Category: Keepers

I post the above video to point out that there were many at the time who opposed DOMA for the right reasons, including civil rights icons like John Lewis. Not Bill Clinton. A reader writes:

“When [Bill Clinton] actually apologizes, I’ll leave this behind. But you cannot forgive someone who refuses to admit they did something wrong,” – Andrew Sullivan.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” – Jesus.

So to your retort that Clinton knew what he was doing, reread Jesus’s words, spoken from the cross. Looks like he forgave people who did not admit they were doing something wrong.

Forgive, Andrew. Forgive. Either that or stop talking about faith, grace, mercy, the whole shooting match. Because it seems, in this instance, you don’t get it.

The trouble here is the distinction between public officials and their public acts and private human beings in your actual life who fail or stumble or hurt you. I truly do try and forgive those who have done me wrong (it isn’t always easy) in the warp and woof of living. But in assessing public affairs – like, say president Bush authorizing torture or backing the Federal Marriage Amendment – it seems to me to be a different case. As a public writer, it is my job to criticize, to judge when someone’s public statements in public office are defensible or wrong. I play a role as a blogger which requires me to be much tougher and harsher than in real life – when I am dealing with public figures, public statements and public records. I have met Bill Clinton only once. I am dealing with the public, not the private, man.

And when a public official like Clinton did so much damage to gay lives, inflicted so much pain (he didn’t just sign DOMA but the HIV travel ban and DADT), and when he then portrays himself as a civil rights activist and gets applause from pathetic liberal gay groups (GLAAD, HRC, et al.), I figure if I don’t point out what a glaring bullshitter he is, who will? I wouldn’t care much if he weren’t still machinating his way back to power, and using the gay community as part of his and his wife’s second run at the presidency. But he is.

As for the Gospel reference, I am, of course, in awe of the power of Christ’s forgiveness even on the cross. But his workaday executioners did not know they were killing the son of man. Clinton knew full well that he was using the gay issue as a wedge to win him back the then-center and right, as he angled for re-election. Dick Morris himself explained it all to me subsequently and actually personally apologized.

And yet Clinton cannot even publicly apologize – for the same reason Alec Baldwin cannot: narcissism and sociopathy.

In 1996, Clinton instructed his own Justice Department to state that DOMA was entirely constitutional on the very day of the DOMA hearings, in which I testified. Do I not have a right to point out that his current position is, er, at odds with that – and that a little attempt to acknowledge his own (and HRC’s) role in making DOMA happen as quickly as possible would make him far more credible? In fact, make him credible, period? He could have refused to sign the law and let it pass without him. He didn’t. He signed it because he thought it would get him votes. That’s who Bill Clinton is. Another reader:

If I didn’t forgive the people in my life (public and private) who refused to admit they did something wrong, I’d go insane with the rage.  I think you’re confusing forgiving and forgetting, and I think it’s a very important distinction.

I hope you don’t forget what Clinton did and didn’t do – I hope millions of people don’t forget – but if we don’t forgive, we’re only contributing to our own pain and anguish and feeding our anger, and that takes precious time and energy away from doing what needs to be done to fix the wrongs.  Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to be truly Christian, but here’s a great opportunity for all of us – forgive but don’t forget, and keep fighting state by state until it’s done.

I live in Chapel Hill, NC – a lovely liberal, gay-loving bastion in a very red state that passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage – so I have to walk the “forgive but don’t forget” talk myself.

Another quotes the Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

Forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things.  Forgiveness is finding a way to be non-reactive and unperturbed by what has happened to you. Reconciliation means a return to amicability, and that requires the reestablishing of trust.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with what the other person does or doesn’t do. It’s all about understanding how holding on to anger hurts you.  I can understand why an apology would be necessary for you to reconcile with Clinton.  However, forgiveness is about you recognizing that holding onto your anger and hurt in this area only causes further suffering for you.  It’s like carrying around a hot coal – once you realize that you’re only harming yourself, you can drop it.  I found this description helpful in understanding the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.

Sounds like there’s still some lingering anger and/or hurt inside about this. Not always an easy step to take, but if you’re able to forgive, you will ultimately benefit.

A reader quotes me:

“It was one of the purest expressions of violent homophobia you can have.” No, it really wasn’t.  It was someone who was (rightfully) upset lashing out in a homophobic way.  That’s wholly different than someone beating a guy up for something like “looking like a fag”, for example, which is much more of a pure expression of violent homophobia.

“But you just fucking did – in your own words.” No, he didn’t. He didn’t “advocate violence against someone being gay”; he advocated violence against someone who happened to be gay. There’s obviously a difference there.

The fact that his gayness wasn’t the source of the vitriol makes this a different kind of offense.  It’s still offensive, to be sure, and probably reveals a bit how he really feels about gay people (or at least how callous he is about insults rooted in homosexuality), all his work with GLAAD notwithstanding. But it’s really not the same thing as attacking someone because of their sexual orientation.

The fact that he didn’t need to deploy homophobic threats proves just how meretricious they were. They were designed precisely to add homophobic insult to threatened injury. That must account for the vast majority of homophobic slurs: used not to begin with in some fracas but because they can be deployed subsequently to put another human being in his place. So Baldwin is cut off on the road; and he sees an HRC sticker on the bumper of the car and screams: “I’m gonna find you, you toxic little queen, and I’m gonna fuck … you … up. I’d put my foot up your fucking ass, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much.” And then proceeds to follow the dude and intimidate him. That isn’t homophobia? Except in this case, it’s worse. He knew the target was gay, and threatened to beat him up, and urged others – up to a million others who follow his tweets – to beat him up.

Why, I wonder, has Baldwin not been arrested? In my view, George Stark should press charges. Bigoted bullies like Baldwin need to know that their stardom (and their “liberal” past) does not excuse this. Kids are brutalized by this kind of language every day; they commit suicide because of this kind of language; others are killed by those who share Baldwin’s homophobic rage. And yet he still hasn’t apologized to the gay community for inciting gay-bashing.

The reason he escapes censure is because of liberal bias, which, when it defends homophobic violence, is particularly repellent. GLAAD is such a useless irrelevance you can overlook it. But check out Hilary Rosen, a prominent lesbian in Washington, all but giving Baldwin a pass:

What he said was disgusting. But I think he has a deeper reservoir of good will among folks because he’s been a progressive ally and fighter for progressive causes for years, and that’s the genuine side of him.

Fuck that. If he had used the n-word and threatened to lynch a black dude, would anyone doubt his career should be over? And yet gays and lesbians are defending him. How many African-Americans are coming to the defense of Paula Deen? Let’s rephrase his tweet in terms of, say, African Americans and see how it comes across:

I’m gonna find you, you toxic little spear-chucker, and I’m gonna fuck … you … up. I’d lynch your sorry-ass, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much.

Would Baldwin decide that this was merely “ill-advised”? Would African-American leaders vouch for his bona fides? These are the same craven liberals for whom Bill Clinton could sexually harass and assault any woman, and they’d look the other way. Another reader:

Not to defend Alec Baldwin, but there is a hysterical element to the uproar over these utterances that has lost all sense of perspective.

It is natural, when the Muse of Vituperation strikes, to use any available attributes of the person with whom one is irate as part of the denigration, whatever one’s feelings about the class of persons to which the object of the rant belongs. This may be viewed by others as homophobia, anti-Semitism, racial prejudice, or another kind of xenophobia, but it really proves nothing of the kind, unless you define those feelings so broadly as to convict almost everyone of them. At that point, the term “homophobia” becomes meaningless, mere inflammatory rhetoric, like calling Paula Deen a racist because she admitted in a court deposition that she used the “N-word” once or twice some decades back under provocation, bless her little pea-picking heart. Not to defend her, either – I can’t stand her, but that whole thing has become a witch-hunt, and now it looks like you’re trying to gin one up against Alec Baldwin.

Of course someone like Alec Baldwin is going to use terms like “toxic little queen” ranting at someone gay (or who he thinks if gay) with whom he’s so angry – he once famously called his own daughter a “pig”, for crying out loud. The insults are personal, not evidence of bias against a class of persons. Baldwin should have kept them private, instead of tweeting them. The way he used this language makes him an angry buffoon, but not a homophobe. I’d have probably called the guy a fucking little faggot, if I’d been in his shoes – but I wouldn’t have tweeted it.

For the record, I am openly gay, with a partner of 39 years. My dealings with individuals different from me are above reproach, but I wouldn’t want to be held to public scrutiny over what I’ve said about the @#$%! who cut me off in traffic talking on their fucking cell phones.

In other words: there are plenty of things we feel, but we don’t say them out loud, and we don’t tweet them. And we don’t tweet encouraging a mob to “straighten” another person out. Baldwin did all the above. Another:

I don’t think your comparison with Mel Gibson is entirely apt. Gibson had a history of anti-Semitic statements (some of them relating to his father, a notorious Holocaust denier) that preceded his drunken altercation with the “Jew” cop. Calling the cop a Jew was confirmation of what people already suspected of him. Baldwin, for all his history of mouthing off to people (including his own daughter), hasn’t had a history of making homophobic slurs (at least not to my knowledge). So this incident does not confirm what many people already suspect about him (other than that he has anger management issues).

Nevertheless, at least for me, the threats of violence are so specifically related to homosexual stereotypes, and so graphic, that I think I’m done with him. And I say that as someone who has been a fan for years. Not only that, I once met him on an airplane when he saved me from being hit by my suitcase falling out of the overhead bin. In addition to being quick to catch the suitcase, he was charming and humble. Or so it seemed.

The thing for him to do is acknowledge it and profusely apologize. Lots of liberal-thinking folks, especially baby boomers, find out that they’re still carrying around buried bits of racism, sexism or homophobia embedded during their childhoods. But he hasn’t apologized, which is troubling in and of itself. Okay, sure, he was mad because his wife was insulted. But he’s had time to cool down and come to his senses and see how ugly his tweets were.

How do we know if this man isn’t routinely given to this kind of homophobia? These things do not come out of nowhere. Another has the right idea:

You know, I never understand why celebrities (or most other people, it seems) in situations like this don’t just cop to it. What would be so awful about saying:

Yeah, that was homophobic of me” or “Yes, that was racist” or sexist or transphobic or whatever? “Yes, that was homophobic of me. I’ve done a lot of work supporting the gay and lesbian community over the years, and I’m proud of it, but the truth is, I’ve lived in a society where homophobia was the norm for a long time, and as you’ve seen, I’ve obviously internalized some of that. That’s not good. I’m sorry for what I said. I should never have said it, and I need to do some serious self-examination to ensure I don’t make such an awful mistake again. If there are people out there who have gone through a similar experience – both gay people and their straight allies – I hope you’ll please help me figure out what I can do to make the situation better. In the meantime, I hope the past work I’ve done supporting gay friends and strangers serves as evidence that I am not irredeemable and that my heart has often been in the right place. That does not excuse this incident or the words I used – I want to be clear about that. Again, I am sorry, and I ask for your help and support in becoming a less prejudiced person, and I aim to demonstrate over time that I’m worthy of your forgiveness.

I just don’t get the whole “Of course I’m not homophobic / racist / sexist / whatever” mindset. I suppose it’s just ego, and I know it infects even people who aren’t famous. But the truth is, we’re all at least one or two of those things to a degree. That’s why they’re such a problem – because they’re pervasive and affect us in ways we’re often not entirely conscious of. Maybe celebrities copping to it would just lead to a trend where people admit being prejudiced and then don’t change. But I’m guessing not. And I think the admission of it would serve as a reminder of how deeply these pernicious forces run in our culture (which would help us root them out) and of the fact that we’re all human and imperfect (which would take the steam out of overly p.c., sanctimonious finger-waggers).

In any case, something needs to change. As it stands, our cultural conversation is frequently much more about not getting caught (or doing damage control if you are caught) than it is about seriously addressing the thinking that leads to people like Alec Baldwin saying horrible things.

It would be good for Mr Baldwin to begin that conversation, starting with a full apology.

Tim Noah recognizes that “one of the ironies of the marriage equality movement is the conservative movement’s stubborn refusal to recognize its fundamentally conservative nature”:

John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner [of Lawrence v. Texas] were not conservatives’ type of people. One was demonstrably irresponsible, the other was a rootless drifter, and their case was about a sexual act (albeit one never actually committed) that most conservatives really don’t like to think about. Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer [of U.S. v. Windsor], on the other hand, are precisely conservatives’ type of people (except for their sexual orientation and maybe their politics). They are (in Spyer’s case, were) affluent and mutually committed and responsible members of society. Their case is about not being bullied by the IRS into paying too much in taxes, which is something conservatives fret about all the time.

When the history books are written, one likely conclusion will be that the swift ascendancy of gay rights in the second decade of the 21st century was largely attributable to gay people’s relentless pursuit of a boring lifestyle.

And this has definitely affected my views about American conservatism. There is a conservative position against marriage equality, which is simply resistance to any drastic change in such a crucial institution. But thanks to federalism, we can now see that fears of unintended consequences have not materialized so far in any of the equality states, and that marriage as a whole is in a much worse state where heterosexuals-only marriage endures. What you would expect an actual socially conservative party to do would be to adapt to these new realities, after legitimate initial skepticism, and try to coopt an emerging social group by integrating them into society in a conservative way.

Imagine, say, a pro-marriage movement among African-Americans. Do you think the GOP would oppose it ferociously? Imagine any group’s desire to leave behind leftist balkanization and cultural revolt in order to embrace the values of family, stability and responsibility. On what grounds would the GOP oppose it? None. So why the resilient hostility to gay conservatives and their remarkable triumph in a traditionally leftist sub-population? In fact, it is precisely those gay conservatives who are barred from Fox News – or immediately hazed by homophobes like Erick Erickson.

In Britain, you can see a direct analogy. The Tories went from hostility to homosexual equality in the 1980s to an embrace of it as a conservative cause in the 21st Century. To cite David Cameron’s speech to his own party conference:

I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I support gay marriage because I am a conservative.

Canada’s and New Zealand’s Conservative parties have also backed the reform. And many Republicans have supported it now as well. So why the remaining resilience?

The only real explanation is religious fundamentalism.

The GOP, at its core, is a religious organization, not a political one. It is digging in deeper on immigration reform, and marriage equality, and abortion. It is not acting as a rational actor in political competition but as a fundamentalist movement, gerrymandering its way to total resistance to modernity’s increasing diversity of views and beliefs. It is emphatically not a socially conservative force: it is a radical, fundamentalist movement, incapable of accepting any political settlement that does not comport with unchanging, eternal dicta.

It is the great tragedy of the era that Republicans targeted one of the few grass-roots, genuinely conservative movements as their implacable enemy in the last quarter century. They went after the one group truly trying to shore up and support marriage – and they even wanted to amend the Constitution to do so. They did so, I believe, for one reason alone: fundamentalism. And that is not conservatism. In so many ways, it is conservatism’s eternal nemesis: the refusal to adjust to the times in favor of an ideology that never changes.

(Photo: Same-sex couple Joseph and Jim pose for a photo as they wait to be officially married at the Manhattan City Clerk’s Office on the first day New York State’s Marriage Equality Act went into effect July 24, 2011 in New York City. By Anthony Behar-Pool/Getty Images.)

12.10 pm. A reader writes:

I am writing from overseas where I live with my partner of 32 years in a sort of self imposed exile. He has been unable to obtain any sort of residency visa for the USA. We have been looking forward to this day. The phone is ringing off the hook and everyone is saying “you’ll be able to marry and come home.” I think I’m going to go light a candle and thank God and all the people who have fought so long and so hard to make all this possible. Bless you.

Bless the souls of those whose courage in extremis gave me and others the strength not to falter in pursuit of their dignity as human beings and their equality as citizens. We did it in part for those we left behind. And part of the reason I am crying right now is remembering them. I want them to come to the party. I want them to see they didn’t die in vain. Another reader:

I’m surprised by how moved I am – I’m a little choked up. I know I’m going to express this awkwardly. But the decision comes across to me almost like a ray of decency. There’s so much awful stuff coming at us all the time, but here, 5 justices have done something good and human and right. It doesn’t feel like a news story, so much as something good washing over the country. It’s really nourishing.

The world is a better place than it was an hour ago. How often can you say that?

Another:

I don’t know about you, but my head explodes when I read the following from Scalia’s dissent: “We have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.”

You mean like you invalidated a whole section of the Voting Rights Act (just yesterday!) and tried unsuccessfully to sink the entire Affordable Care Act? I’m not a lawyer, and my lawyer friends assure me that Scalia is brilliant, if extremist, but I read that kind of head-turning inconsistency and all I see is a hack, not a brilliant legal mind. And again, I’m not a lawyer, but isn’t the entire purpose of the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of legislation (democratically adopted or otherwise) and invalidate it when necessary? What a dipshit.

11.55 am Dueling tweets of the moment:

My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: “Jesus wept.”

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 26, 2013

And so did I, Mike. “@GovMikeHuckabee: My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: “Jesus wept.””

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) June 26, 2013

And I suspect Jesus’ tears were of joy – because more children of God have finally been given the dignity he offered the most despised and marginalized of his time.

11.44 am. Scalia’s dissent was worth a little wait. On gay cases, they are like operettas of dyspepsia, and this one didn’t disappoint. Money quote:

The majority says that the supporters of this Act acted with malice — with the “purpose” (ante, at 25) “to disparage and to injure” same-sex couples. It says that the motivation for DOMA was to “demean,” ibid.; to “impose inequality,” ante, at 22; to “impose . . . a stigma,” ante, at 21; to deny people “equal dignity,” ibid.; to brand gay people as “unworthy,” ante, at 23; and to “humiliat[e]” their children, ibid. (emphasis added).

I am sure these accusations are quite untrue. To be sure (as the majority points out), the legislation is called the Defense of Marriage Act.

To be sure. But defending it from whom? Kennedy explains:

The House concluded that DOMA expresses “both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.” Id., at 16 (footnote deleted). The stated purpose of the law was to promote an “interest in protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage laws.” Ibid.

When the Christianist GOP tells you in print that it is enacting a law to uphold moral disapproval of a class of persons, you really do get to animus. Religiously-inspired animus, but animus nonetheless. The subtler arguments – about, say, the federal need to maintain one standard for marriage recognition – were not part of that original debate. I was there. The whole thing was about “defending” marriage from those who would clearly demean it. The discrimination was explicit. At no point were the actual interests of gay citizens cited on the right. We were non-persons, because we were morally inferior and had no right to ask for that kind of equality. That’s how Scalia felt ten years ago, and he hasn’t changed. But he cannot change the legislative record or the rhetoric used at the time of the bill.

11.38 am. The president phones the couples and congratulates them.

11.35 am. Immigration equality is here. Again: after two decades of extreme anxiety, history wipes it away. You have no idea how much relief so many bi-national couples are now feeling.

11.23 am. Some have noticed how often Anthony Kennedy used the word “dignity” in his ruling. My own impression of the text is to note how Catholic it is. I mean by Catholic the sense of concern for the dignity of human beings that still resonates among the average Catholic population and, mercifully, now with the new Pope. This is the true measure of our shared faith: not a desire to use its doctrines to control or constrain the lives of others, but seeking always to advance the common good while leaving no one behind. No one.

The Church hierarchy’s Ratzingerian turn against this minority in 1986, its subsequent callous indifference to us during the plague years, its rigid clinging to 13th Century natural law rather than what or rather who was right in front of them … these were all tragic failures from the top. But not in the pews; not among lay Catholics; not among many of our families and friends. And that humane Catholicism is embedded in paragraph after paragraph of Kennedy’s text. He is talking about us, our relationships and our children as if we were human beings made in the same image of God with inalienable dignity.

It will one day – perhaps even today – seem banal. And it is. But to get to that banality required a revolution.

11.19 am. Great to see Pete Williams analyze the opinion for NBC – a long time after he was brutally outed, even when he was always out, always principled, and in a relationship that has lasted much of his lifetime. Proud of you, Pete, for thriving through all of it … until you got to do this. Amazing, innit?

11.16 am. Photo above: The amazing lawyer, Roberta Kaplan (right), and Edie Windsor, whose case gave the legal civil marriages of homosexual couples full federal equality. Windsor said, “I wanna go to Stonewall right now!”

11.11 am. In the end, it is pretty simple. Are we homosexuals lesser than heterosexuals? Are our loves inherently worth less? Are our marriages inferior to straight ones? Kennedy’s final answer:

DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others… The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

11 am. I just called Aaron – just to tell him I love him. He’s in Ptown already as I wrap things up in New York. Dan had the same impulse:

Terry’s still asleep. I’m going to go wake my husband & tell him we’re married. Wish all same-sex couples in US could say the same. #37ToGo

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) June 26, 2013

Ditto. We still have the state-by-state struggle to include all of us. That fight will continue past this milestone. I just want to thank Dan for sticking up for me and Evan when we were far lonelier voices than today. I have to say that it is the most liberating feeling to hear your once near-solitary voice blend finally into a communal roar until it isn’t your voice at all any more. It’s the voice of justice.

We will all pass away (and so many dreamed of but didn’t live to see this day). Justice won’t.

10.56 am. Look how Kennedy uses Lawrence to advance his case and proves Scalia’s dissent in that case (that it paved the way for marriage equality) for him:

The differentiation [between heterosexual and homosexual couples] demeans the [homosexual] couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, see Lawrence, 539 U. S. 558, and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify. And it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.

I wondered how the welfare of children would emerge in this case – and it did, in defense of the dignity of tens of thousands of them. Didn’t expect that the words of a SCOTUS ruling would suddenly give me a huge lump in my throat. This is more emotional than I expected. But how can you anticipate a moment like this one?

10.50 am. Even having lived through all this seventeen years’ ago, and kept my eyes open as hard right and liberal Clintonites joined forces against the handful of us then fighting for this cause, I am still amazed to read the plain truth in a judicial ruling. Kennedy again:

The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States. The history of DOMA’s enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence.

My italics.

10.45 am. Tweet of the minute:

Justice Scalia, least self-aware person on planet, says the DOMA decision “demeans this institution.”

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) June 26, 2013

10.40 am. Perry is thrown out for lack of standing:

“We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.”

10.39 am: Tweet of the minute:

The Supreme Court has finally defended marriage.

— Tom Junod (@TomJunod) June 26, 2013

10.34 am. Kennedy money quote:

Though these discrete examples establish the constitutionality of limited federal laws that regulate the meaning of marriage in order to further federal policy, DOMA has a far greater reach; for it enacts a directive applicable to over 1,000 federal statutes and the whole realm of federal regulations. And its operation is directed to a class of persons that the laws of New York, and of 11 other States, have sought to protect.

Translation: the feds may tinker with some aspects of a state’s civil marriages, but they may not remove an entire class of persons from equal protection. This is a conservative point – and DOMA was a betrayal of conservative federalism in favor of Christianist big government. I actually made that case sitting in front of the House hearings on DOMA. The Republicans were uninterested. They knew what they were about to do: gay-bait their way to re-election in 1996. And so Bill Clinton – a constitutional lawyer who signed this bill and who ordered his Justice Department to declare that it had no constitutional issues with it at all – gay-baited back. Today is as much a rebuke to the cynicism of Bill Clinton as it is to the fanaticism of the GOP.

10.27 am. What I’m now reading:

United States v. Windsor

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Have at it, Dishheads.

10.23 am. Rauch and I are name-checked:

In his dissent, Alito mentions @sullydish‘s book Virtually Normal

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) June 26, 2013

10.19 am. Kennedy both defends federalism and basic due process and equal protection principles:

New York’s actions were a proper exercise of its sovereign authority. They reflect both the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality. Pp. 13–20.
(b)
By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect, DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. The Constitution’s guarantee of equality “must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group. DOMA cannot survive under these principles.

10.17. There may be a pause while I read the decision I’m actually trying to write about. Will post nuggets as I find them.

10.13 am. Tweet of the Day:

DOMA is unconstitutional

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 26, 2013

10.12 am. Some observers are noting language in the DOMA decision that seems to suggest that the Prop 8 decision will be a dismissal based on lack of standing. Not confirmed, but implied.

10.11 am. Now, through my unexpected tears, this from Anthony Kennedy:

The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.

10. 10 am. “DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty.”

10 am. Two preliminary thoughts. The first is how weird it is to be gay and married and waiting for this decision. It feels a little like waiting for your parents to acknowledge that you are their actual offspring, even though everyone has always known it. It feels both exhilarating and  humiliating at the same time. Nine people are going to decide the worth and equality of my civil marriage? Who the fuck do the they think they are? Well, they’re the Supreme Court of the United States, dumb-ass. And so the mind turns.

Then: how on earth do they still manage to keep all this so embargoed? No leaks, no gossip – it’s wonderful, and a testament to how seriously all those intimately involved in these decisions respect the need for the secrecy that enables clarity and order. But to do it in this era, when everything and everyone leaks, is a testament.

It was the legitimate one: not the Benghazi bullshit or a surveillance program checked by Congress and the courts, whose secrecy was the scandal. This was the accusation that Barack Obama was Richard Nixon, ordering the IRS to target conservative – and only conservative – groups in their legitimate attempt to check on whether “social welfare” groups actually were just campaign machines. To give a sense of how far the Republican partisans went with this – completely unproven – allegation, let’s leave Darrell Issa behind, shall we? He’s such a creep he’d say anything anyhow to advance his own career.

Let’s go to one Peggy Noonan, once a relatively sane, if lugubrious, columnist for the WSJ. She’s been running around yelling Watergate for a while now, and just accused the president of an impeachable attempt to use the power of government to destroy his political foes:

One of the great questions about the 2012 campaign has been “Where was the tea party?” They were not the fierce force they’d been in the 2010 cycle, when Republicans took back the House. Some of us think the answer to the question is: “Targeted by the IRS, buried under paperwork and unable to raise money.” …

Think about the sheer political facts of the president’s 2012 victory. The first thing we learned, in the weeks after the voting, was that the Obama campaign was operating with a huge edge in its technological operation—its vast digital capability and sophistication. The second thing we learned, in the past month, is that while the campaign was on, the president’s fiercest foes, in the Tea Party, were being thwarted, diverted and stopped.

Technological savvy plus IRS corruption. The president’s victory now looks colder, more sordid, than it did.

And so she reaches back to her “Romney-Will-Win” pre-election mindset. He did. But it was stolen! Now check out how far the WSJ’s James Taranto has run with this Nixonian meme (yes, the right is now anti-Nixon, when it comes in handy):

Notice, en passant, that the WSJ is now indistinguishable both in party line and total hysteria from Fox News and talk radio (not that it’s ed-page was anything but extreme, but at least it was smart). Now check out the latest details from the IRS about 501 (c) 4 and 501 (c) 3 entities:

The instructions that Internal Revenue Service officials used to look for applicants seeking tax-exempt status with “Tea Party” and “Patriots” in their titles also included groups whose names included the words “Progressive” and “Occupy,” according to I.R.S. documents released Monday. … One such “be on the lookout” list included medical marijuana groups, organizations that were promoting President Obama’s health care law, and applications that dealt “with disputed territories in the Middle East.” … “Common thread is the word ‘progressive,’ ” a lookout list instructs. “Activities appear to lean toward a new political party. Activities are partisan and appear as anti-Republican.” Groups involved more generally in carrying out the Affordable Care Act were also sent to the I.R.S. for “secondary screening.” And “occupied territory advocacy” seemed subject to the most scrutiny of all.

So we begin to see the actual truth (and where it usually is, Page A14): the IRS was rightly scrutinizing a whole slew of new groups claiming to be all about “social welfare” and checking to see how politicized they were – on both sides. Most of those on the progressive side were seeking 501(c)3s – not 501(c)4s – so the parallel isn’t exact. But it sure suggests nothing of any malign nature here. Par exemple:

Ameinu, which on its website calls itself a “community of progressive Jews,” received its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status on May 28 — five years after applying. IRS agents peppered the group with 18-page surveys and lingered for months without follow-up, Hiam Simon, national director of Ameinu, said in a telephone interview. He said he was looking at a 4-inch thick folder of Ameinu’s communications with the IRS. “I think they were painting with a broad brush, with worries about Middle East ties to terrorism,” he said of the IRS. “I don’t think it was caused by malice. Ignorance is too strong a word, too. They simply weren’t nuanced enough or careful enough.”

They’re not perfect, but this is the critical fact:

Werfel said his review of the agency’s actions hasn’t found evidence of intentional wrongdoing or involvement from outside the IRS. That’s consistent with the findings so far of congressional investigators.

So time’s up, Peggy. Put up or shut up – especially with the outrageous smear that the president was behind this. The IRS was trying to flush out bogus non-political groups on both sides. That’s what we pay them to do. Since the targeting used classic code words on right and left, it may have been unwise as an administrative policy, but it sure wasn’t illegal or scandalous. And you can see why, given the volume of applications, these might have been shortcuts to expedite the process.

I think this scandal just evaporated into thin air.

Please let me know if you find any right-wing outlets that have pushed this untrue story that are actually reporting on this new IRS data (this attempt by NRO is lame or needs further clarification); and whether – God help us – they are apologizing and correcting. Over to you, Mr O’Reilly. And Ms Noonan.

Where’s your Richard Nixon now? Breaking into Republican Party offices?

The country still won’t come to terms with the fact that the US perpetrated a global campaign of war crimes, torture, dehumanization and cruelty for seven years, and its impact is still being felt. It is felt not simply among all those dictators – from the master-torturer, the King of Jordan, to the Chinese and Russians, beaming broadly, knowing that the US has now no moral legs to stand on, especially since Obama’s decision to ignore binding Geneva Convention laws that require prosecution of the guilty.

But there is a human toll as well: not just among those still living with PTSD from the brutal torture sessions, but from the perpetrators as well. Many did so with qualms, under orders; others, given the signal from the commander-in-chief that torture was now an American value, took to it with relish and occasionally desperation. One reluctant participant soldier, just killed himself – yet another one – because he couldn’t live with what he had actually been ordered by his president to do. Part of his suicide note:

My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are nearly impossible for me. I can not laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house. I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most merciful thing.

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA. Any blame rests with them.

“Crimes against humanity.” “Far beyond what most are even aware of.” “The ensuing cover-up.”

When will the American people finally see the Senate Intelligence Report on the Torture Program?

And when will Eric Holder finally initiate criminal prosecutions? Or are the powerful always above the law, even as soldiers kill themselves because of the memory of the inhumanity?

Gawker, which published this first, notes:

“Daniel Somers was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was part of Task Force Lightning, an intelligence unit. In 2004-2005, he was mainly assigned to a Tactical Human-Intelligence Team (THT) in Baghdad, Iraq, where he ran more than 400 combat missions as a machine gunner in the turret of a Humvee, interviewed countless Iraqis ranging from concerned citizens to community leaders and and government officials, and interrogated dozens of insurgents and terrorist suspects. In 2006-2007, Daniel worked with Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) through his former unit in Mosul where he ran the Northern Iraq Intelligence Center. His official role was as a senior analyst for the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and part of Turkey). Daniel suffered greatly from PTSD and had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and several other war-related conditions. On June 10, 2013, Daniel wrote the following letter to his family before taking his life. Daniel was 30 years old.”

(Thumbnail Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

There has been an understandable collective wince at David Gregory’s asking a fellow-journalist whether he should go to jail (I speak of Glenn Greenwald) for helping a whistle-blower. Now, as readers know, I’m somewhat skeptical about the large claims made by Glenn and Snowden as to PRISM but, equally, I emphatically do believe that these revelations were clearly released to further what Snowden felt in good faith was the public interest. In a piece that would be close to perfect if it had any acknowledgment of the other side of the equation – that plenty of fanatical Jihadist extremists are trying to kill us every day – Glenn explains:

In what conceivable sense are Snowden’s actions “espionage”? He could have – but chose not – sold the information he had to a foreign intelligence service for vast sums of money, or covertly passed it to one of America’s enemies, or worked at the direction of a foreign government. That is espionage. He did none of those things.

What he did instead was give up his life of career stability and economic prosperity, living with his long-time girlfriend in Hawaii, in order to inform his fellow citizens (both in America and around the world) of what the US government and its allies are doing to them and their privacy. He did that by very carefully selecting which documents he thought should be disclosed and concealed, then gave them to a newspaper with a team of editors and journalists and repeatedly insisted that journalistic judgments be exercised about which of those documents should be published in the public interest and which should be withheld.

That’s what every single whistleblower and source for investigative journalism, in every case, does – by definition.

More to the point, Glenn’s role in this was at first passive. Snowden contacted him, not the other way round. He then did what any non-co-opted journalist would do – and examined the data independently, with other independent journalists and published the truth. He’s a role model, not a target.

So why would a journalist like Gregory ask such a question?

Two theories:

first, underlying a lot of this, is the MSM’s fear and loathing and envy of the blogger journalist. Notice that Gregory calls Greenwald a “polemicist” – not a journalist. The difference, I presume, is that polemicists actually make people in power uncomfortable. Journalists simply do their best to get chummy with them in order to get exclusive tidbits that the powerful want you to know.

Second: ask yourself if David Gregory ever asked a similar question of people in government with real power, e.g. Dick Cheney et al. Did he ever ask them why they shouldn’t go to jail for committing documented war crimes under the Geneva Conventions? Nah. Here’s a question Gregory asked of Petraeus during the Obama administration:

Presumably, US forces and Pakistani officials are doing the interrogations, do you wish you had the interrogation methods that were available to you under the Bush administration to get intelligence from a figure like this?

Notice the refusal to use the word “torture”. Note the assumption of the premise that torture actually provides reliable intel. Note also Petraeus’ polite dismissal of the neocon question. Gregory has asked this question before:

Can you address my question? Did harsh interrogation help in the hunt for bin Laden?

Again, note the refusal to use the word torture. That would be awkward because Gregory is a social friend of Liz Cheney (Gregory’s wife worked with Cheney’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins). Who wants to call their social friend a war criminal? Notice also this classic Washington discussion by Gregory on torture. It’s entirely about process. There is no substantive position on something even as profound as war crimes. The toughest sentence: “This is a debate that’s going to continue.” Gregory is obviously pro-torture, hides behind neutrality, and beats up opponents with one-sided questions.

It just hasn’t occurred to him that the only place for Dick Cheney right now is jail.

But an actual journalist, Glenn Greenwald, not part of the Village, who has made more news this past fortnight than the entire coterie Gregory lives among and for? The gloves are off. I’m not going to attack Gregory for asking a sharp question of another journalist, however odd? I am merely going to note that he has been far tougher on this journalist for doing his job than on Dick Cheney for abdicating his.

At some point the entire career structure of Washington journalism – the kind of thing that makes David Gregory this prominent – needs to be scrapped and started over. And then you realize that it already has.

And the change is accelerating.

[Re-posted from earlier today]

It’s very rare that one side in a culture war actively renounces its past positions and embraces a new one. That’s particularly true on the Christianist right, where absolutes hold sway, regardless of doubt or charity. So today is a banner day for those of us who have long fought for the equal dignity of homosexuals as children of the same God as heterosexuals, and deserving of no less love and support. Exodus International, the group that championed “reparative therapy” for gays as the only way to live a Christian life, will soon cease to exist and has offered an apology for its past actions. This is quite a statement from Exodus’s president, Alan Chambers:

Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism. For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical. From a Judeo-Christian perspective, gay, straight or otherwise, we’re all prodigal sons and daughters. Exodus International is the prodigal’s older brother, trying to impose its will on God’s promises, and make judgments on who’s worthy of His Kingdom. God is calling us to be the Father – to welcome everyone, to love unhindered.

Then this personal apology:

Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

That’s an enormous statement given the recent past and, to me, a sign of God’s grace. That’s why when I say “unconditional surrender,” I hope Exodus won’t regard that as some kind of victory lap. It isn’t. It just springs from a deep appreciation of their grace-filled decision to re-examine their conduct as Christians and see where the world may have led them astray. Anyone in the public sphere who openly and candidly comes to terms with an error of judgment, and owns it, and even seeks forgiveness for it, is contributing to a more humane, honest conversation and dialogue.

I’ve never been one of those campaigning to shut these psychological torments/”therapies” down. If that kind of therapy is what an adult wants, I will not get in the way.

In fact, I examined the actual arguments of reparative therapy in some detail in my book, Love Undetectable. The mind is still mysterious enough and the origins of our emotional and sexual attractions so complex, my view has always been to keep an open mind about what makes one a homosexual, before or after birth. I still don’t know. But what I do know is that homosexuality exists, that we are not a chimera, and that we are not straight people, drawn to wicked things. We are simply human beings, as human as any heterosexual, with all that entails for Christian doctrine.

And the older brother of the prodigal son is a fascinating analogy. The older son is still thinking in terms of rigid categories of worthiness and rule-based morality (and the pride that often comes with them), while the father opens his heart and doors to the younger, feckless son, who long ago abandoned every duty and every moral obligation, but who remains his son. The righteous brother is appalled at the overflow of the father’s love to such a miscreant:

Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

But God’s love sees past these categories. The only true virtue for Jesus is love – unconditional love, for anyone, in any situation. The parable is about letting go of those strict and sometimes self-righteous moral codes in order to surrender to the expansive and unknowable force of God’s love. I return again to Augustine’s phrase

In essential things, unity. In doubtful things, liberty. In all things, charity.

Finally, one part of the Christian right has grasped the last part of that equation. They have returned from the barren land of Christianism and control of others and toward the fertile valley of Christianity and love for all.

May others follow in their path – as many in the younger generation already are.

(Painting: The Return Of The Prodigal Son, Pompeo Batoni, 1773)