Civil & Human Rights

Court arguments reveal how misogyny is at the heart of opposition to marriage equality

by

equality corgis

Arizona and Texas are the latest states to be defending their same sex marriage bans in federal court. Things haven’t gone well for foes of equality lately, as foes of equality lose in state after state, most recently in Virginia. Attorneys in Arizona and Texas obviously see what’s coming and are resorting to desperately hiding behind children and slut-shaming.

Here are anti-equality attorneys in AZ arguing why same sex partners shouldn’t be allowed to marry:

Papers filed in federal court defending the ban say voters, in approving the constitutional amendment in 2008, are entitled to “define marriage for their community.’’ But the lawyers also are arguing to U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick there’s a public purpose in the state getting into the business of regulating private relationships: Ensuring that children are, whenever possible, raised by a biological mother and biological father.

Read more

Virginia is for Lovers: 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds district court order striking down state’s same-sex marriage ban

by

The dominoes keep falling . . . the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the order of the U.S. District Court for Virginia in Bostic v. Schaefer striking down that state’s same sex marriage ban. The Washington Post reports, Court rules Va.’s gay marriage ban unconstitutional:

Pride-Flag-Thumbnail-Friday-3x2-256x171A federal appeals court panel on Monday upheld a decision that said Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

In a 2 to 1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond said that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed under the Constitution regardless of sexual orientation.

“We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable,” said Circuit Judge Henry F. Floyd. “However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws. Civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life.”

Floyd was joined by Circuit Judge Roger L. Gregory.

Their colleague Paul V. Niemeyer dissented and called the ruling “fundamentally flawed.”

Read the opinion in Bostic v. Schaefer Here (.pdf).

Read more

deportation

‘Uncovering the Truth’: Day Laborer Network Leaders Travel to El Salvador

by
NDLON poster
NDLON poster

Leaders from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), faith leaders, and academics are in El Salvador to assess the situation and determine why thousands of Central American children are traveling to the US, seeking asylum and relatives.

From NDLON:
Between Over-Complication and the Overly Simple:
Day Laborer Network Leading US “Deported Dreams” Delegation 
in El Salvador
Migrant RIghts Organizers, Faith Leaders, Academics to Convene Forums, Initiate Community Development, Release Study Profiling Deportees
 
On the last day of college, the director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Pablo Alvarado, left his home country atop a train headed toward the US with his little brother who had become the target of threats by death squads. Decades after their journey North, Alvarado is leading a delegation in the opposite direction to expand the conversation on migration, investigate root causes, and release a study of those Salvadorans who were returned by deportation instead of by choice.
 
Beginning Sunday, July 19th to the 27th, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network will bring organizers from the front-lines of the domestic immigrant rights movement accompanied by faith leaders and academics, hosting public forums on the dynamics of migration and releasing a new study “Deported Dreams” by the University of Central America in San Salvador.
 
“We are going to uncover the truth of what’s happening in Central America without the political spin,” explains Alvarado.  “To advocate effectively, we have to be grounded in reality and that is what we are going to witness in El Salvador.”

Read more

Cathi Herrod’s law firm spreads lies about birth control in federal suit

by

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Herrod

Anti-choicers don’t have the truth or popular opinion on their side where birth control is concerned but that has not stopped the movement in its unrelenting quest to strip women of access to it. So they have devised a three part strategy to fool the public:

1. They have claimed repeatedly that effective forms of hormonal contraception used by women (IUDs, morning after pills, and even regular pills) are really “abortions” due to the slight theoretical possibility that such methods might interfere with a fertilized egg implanting on the wall of the uterus. I have yet to have an anti-choicer explain to me exactly how often they think an IUD or birth control pill snuffs out a fertilized egg* as opposed to working the way that the current scientific consensus holds that they do – by blocking fertilization. But scientific evidence is largely irrelevant to the anti-contraception crusaders.

Read more

Gov. Brewer still hatin’ on the DREAMers

by

brewer_hateAfter Governor Brewer recently lost in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals over her executive order to deny driver’s licenses to individuals qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program aka the DREAMers under President Obama’s executive order, the Arizona Republic editorialized Save the headache, governor, and let ‘dreamers’ drive.

Just as this old crone gave President Obama the boney finger on the tarmac, she has now given the editors of The Republic and every DREAMer her boney middle-finger salute. This woman must really hate kids for breathing while brown. Governor seeking reconsideration of license ruling:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer asked an appeals court Friday to reconsider its earlier ruling that blocked her policy denying driver’s licenses to young immigrants who have avoided deportation under an Obama administration policy.

Read more