On Wednesday, Feb. 23, I appeared in the lead segment on Capital Insider, the 8 p.m. show on TBD TV, Channel 8, in the District. I was far from perfect, but it was a great experience and host Morris Jones was gentle on me. If the video does not appear below, try here.

So, I can always come home to Law Dork.

Here is the surreal: Rachel Maddow noting that Kerry Eleveld and I had what has been characterized as a “testy” exchange with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) before showing the clip and bringing on Mike Almy, who I mentioned, to talk about how exactly McCain was wrong.

Here it is:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Well, I still have this site and will continue to maintain it, but the overwhelming majority of my attention (and writing) is over at Metro Weekly now, where we have, in the past week, launched Poliglot: a queer spin on politics! As things come up that don’t fit there, I will still post here on occasion — but it will be rare.

I urge you to bookmark Poliglot and stop by often!

Rep. Skelton (D-MO)

A letter was emailed late last night to Get Equal, sent from Baghdad by a gay, Missouri soldier currently on his second tour of duty, according to Get Equal. The soldier writes that he is facing discharge under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and had asked that Get Equal deliver the letter to Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO).

Referencing DADT-repeal opponent Skelton’s remarks about a DADT-free world — “What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?” — the soldier wrote:

I come in from a long day out in the streets of Baghdad and see on television my representative, my voice, condemning the act of acknowledging my existence. . . .

I will continue fighting for your freedom congressman, will you cease blocking mine?

There’s not much more to be said than that.

The full letter, provided by Get Equal, follows after the jump.

* * * * *

June 17, 2010

Representative Ike Skelton
US House of Representatives
2206 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-2504

Dear Representative Skelton,

It was in Ray County, Missouri that I first decided that I would join the Army. I was sitting on the pond dock at my father’s home, and came to the realization that my life was not heading anywhere that I wanted it to. I had no way to pay for college, and it seemed I would be stuck in that town not amounting to much. I went and spoke with a recruiter in Liberty, Missouri and eleven days later I was sitting at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Nearly four years later, I do not regret that decision. I am now sitting in Baghdad preparing to redeploy back to the United States for a second, and final time. I can honestly say I am proud of the work we have done here. I look at the Iraqis that I personally helped train as a member of the Military Transition Team and can rest assured that we are leaving the area in capable hands. Through serving the country in the United States Army I have become more patriotic than I knew possible.

However, my pride in the Army and what we stand for has been yanked away. One of the first lessons that I learned after joining the Army was the importance of Integrity. I have served our great country honorably in two deployments. I have earned eight awards and have a clean record. I was one of the first responders to Muqdadiyah in 2007 when then President Bush ordered the surge, where my unit spent fifteen months in various provinces. I returned again nine months ago to finish what we started and am proud to be a member of the last combat brigade operating in theatre.

Although my record is untarnished, there is one thing separating myself and the rest of ‘America’s hero’s.’ Though I have less than a year left before my contract has been served, I was informed that the Army is considering discharging me under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, and this hurts extensively. My command realizes and respects the efforts and contributions to my unit and the fact that we are low-manned. It seems that they are holding out as long as they can on my discharge process, waiting for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to be repealed.

I can understand if your views are against gay and lesbians in general, but sir you must realize your unique role in the United States. Were it not for uncomfortable truths there would be no need for you at all. As a representative of the State of Missouri and a leader in Congress’ role pertaining to the Military, it is imperative that you not succumb to weak leadership. However, I find it disturbingly necessary to remind you today of your job and that is to open national discussions on issues to find the best resolution. That is your job, and were it not, there would be no need for Congress.

Congressman Skelton, I demand that you apologize for your remarks. You need to recognize the disrespect that you issued to the gay and lesbian soldiers, like myself, who are currently serving regardless if we are recognized or not. I demand that you look at this from my perspective. I have spent the majority of my adult life fighting for a war in which you sent me to. I am fighting for your safety and freedom, and for every “mommy and daddies” seven year olds’ freedom and safety. I come in from a long day out in the streets of Baghdad and see on television my representative, my voice, condemning the act of acknowledging my existence.

Congressman regardless of your personal views on the issue, we are serving now. To be disrespectful to us is not only intolerant but ignorant. We deserve at the bare minimum an honest assessment and a fair judgment on the matter. In order for this to happen you, as the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, must allow these discussions to take place. I will continue fighting for your freedom congressman, will you cease blocking mine?

United States Army (Specialist E4)
Baghdad, Iraq

Judge Walker

Here’s the preview I wrote at Metro Weekly for today’s closing arguments:

More than five months ago, the trial questioning the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 – prohibiting same-sex marriages in the state – began in U.S. District Court. Tomorrow, June 16, the trial of Perry v. Schwarzenegger will come to an end. That end, however, could also be the beginning of the much larger case for equality in marriage across the country.

I’ll be live-blogging here with thoughts and interesting notes about the argument as it happens, but also be sure to follow my list on Twitter of people in the courtroom and tweeting the closing arguments live.

Interesting question and answer:

JUDGE WALKER: Are you focusing on the facts pertaining to the California initiative or facts pertinent generally and throughout the country with respect to marriage?
MR. OLSON: Both of those.

Punt.

More from Olson:

I think it’s really important to set forth the prism through which this case must be viewed by the judiciary. And that is the perspective on marriage, the same subject that we are talking about, by the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court — the freedom to marry, the freedom to make the choice to marry — the Supreme Court has said in, I counted, 14 cases going back to 1888, 122 years. And these are the words of all of those Supreme Court decisions about what marriage is. And I have set forth this distinction between what the plaintiffs have called it and what the Supreme Court has called it.

Tough words. This logic would apply across the United States, regardless of the type of marriage ban, whether it be statute or constitutional amendment (or just a lack of marriage equality without any affirmative prohibition, like in New York).

The judge brings up Baker v. Nelson:

JUDGE WALKER: Well, now, the Supreme Court in the Baker versus Nelson case decided that the issue which we are [concerned] with here was not ripe for the Supreme Court to weigh in on. That was 1972. What’s happened in the 38 years since 1972?

Interesting softball. Olson, of course, responded that much had changed — noting, most specifically, Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas.

Walker notes that, unlike in Lawrence, we are not dealing with a criminal statute here. Olson’s response is excellent:

And then the court goes on to say, persons in home sexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes just as heterosexual persons do. The court was talking about the private intimate behavior. If the court had said instead you can go to jail for five days because we caught you doing those things, we will take away your right to drive on the highways, we will take away your right to marry because you do those things or you engage in that conduct, it seems to me that that is just as unconstitutional especially if the thing which is taken away is also a fundamental constitutional right.

Good stuff.

Hard talk from Ted Olson:

It’s a traditional definition of marriage, which is something that we have always done it that way is the same — is a corollary to the because I say so. It’s not a reason. You can’t have continued discrimination in public schools because you have always done it that way. You can’t have continued discrimination between races on the basis of marriage because you have always done it that way.

That line of reasoning would have prevented the Loving marriage. It would have justified racially segregated schools.

Wow. Olson goes on:

Well, we know that taking away the right to marry was indeed the very essence of slavery. Yet that very freedom, once denied to slaves and denied to interracial couples throughout this country is now being denied to the plaintiffs not because they are Chinese, not because of their race, but because of their sexual orientation. How can it be wrong in those areas and right in this area under the Equal Protection Clause? That does not square with any of the language that the Supreme Court has used in deciding equal protection cases. And that has been used, that same language has been used to strike down classes among citizens. That’s the language of Romer. That principle has been extended from race to nationality to ancestry to sex to legitimacy to the favoring of the husband in matters of marital property and in 1996 in the Romer case to sexual orientation.

That, my friends, is a closing.

Therese Stewart from San Francisco is up next, talking about the specific harm the city and county suffer because of Proposition 8. Why do people go to San Fran to marry?

MS. STEWART: Because it’s long been the City of love the city where people leave their hearts. It’s a fact of our culture.

JUDGE WALKER: The City of love.

Yup.

Charles Cooper is closing for the Prop 8 proponents:

It’s because this relationship is crucial to the public interest. It’s crucial to the public interest because, Your Honor, the procreative sexual relations . . . benefit to society and [the plaintiff's argument] represents a very real threat to society’s interests.

JUDGE WALKER: A threat?

MR. COOPER: Yes, Your Honor. A threat in the sense that, to whatever extent children are born into the world without this stable, enduring marital union, raised and responsibility taken for the offspring by both of the parents that brought them into the world, then a host of very important and very negative social implications arise and potential social consequences arise.

Interesting.

Cooper’s closing is weak.

JUDGE WALKER: Don’t we have to have evidence?

MR. COOPER: You don’t have to have evidence of this point, if one court after another has recognized — let me turn to the California cases on this. The first purpose of matrimony any by the laws of nature and society is procreation. The California Supreme Court said that . . . . A century later the California Supreme Court reemphasized that. ” The institution of marriage serves the public interest because it channels biological drives — channels biological drives that might otherwise become socially destructive and it ensures the care and education of children in a stable environment.” That’s the California Supreme Court, Your Honor. That’s the purpose of marriage in this state according to the California Supreme Court.

And? The judge concurred with my thoughts here:

JUDGE WALKER: Let me ask, if you have got 7 million Californians who took this position, 70 judges as you pointed out, and this long history that you have described, why in this case did you present but one witness on this subject, one witness? It seems you had a lot to choose from if you had that many people behind you. Why only one witness? And I think it fair to say that his testimony was equivocal in some respects.

Ouch. Then, Cooper responded:

You need only go back to your chambers, Your Honor, and pull down any dictionary, pull down any book that discusses marriage, and you will find this procreative purpose at its heart wherever you go unless, unless, Your Honor, that book was written by one of their experts or has been written over the course of the last 30 years.

The “30 years” point somewhat tore apart his case, as Cooper admitted that things have changed in the past 30 years.

JUDGE WALKER: If it is taking place throughout the country and throughout the world in this fashion, then doesn’t that indicate a changed perspective with respect to the role and function of marriage in society?

MR. COOPER: In the minds of many, yes, Your Honor. In the minds of many.

Yeah, I’m not sure how you jump out of that hole. To say that Walker’s questions of Cooper are more probing and less sympathetic is to understate them. This:

JUDGE WALKER: Let me ask you. You heard Mr. Olson this morning recount the experience of, and the background of the loving decision by the Supreme Court in 1964, I think, 67. And up to that time numerous states had laws on the books which prohibited interracial marriage. At some point there came exactly the same kind of social change that you have just described with respect to homosexuality. And at some point, 1967, that matured into a constitutional recognition of a constitutional right, that the limitation against interracial marriage violated a fundamental individual right under our communication. Why are we not at that same at this point . . . here with respect to same-sex marriage?

Well then.

After — in his discussion of the standard of review — positing that gays are not politically powerless and asserting that homosexuality is not immutable, Cooper did acknowledge that gays do have a history of discrimination.

JUDGE WALKER: This Proposition 8 and these other positions in other states that limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, the DOMA statute that has been mentioned, the exclusion of gays and lesbians from military service for a long period of time, aren’t all those simply indicia of a long history of discrimination?

MR. COOPER: No, we would — I want to are clear on this. We have never disputed and we have offered to stipulate that gays and lesbians have been the victims of a long and shameful history of discrimination. We have been bound to note that thankfully the situation today in 2010 is not what it was even yesterday let alone in 1990 when high tech gays was decided, thankfully.

Um, this is just a roundabout, sneaky way of claiming that gays aren’t politically powerless any longer.

Walker gets into what rational basis is even claimed:

JUDGE WALKER: A disability, a classification, has been put on marriage which disables people who wish to marry others of the same sex. In order to disable certain citizens do you not have to show a core relative benefit to others or to society? And the “I don’t know” or you don’t know where this is going to lead answer, is that enough to impose upon some citizens a restriction that others do not suffer from?

MR. COOPER: It is if there is a rational basis for that distinction, yes. I really think that really ends up being the bottom line on it. If there is no — if there is — if in looking at the, whatever society’s purposes are for marriage and interests are for regulating and caring about marriage, if there is no basis on which to draw a distinction between one group and another, then the distinction can’t stand. But if there is a distinguishing characteristic that is relevant to one of those purposes, then the distinction can stand.

Not so sure there.

Now, the plaintiffs will have a 30-minute rebuttal time. Olson crushes from the start:

[Y]ou can’t come in here and say I don’t know and I don’t have to prove anything and I don’t need any evidence except for some people writing in books who won’t come into court and subject themselves to the judicial process.

. . . .

Mr. Cooper says you have to accept the fact that first of all you have to accept my definition it has to be between a man and a woman. Then if you have oh marriage between a man and a man or a woman or a woman it will change the marriage. Well, of course it will, because you started by defining the term that you wanted to define.

Blunt. Echoing an earlier editorial about the Vermont marriage case in The New Republic that I’ve always loved, Olson said: “Proposition 8 isn’t changing the institution of marriage. It is correcting a restriction based upon sex and sexual orientation.”He then addressed the issue of why this is coming up now:

It’s no longer against the law to work for the federal government. It’s no longer against the law in most places to walk into a bar if you are a homosexual. The break down thank God of some of these barriers has changed people’s attitudes and I am sure that contributes to people saying, “Now, well, if that’s the case and psychiatrists have changed their view about homosexuality.” People no longer think it’s a disorder or anything like that. They have explained and people have come to understand the differences between various members of society and we have found out that all of those horrible taboos are not justified. In fact — and there are stories, some of which were in the ads that were supporting Proposition 8, are no longer true. So of course people are thinking well, if these are our fellow citizens and they don’t present a risk to us, they are not damaging they are just like us, why shouldn’t we start talking about marriage?

Nicely put. Olson ended:

[Y]ou have to have a reason [for Prop 8] and you have to have a reason that’s real not post hoc justification not speculation not built on stereotypes and not hypothetical.

That’s what the Supreme Court decisions tell us. We don’t have that here. We have a decision that takes — and there isn’t any question. A group of people who have been victims of discrimination, who are a discreet minority, who have identifiable characteristics, their sexual orientation. And we want to foreclose them from participating in the most fundamental relationship in life.

. . . .

The Romer case that says you can’t take away rights and make them unconstitutional impossible to recover except by amending your state constitution. And the Lawrence case that says that the sexual orientation of individuals and their private conduct is a protected right. You cannot then in the face of all those decisions by the United States Supreme
Court say to these individuals, “We are going to take away the constitutional right to liberty privacy association and sexual intimacy that we tell you that you have and then we will now use that as a basis for not allowing you the freedom to marry.” That is not acceptable. It’s not acceptable under our Constitution. And Mr. Blankenhorn is absolutely right the day that we end that we will be more American.”

With that, as Judge Walker concluded, “ The matter is submitted.”

When Gawker picked up this “report,” Yusef and I at Metro Weekly decided it necessitated a response.

Thank you, Mr. President. My question is about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal compromise amendment that faces House and Senate votes as early as this afternoon. Adm. Mullen said yesterday of the conditions in the amendment, “That trigger is to certify whether we should move ahead with that change.”

Earlier, and repeatedly, however, Sec. Gates said of the study, “This is not a question of if, but how.”

Which is it, Mr. President, and is your understanding of the compromise that the certification is discretionary? And, if so, why is that discretion necessary if the study truly is only looking into how to implement repeal?

But, I did not get to ask my question, so, it remains unanswered.

Here is the background, from my two reports at Metro Weekly on Wednesday: “Discretion Required,” about the impact of the amendment, and “Digging Into the Details,” which looks at the Senate vote count and features my interviews with Reps. Murphy and Frank on the House side.

About 9:30 p.m. Monday night, two people stand looking at the White House from the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yes, I have been a bad Law Dork.

But, I’ve been writing plenty, at Metro Weekly, where I had been freelancing, then was working part-time, and — finally — earlier this year started working full-time.

On Monday, for example, I began with “DADT Talks at White House and on Hill,” covering the meetings regarding a possible “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy repeal compromise. Then, I followed up with the brief “Pushing Forward on DADT Repeal Compromise,” addressing a letter sent to the White House from the leading trio of pro-repeal lawmakers. Finally, I ended the day with “White House Signals Support,” which covered the Administration’s endorsement of the repeal compromise and several LGBT groups’ reactions to that support.

Unfortunately, days like that have left me with little time to devote to Law Dork.

I do, however, ask that you continue to check out my work, which is published nearly daily (if not multiple times a day, sch as Monday) at MetroWeekly.com and, if you live in the D.C. area, each Thursday in print. Also, if you’re not following me on Twitter and you want to keep up with me, you should be following me. Finally, I will update here as I find reasons (and time!) to do so, which is primarily when non-LGBT topics or Ohio-centric issues come to the fore.

If you have any other ideas of how I can use this space — I’m thinking about a weekly photo journal update, perhaps — please leave the idea in the comments section.

Thanks to everyone who has been so truly supportive of me as I spent the past 15 months feeling my way out and about back in the blogosphere, then on Twitter and, eventually, to D.C. It’s been — and will doubtless continue to be — quite a ride, so please do keep up!

I’m honestly not sure what I think about tonight, but I do think this is different from last month’s actions.

I actually think it might have been smarter, politically, for the group than the previous GetEqual-related actions. Although disrespectful to President Obama, it was certainly not of the “arrest risk” level of the other actions. That’s a big difference from the first day of actions. This was a brief, targeted action that, in the larger scheme of things, was minimally disruptive.

Also, and more importantly, this was a presidential event with many people in attendance, so there is mainstream press being forced to write about this. The pool report, circulating at this time, talks about the disruption in pain-staking (for the White House) detail.

The downside of this action is that Sen. Boxer had her event, I think unfairly, targeted and tarnished. I’m not quite sure of the advantage gained by putting a damper on a potentially vulnerable, pro-LGBT elected official’s fundraising event.

Also, this was directly aimed at Obama, as opposed to more generally at the White House or Congress. While that could — and likely is — seen as a positive for GetEqual’s supporters, I’m not sure Obama wants DADT repeal any more after tonight. Maybe he will do more, and maybe that’s enough to call this a success, but I can’t imagine that it made him more eager personally to support LGBT equality. I’m not sure about that, but I still think that’s the downside in taking on the President in this way.

Another potential downside is that this wasn’t an LGBT event. This is the first test of how GetEqual’s message translates outside of the LGBT community — both in the progressive community generally and across the nation. So, while watching LGBT coverage of this event will be important, I’m going to pay close attention to non-LGBT media’s coverage of tonight’s action.

Finally, there is the downside that comes along with the hecklers’ veto. Tonight’s hecklers chose — with no consultation and with no accountability — to take action of their own behalf that will, in many forms, be reflected on many folks seeking an end to DADT and advancement of other LGBT equality legislation. That is not their fault, and it is not something for which they should be blamed. But, it will happen, and others who are ambivalent about, supportive of or oppose their actions will be explaining this action to others.

Maybe that’s fine. Maybe the answer is simply, “It wasn’t me.” Perhaps the response is, “Do you disagree that LGBT people deserve full equality now?”

These are difficult issues in a righteous struggle. Tonight, I think, was a slightly different animal than last month’s actions and worthy of examination on its own merits.

Truly, few emails have made me more happy than this one, letting me know that I have a seat in the U.S. Supreme Court’s press section “for the oral argument on Monday, April 19 at 10 a.m. and Wednesday, April 28 at 10 a.m.”

The building that houses the Supreme Court of the United States, located at One First Street, N.E., in Washington, D.C.

The cases are Christian Legal Society v. Martinez and Doe #1 v. Reed. This, to me, is about as exciting an opportunity as I could have imagined when moving back to D.C. nearly six months ago. In that time, I’ve had the opportunity to write for The Atlantic Politics Channel and Metro Weekly, which has led to a job at MW as the senior political writer. In that role, I’ve covered Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and, now, will be covering the Supreme Court.

The first argument has particular meaning for me, as this debate, about whether a student organization that refuses to abide by a school’s nondiscrimination policy — here, CLS — can be denied university funds, is one in which I was heavily engaged during my time as a law student at OSU. The question in the case comes down to whether personal religious views can be imposed on a public institution and trump generally applicable public funding decisions, a question the court has answered in the negative on repeated occasions.

The case raises a lot of interesting questions, depending on the angle from which you come at the case — CLS and its lawyers argue that this is a religious freedom and associational freedom case. I’m going to be reading the many amicus briefs submitted in the case over the coming days, so I’ll have more on the specifics of all that soon. What already is clear, though, is that it will be intriguing to watch how the justices address the case.

The second argument, I think, has a growing meaning in the evolving dialogue on LGBT equality — or at least the opposition to it. As with the CLS case, those opposed to LGBT equality are increasingly painting themselves as themselves being the group that is subject to animus. They, not the LGBT people, are the “victim” in this framing. The Washington case involves the disclosure of the names and identifying information of those people who signed the petition to overturn Washington state’s domestic partnership law that became Referendum 71.

The case asks whether the Court will hold that disclosure requirements — can the public see who signed a petition to put a referendum on the ballot? — should be curtailed because of fear that those who signed such a petition will be subject to retaliation or other intimidation. The broad issue — the intimidation question — already has arisen twice in recent months at the Court, when the Court rejected the attempt to allow a live-streaming of the Proposition 8 trial to other courtrooms and in Justice Thomas’s opinion in Citizens United.

Incidentally, that second argument will fall, to the day, six months after my first D.C. coverage, the signing of the hate crimes law a couples days after I moved back.

Of personal interest and excitement to me, these two arguments, looking at the intersection of LGBT equality and various First Amendment freedoms, fall into that same general area of the law as the first Supreme Court oral argument that I attended, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, argued 10 years ago this month, on April 26, 2000.

Yes, this Law Dork is incredibly excited and proud to be covering the Supreme Court for Metro Weekly.