(illustration attribution: Kevin Moore @2004 ~ http://incontemptcomics.com/)
...an essay by "Bud" E. Lewis Evans
DOMA and DADT are conjoined like Siamese Twins. Both may survive the legal scalpel of judicial surgery, but one or both might die in the process as well.
If DADT appeal goes forth, that could negatively impact and set a very bad precedent in DOMA if the Supreme Court finds that the Gay and Lesbian community is not entitled to "heightened scrutiny" and 14th Amendment equal protection or even Fifth Amendment due process protections in DADT. In view of those consequences, DOMA should have gone first as the Supreme Court has historically sided with the military on administrative proceedings.
Besides, Justice Kagan already has stated that she will probably recuse herself since DADT was argued in federal court while she was solicitor general and before she joined the Supreme Court. That alone just breaks the "liberal" majority (if Anthony Kennedy joins in) of the court on this one.
By the way, Elena Kagan (for all you Democratic loyalists who think that Democratic federal court appointees are referable to Republicans appointed judges such as Anthony Kennedy who wrote the majority decisions in Lawrence -v- Texas (striking down the sodomy laws) and in Romer -v- Evans (striking down anti-gay Amendment 2 in Colorado) ...just remember what Ellen Kagan stupidly said during her confirmation hearing about DOMA.
Kagan said: "There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage."
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According to Keen News Service:
"In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services (DOMA), and in Log Cabin Republicans v. U.S., and Witt v. U.S. (DADT). If Kagan recuses herself from any of these cases, the probability for a tie is the best the LGBT community can hope for in any of these cases. Rather than pinning hopes on Justice Anthony Kennedy to serve as a swing vote to victory, pro-gay attorneys will be desperate to persuade Kennedy in order to maintain a status quo.
When there’s a tie in the Supreme Court, the lower court ruling stands but applies only to that federal circuit.
So, if the 9th Circuit agrees with District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that California’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional and the Yes on 8 supporters of Proposition 8 appeal to the Supreme Court, the best gay civil rights supporters could hope for — given the current ideological make-up of the court — is to preserve the 9th Circuit ruling for the nine 9th Circuit states.
On the other hand, if the 9th Circuit should disagree with Walker’s ruling, perhaps the worst outcome would likely be that banning same-sex marriage would be considered constitutional in only those nine states."
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Also during her confirmation hearing, Kagan was asked about the Defense of Marriage Act, regarding state recognition of same-sex marriages entered into in other states. Kagan indicated that she would defend the act (DOMA) if "there was any reasonable basis to do so."
It really doesn't look that great with Kagan on the court now. She could have just said, during her confirmation hearings in Congress, that she could not discuss cases which could possibly reach the Supreme Court - that is what others, including Republican nominees have done as a matter of jurisprudence and court ethics in the past. But no, she had to suck up to the right-wingers -- now she's on the record opposing GLBT equal marriage rights before they have even reached the court.
Wow, nice judicial choice, Obama! But what did you expect from him and his non-confrontational, shortsighted, lack of decision-making skills anyway? He's such a screw-up and a really big disappointment to his progressive base. His signing on to the doomed "Respect for Marriage Act" is a farce; considering how the Bill would've even been a struggle in his first two years, but, today, with the House in Republican control, bringing this "dead-on-arrival" Bill up now is just an insult and an exploitation of the gullibility of the GLBT community. We deserved better, and, what's more, America deserved better from the Democratic Party, the party of Roosevelt and Truman. What a disaster for us all. This at a time when we truly need real leadership; not a vacillating, unreliable, dupliticous village idiot in the White House.
As the old saying goes: "The Republicans fear their base, while the Democrats despise their base."
Obama is the living embodiment of that axiom. More's the pity.
(c) Bud Evans, 2011
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About the cartoon caption illustrator, Kevin Moore:
Hope, Change and All That Crap — a new collection of In Contempt comic strips — is available for purchase through Lulu.com. The book collects strips published between August 2007 and January 2009.
