Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

No one could have predicted…

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

We still have time to mess this up!

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / Another One Down

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    This is perfect for Ted Nugent.

    Now he can return home, buy some new guns, shoot some stuff, get Greenbush beer at his corner store, and marry his longtime boyfriend.

  2. 2.

    Anya

    Wonderful news!

    Gay rights moving forward, reproductive rights and voting rights moving backwards. That’s one step forward, two steps backwards.

  3. 3.

    David Koch

    Speaking of “Another One Down”:

    Duke lost!

    HA!

    Hey Burnsy, where’s your god now?

  4. 4.

    Seanly

    Another one bites the dust! At least until the Supremes twist themselves into another pretzel of logic & contradictory rulings to stick with the Opus Dei conservative desires.

  5. 5.

    MGB

    I may live in Chicago now, but this born and raised Detroit boy is shedding a lot of tears of joy right now. I’m not ready yet, but I can actually go home and get married in the Unitarian church I grew up in, because I always wanted a damn church wedding. And now it’s possible.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    Please please please tell me that this ruling was another in the series that approvingly cited Scalia. The ‘goad Scalia into a aneurysm’ campaign is one we should all be in favor of.

  11. 11.

    J.Ty

    The rulings last summer were an absolute godsend for me. I know this makes me a bourgeois no-true-queer or something, but federal recognition of me & the other mister is saving us thousands of dollars, making travel easier, we’re both on sure footing with all our various insurances for the first time, I had no idea things were this much easier for straight couples.

    So congrats, Michigan gays! Enjoy your new-found really important, if surprisingly mundane, bundle of rights.

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    The ‘goad Scalia into a aneurysm’ campaign is one we should all be in favor of.

    Can we goad him into going on a murder/suicide spree in the Federalist Society instead? Or is that asking for too much?

  14. 14.

    cmorenc

    @BGinCHI:

    This is perfect for Ted Nugent.

    Now he can return home, buy some new guns, shoot some stuff, get Greenbush beer at his corner store, and marry his longtime boyfriend.

    This is actually DOUBLE-PERFECT for Ted Nugent. He can marry his longtime boyfriend, and then turn right around and shoot him for being part of the gay scum conspiracy attempting to take over America and ruin it. A win-win proposition from Nugent’s perspective!

  16. 16.

    bemused

    The walls can come tumbling down. Gives me hope on many other things long overdue in this country.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    This trial really didn’t go well for them:

    The state had planned on having its first witness – Sherif Girgis – on the stand for up to two hours. Prior to getting dismissed, Girgis spent about 20 minutes on the stand listing his credentials, most of which included lecturing and writing academic papers on the philosophical debate surrounding the definition of marriage. He also has written a book, “What is Marriage, Man & Woman in Defense.”
    But Friedman dismissed the witness following arguments from the plaintiffs side, who noted that Girgis is not a lawyer, child development expert, psychologist or expert in Michigan law. He has no experience in the issues that matter in this case, the plaintiffs argued.
    Friedman agreed.

    So once the judge dispensed with this random guy, Girgis, and his opinions, they brought up the discredited expert:

    The state, meanwhile, is now preparing to put its second witness on the stand: sociologist Mark Regnarus, who is likely to be the most controversial witness to testify in the case.
    Regnerus, a University of Texas sociologist, published a 2012 study on family structure that has been condemned by social scientists and psychology groups as misleading and irrelevant. Regnarus has asserted that differences exist between children of parents who have had same-sex relationships and those with married moms and dads, the former faring worse.

    Regnerus didn’t have a big enough sample of children raised by same-sex couples to study, so he simply pretends that children of divorced parents where one parent later comes out as gay are the same group as children raised by same sex couples.

  18. 18.

    J.Ty

    @Kay: That Regnerus study was really really awful. I remember when it came out. “Let’s intentionally not control for anything” isn’t a particularly useful metric…

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: “The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration. The evidence adduced at trial demonstrated that his 2012 “study” was hastily concocted at the behest of a third-party funder,…”

  20. 20.

    shelly

    But,, but Michael Medved said at CPAC that there wasn’t a single state that banned gay marriage.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:
    They’ve got to go with the best evidence they have. Their best evidence is incredibly bad, but as true conservatives they’re going to stick to their guns and present complete bullshit evidence rather than give up and admit to being wrong.

    I think that’s the best measure of how conservative you are: how long you stick to a belief when the evidence goes against you. It’s natural, and even intellectually reasonable, to stick to a belief in the face of some contrary evidence, since the evidence itself can be flawed. But the more conservative you are, the more evidence has to pile up before you admit to making a mistake. True conservatives are the ones who will keep fighting long after the evidence is overwhelmingly against them.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    These parents are the most sympathetic people in the world. They are nurses who adopt special needs children.

    I don’t know: does it get “less likely to be successfully smeared” than that? :)

    Can you imagine? “Well, we’ll put a stop to that ..family-making right now!”

  26. 26.

    Tommy

    I was born in 1969. I don’t recall folks going to the street for African Americans. But I have read folks did. People like myself, not gay, but who stood up for those that were not like them. I have done that. To see us winning rocks! Makes me think protesting might work.

  28. 28.

    Litlebritdiftrnt

    Queens’s “ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST” is a favorite song of us anti-birthers which we would post in triumph on the occasion of another birther lawsuit dismissal. At last count we were 200 for zero. Still waiting for the Cold Cut Posse’s “devastating” report to come out of Sheriff Arpio’s Arizona. Apparently the “explosive” revelations were to be released in March. It would appear that we are running out of March for that to happen. The birfers are going to be pissed if Zullo doesn’t release something that they have been salivating over for months.

  31. 31.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    Serious question from a legal dummy, here — with anti-marriage-equality laws being overturned in 19 jurisdictions (if I’m understanding correctly that that was the process in each case), can the Supremes find legal standing to hear and decide the arguments that isn’t completly, transparently utter goatshit?

  34. 34.

    PhoenixRising

    @Kay: Not even this:

    he simply pretends that children of divorced parents where one parent later comes out as gay are the same group as children raised by same sex couples.

    No, the 178 adults the marketing firm phone interviewed, in exchange for a gift card, reported that sometime during childhood, after their parent’s divorce, they became aware of one parent’s same-sex activity.

    These were not even children of divorced couples, one of whom came out. These were children who were being raised by parents who were divorced or never married and separated–who were aware of their parents’ dates/sexual partners, and those partners included same sex ones.

    Maybe 100% of those dates became permanent partners, and maybe 100% of the parents ‘came out’, but we only know for sure that they 1) broke up with their child’s other parent and 2) dated in a way that the child was exposed to. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, except that parental instability in household is the only parental-behavior risk factor affecting educational and LE involvement outcomes.

    It’s hard to measure how far that is from the couple of nurses and their 3 adopted special needs kids who brought this case. Judge says you can’t even get there from here.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tommy:

    A few weeks ago, I asked the Juicetariat how I — as a straight, white woman (of some considerable age) — should best describe myself as a supporter of LGBT and minority rights.

    The answer was not long in coming (I think it was from Yutsano). The word is “Ally.” “You are an ally,” he said. And that’s how I’ve been identifying myself ever since.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @PhoenixRising:

    Thanks so much. I followed the case because adoption law interests me, and it’s part of my practice. I’ve had this situation exactly in a “state case” (abuse, neglect and dependency, where a child was removed from birth parents and then adopted). We did a sort of elaborate workaround which I won’t go into, but that’s not fair to the prospective parents, of course. We shouldn’t have to.

    I haven’t had a chance to think the decision thru yet, nor read the tons of commentary that will come, but I’m looking forward to it.

    Thanks again for the correction.

  38. 38.

    Jay C

    @Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:

    Unfortunately, the issues which will be probably be raised at the inevitable SCOTUS hearings on the raft of SSM-denying laws being (temporarily) invalidated are unlikely to be the sort of “arguments”, – i.e. bogus pseudoscience and/or huffy defenses of “religious freedom” in support of discrimination -which crop up in more-localized (State) deliberations. The issue at hand before the SC will more-likely hinge on fundamental Constitutional grounds, rather than the “same-sex marriage is bad because it’s icky” whine which has been, in one form or another, the basic “defense” of SSM bans since the Prop 8 debacle…..

  39. 39.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    @Jay C: Ah, I see. Thank you for that!

    And while I’m not one to wish serious ill on (most) people, I agree w/r/t Scalia’s inevitalbe “Big One” (aneurysm/stroke/heart atack) being better for the nation if it comes earlier than later (the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one [percent], and so forth).

  40. 40.

    Cervantes

    @Gin & Tonic: Quoting:

    “The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration.”

    His 2012 study was published in the journal Social Science Research, which subsequently had to do an internal audit to figure out how its peer-review process could have failed so miserably in this instance. An “executive summary” of the auditor’s report is here. The auditor, Darren Sherkat, concludes thus:

    There are a few things that might help prevent papers like these from falling through the peer review process at Social Science Research. First, the Editorial Board needs expansion and diversification. Given the number of manuscripts being pro- cessed, the Board is too small, and perhaps a bit too old, straight, white, and male. Second, Social Science Research should begin the review process with a series of prompts about the author and the study (SSR is a single blind journal, so reviewers know who wrote the paper) to ascertain whether reviewers may have a conflict of interest. Third, the comments for the author/editor form should require that reviewers directly assess the quality of the data, measures, and analysis relative to the standards expected in a substantive area. This is especially important since reviewers may not recall that Social Science Research only publishes original research (not literature reviews, essays, or theoretical papers) and is a top-tier quantitative journal where data, measures, and analytic methods should be of highest quality.

    The report in full is here (tonight only).

  42. 42.

    Ripley

    true conservatives they’re going to stick to their guns…

    Yes, they’ll do exactly that.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay C:

    The issue at hand before the SC will more-likely hinge on fundamental Constitutional grounds, rather than the “same-sex marriage is bad because it’s icky” whine which has been, in one form or another, the basic “defense” of SSM bans since the Prop 8 debacle…

    I think you’re wrong about this. The people challenging the laws are doing so on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds. Their argument is that the 14th Amendment requires everyone to be treated the same under the law, restricting marriage to opposite sex couples is not treating everyone equally, so same sex couples should be allowed to marry. This is a simple argument based on black letter law, so it’s inherently strong. To defend against it, opponents have to argue that there are sufficiently good reasons for restricting marriage only to opposite sex couples.

    Even if you come up with a list of reasons for allowing opposite sex couples to marry, it’s hard to come up with a good justification for why marriage should be exclusive to opposite sex couples. That’s already challenging because we allow marriages to opposite sex couples who never intend to have, or are medically incapable of having, children, so lots of claims about procreation are basically out the window. The really tricky part is that the people arguing against equality can’t admit that their real argument is based on anti-gay bias, because that would show that same sex couples deserve status as a protected group and raise the required standard of justification for treating them differently. It’s an essentially impossible argument to make, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the arguments intended to make it are lousy and incoherent.

  44. 44.

    J.Ty

    @SiubhanDuinne: “Straight ally” is the full term of art, but yeah, that’s the term. We also accept “human” and “not an asshole” =)

    But ‘ally’ is a straight advocate, yeah.

  45. 45.

    Jay C

    @Roger Moore:

    The people challenging the laws are doing so on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds. Their argument is that the 14th Amendment requires everyone to be treated the same under the law,

    Umm, sounds pretty much like “fundamental Constitutional grounds” to me: IANACL, of course. Otherwise, I agree with you 100%; the “grounds” for denying same-sex couples the right to marry seem, to me, to be founded mainly in prejudice: but the issue I was mainly thinking of was the “full faith and credit” clause: with the Loving v. Virginia precedent fixed in the law, it doesn’t seem permissible that one State can (?arbitrarily?) invalidate a legal contract (which marriage is) from another State without a lot better reasons than “it’s icky”, or the junk-sociology which usually gets served up.

    I am wondering, though: is there some Constitutional interpretation which might allow individual States to refuse to sanction SSM in-state, while forcing them to recognize legal marriages from elsewhere?

  47. 47.

    Don K

    Well me and the hubby (married in MA over Christmas) are physically unable to make it to the Oakland County Clerk’s office tomorrow, but once this is final we’ll definitely tie the knot a second time just to stick it to the asshats who promoted Prop 2 in 04.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay C:
    The point is that the fundamental Constitutional arguments are all on the side of marriage equality, and the people who want to deny equality are forced to dance around to justify why those fundamental constitutional arguments don’t apply. That same basic dynamic will still apply when the case gets to the Supreme Court. The defense of anti-equality laws isn’t suddenly going to turn into a well constructed argument based on constitutional principles when it gets to the top. The anti-equality crazy show will continue all the way to the top because that’s all they’ve got.

  49. 49.

    Don K

    @Roger Moore:

    I’m just hoping Kennedy will be willing to go all the way when this gets to SCOTUS. No doubt the Gang of Four will be more than willing to play Twister with the law to explain how “Ewww!!” is a perfectly acceptable basis for finding state bans constitutional.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @MGB:

    Your church probably already has a lot of practice since most Unitarian churches have been doing same-sex commitment ceremonies for years, if not decades. You just have to make sure the minister remembers to sign the marriage license at the end. :-)

    I’m not a Unitarian myself, but I have a soft spot for them ever since we were married at this beautiful church in Pasadena. I notice they’ve updated their wedding page to remove the reference to separate “commitment ceremonies” since everyone can get legally married in California now. When we got married there in 2006, all of our guests got to walk into the complex under the church’s giant rainbow “We Support The Freedom To Marry” banner.

    @PhoenixRising:

    Obviously anecdata, but from people I knew growing up in the 1980s, it was pretty traumatic to have a parent come out and have to deal with the subsequent divorce, especially since all of the other kids just assumed that the kid I knew must be a “fag” since his dad was one. Hur-hur-hur.

    IMO, one of the best results of the social revolution of the past 30 years has been that people no longer feel like they have to choose between having children (which used to require marrying someone of the opposite sex) and marrying a partner they can truly love. The slow recognition that the desire to raise a child and the desire to have hetero sex are, in fact, two different desires has been pretty astounding to watch.

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