fact that I’ve now lived longer in VA, and both our kids were born here, I still identify with MA.
Things are changing here, but slowly….
Congratulations, Pennsylvania! And Oregon!
I’m really ashamed that Washington wasn’t the first to legalize same-sex marriage, like we were with abortion. (“Don’t Labor Under a Misconception—Vote for Proposition 20” is the greatest bumpersticker ever!)
Huh. I see Florida is all over that no-getting-married thing. Does that include intersex people? I’m genetically male, raised female, regard myself as the latter. Can I legally marry in FL?
Clearly W made another gross error and appointed a judge who would not do what W expected him to do. W was a world class clusterf*ck.
Oh, you will love this:
Gregory:
Holy fuck!
Wow.
Santorum said that??!!
Jennifer Burdoo:
Sadly, I think the answer to this depends on the sex of the person you intend to marry.
Numberobis, I live in Pittsburgh, and it’s far from a world-class city. I think it’s a big stretch to even give Philly that label.
As for this bit of news, I guess that’s why Equality PA hasn’t emailed me back about volunteering for them.
A couple of thoughts:
1) Regarding former-Sen Frothy-Mixture: as much as I’d like to indulge in some schadenfreude here, his statement about Judge Jones was made in the context of the “Blue Slip” procedure, AFAIK. For one thing the ex-Sen. is an ignorant tool, and anything he ever said, especially while in office, was probably self-interested piffle, and not a position he reasoned his way to; as such he was merely endorsing someone he thought he would benefit by endorsing — a guy nominated by his party’s highest office-holder. The presumed lack-of-knowledge and -conviction lessens the satisfaction of the comeuppance. Also, that entire blue slip procedure is problematic — unnecessary, not a Constitutionally legitimized/mandated procedure, basically a tradition-based rule, used for obstructive purposes these days, etc.
2) Judge Jones is starting to strike me as similar to Christopher Hitchens, in ONE very specific way (to me anyways): I don’t agree with him about everything, or even many things, but I admire the way he frames, phrases, and emphasizes certain arguments for effect.
FWIW, I live within a few miles of both Dover, PA, and Harrisburg. Judge Jones does Pennsylvania proud. This fellow is a clear-eyed straight-shooter (no pun intended…) whose next career move ought to be the Supreme Court. (And he’s a Republican to boot. Chew on that, Senators!)
Some good people will be made very happy by this – and some few bigots will be left crying in their gruel. Excellent! People should be left to get on with their lives, love and be loved in return not told that they are bad by some arbitrary rules invoked in the name of a fantastical deity.
There’s still far more red and maroon in that map than I’d like. Still, the way appeals have been going for the bigots recently, the large amount of states striped red and yellow are something to be encouraged by, yes?
“We are a better people than what these laws represent” is an amazing closer.
The Defendants actually tried to claim that the Plaintiffs couldn’t claim historic discrimination because the past few decades they’ve been treated better. Ignore the long history of discrimination and just focus on the past few decades.
In that same sense, the Defendants are saying that there was never any slavery in this country and minorities and women were always able to vote.
Historical revisionism is insane with those people.
nas876 @28: you’re underselling a wonderful city. Pittsburgh has history (for a North American city), museums, an orchestra, sports if you care about that (or even if you don’t), parks in town, easy access to nature out of town (in aforementioned Kentucky-land; when I was there you could tell you’d gone far enough to hike when rainbow flags ceded to Bush-Cheney signs), and, best of all, lots of weird. I mean, this is a city where you’ve got Anthrocon taking place a short walk to the financial district and the sports-addled-jocks district, and nobody seems to have a problem with that.
I’d live there again except that Montreal has better croissants.
IMHO, the most interesting part of the Judge’s decision was that he applied heightened scrutiny, rather then a rational basis test to the law. Hopefully, Brayton and his commentors will discuss this aspect of the decision, which is important as, it is my information, that a rational basis test puts the burden of proof on the plaintiffs while heightened scrutiny puts the burden of proof on the defendants. The judge went to considerable length to justify that part of the decision.
It’s strange that any northern US state, such as North Dakota, would not have gay marriage. After all the Gay-o-rays generated from 10 years of Canadian same sex marriage should have completely contaminated the areas closest to the border by now.
nas876, numerobis:
I moved to Philly from New York, so I’ve got a bit of a bias, but my reaction to PHL is “it could be a world-class city.” It has all the ingredients: top-notch orchestra and museums, piles of history, amazing parks, major universities, stupendous restaurants, etc etc.
But it also has major problems with poverty, with getting businesses to invest in the place, and with infrastructure. (And my NYer bias really shows when we talk about Philly’s public transit system, which I describe as “built from Tinkertoys.”)
Philly today is NYC around 1984. If Philly could rout out some of the systemic corruption, it could indeed be a world-class city. It’s so close.
timgueguen, the simple reason for that is virtually no one lives in the Prairies close enough to the border, combined with the unfortunate fact that the Prairies share a conservative ideology that is somewhat consistent with those states that border them.
____
That ugly, ugly map is soon going to look rather different. And it will be a good thing all around, not just for my eyes.
Jon Stewart did a pretty awesome takedown of Philly last night on The Daily Show. Hilarious takedown that was clearly meant to be taken as satire. Focusing on Rocky using the Art Museum as a workout, and finalizing on “Philadelphia” putting its name on Cream Cheese (a topping for NYC bagels!). bizarr synchronicity ^_^
I’ve spent a total of two weeks there. Public transport is atrocious. The buses stop running ridiculously early in the evening, and the rest of the day the intervals between them are enormous. The subway system is way too small; it serves one of the two city centers, and one line goes deep into the suburbs on a straight course that naturally misses all of the others. If you don’t go home soon enough, you have to walk for 3/4 h (around the cliff at the south side of the river, which is impossible to pass except through a highway tunnel that is, BTW, jammed all morning…) or take a taxi for 23 bucks.
As usual in the US, a plan of the bus system simply does not exist, most stops don’t even have names and not every bus that passes by stops there… and the one place where you can buy a ticket for the whole week is in the CBD!
The CBD, the Greyhound station, the train station with its Wild West schedule* and the subway system are in one of the city centers, the Carnegie Museums are in the other! Between them, there’s a rusting wasteland that looks like postcommunist Romania.
Next time I need to visit the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, I’ll book half a fucking year in advance so I can get an affordable bed in the same city center and skip the bus system. …Uh, except for the airport shuttle if I have to fly in, or a shorter bus ride if I arrive by bus or (hah!*) by train.
* There isn’t even a train to DC every day. o_O I’m not saying “an affordable one” or even “one with any empty seats left”; I’m talking about any trains at all.
Considering what the public transit system is like in NYC, that sounds really scary.
So now every state I’ve lived in has legal gay marriage. I thought my birth state would hold out longer, but I’m pleased it didn’t.
My heterosexual marriage (performed in yet another state that now has gay marriage) is still going strong, despite all the doomsayers.
“Long-term negative consquences”. Such as?
When in order to find someone to voice a defense of the law, they have to dig up a priest that should tell you something about the constitutionality of the law.
It’s about time!
And I’m a Pittsburgher who loves this city, but even I can recognize a messed up public transit system when I see one. They did run another line across the Allegheny River to the North Shore (where two of the major sporting centers are located) but that really only helps during game days. I think it’s a combination of difficult geography and rampant corruption. We can do something about the one, because dynamite can get through mountains….
I’m not sure where you were going between the train stations and the museums that would count as a rusting wasteland. But then, I’m used to looking at the closed down steel mills. THOSE are rusting wastelands. It’s not Pittsburgh’s fault the steel economy went overseas. The city recovered, putting money into education, medical research, and IT. Some of those mills have been torn down and new uses for the land have been found.
David Marjanović:
I consider NYC’s public transit system excellent, both because of native bias (I remember what it was like in the 70s and 80s), and because of scale. It’s the only (or perhaps there’s one or two others?) transit system in the world that runs 24 hours a day.
It also has bus maps. BUS MAPS. Comprehensive bus maps, showing every bus line in a particular borough. Philadelphia can’t even muster that.
The MTA (I am lumping the subway and bus systems together here) has its problems (filth, for one), but it is relatively inexpensive, goes most places one would wish to go, and has a decent schedule.
The thing that I say sometimes about American mass-transit is that there was (is!), in fact, a conspiracy to prevent their development and destroy existing ones.
Aaaaannndddd…that’s #18, and #19. Far-right-wing bigots have nothing on us, with another two back-to-back victories for equality.
I remember it wasn’t too long ago that my state was the only blue one on that map. So happy to see it change so much, so quickly, after over a decade of waiting for the rest of the country to join us. 19 on the right side. 3 “let’s just not call it a marriage!” states. 9 pending. And 19 banning states. If seven or more those pending states fall on the side of equality, we have gone from a regressive culture arbitrarily oppressing gays in the name of God and tradition, into an America where the majority of states actually acknowledge gay people as human beings. I never thought I would see this happening so soon and so quickly. I have never been so pleasantly surprised with the American legal system and the American people.
U Frood wrote:
Oh, many things. Like the fact their flock may stop enjoying the sermons about the encroaching gay menace. Parishioners may start asking him why he won’t marry their gay children and stop accepting the usual excuses. He might even have to find some other outlet to pour his hatred into.
Won’t someone please think about the poor archbishop?
If things get really bad, he might even have to get a real job. Heaven forbid!
Even better news!
Tom Corbett is not going to appeal the decision!
Pennsylvanians rejoice, your state has marriage equality!
I didn’t realize Arkansas’ decision had been put on hold. My cousin got married there a few weeks ago, and all I ever heard about was the original ruling.