sundries

[rm]

No German practice yesterday. Too much news. Too much laundry. Patty was very sweet with me in my news frenzy place. Tonight though it's all Project Runway. And hopefully some more Buffy. We want to finish Buffy and Angel before Patty heads to Cardiff and then do remote movie dates for Being Human.

Woo, Click-n-Ship from Duchess.

For those, presumably not from the US or California or really, really not paying attention, or just really over-excited on Twitter, a few details:

1. No same-sex legal marriages can take place in CA right now. There is a stay which will probably remain in place as this thing goes through the 9th Circuit and on to the Supremes. This could take years.

2. The US has not legalized gay marriage.

3. There is no guarantee of what will happen in the Supreme Court (because of the purpose of the 9th Circuit, that should be no problem), although yesterday's ruling was extremely, extremely cleverly reasoned and incredibly legally sound. It's a remarkably strong document.

4. DOMA is still on the books.

5. Other than momentum and hope, today is exactly like yesterday.

Please do read the ruling. It is a remarkable document that is profoundly philosophically feminist and has some remarkable things to say about gender. Reading the ruling gave me chills. It was like an "I was promised flying cars" moment with Actual Flying Cars, not because it's the first big step towards the legalization of same-sex marriage in this country, but because of what it says about gender and marriage in general. That felt like the future.

Hey, while we're here, if you don't think same-sex marriage should be legal; if you don't think the issue is essentially about the state's recognition or not of my humanity; if it's vitaly important to you to refer to me as "a homosexual" as if I were an object of study or a disease; if you don't understand the purpose of the judiciary in this country (which is yes, to make law and make sure law conforms to the constitution); if you have an actual problem with the 14th and 17th amendments, you can leave now. I'm not your minstrel show, and I'm not some illogical liberal/woman/homosexual; you just failed civics class. I mean it. Out out out.

There is, predictably, not a ton of other news on my radar this morning, although Elena Kagan is expected to be confirmed to the Supreme Court today.

Less annoying than the Tom Hardy thing: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in The Advocate. Really, it's a fabulous funny little interview.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

The judge is also a gay man, and no doubt when he got this case had a moment of "oh shit" just for how that would, inevitably, become a part of the discourse at least post-decision at least from the losing side.

[5251962.livejournal.com]

It already is. I have seen instances of this being pointed out by prop8/anti equality supporters.
It's like the actual words and rational thought process this judge offered- means absolutely nothing to them because of this. That sort of rationale disturbs me a great deal for what it, well, not what it implies but what it pretty loudly proclaims.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also, do we not allow women to sit on cases about women? PoC to sit on cases about PoC?

Oh, but right, polite society demands we at least pretend to view those groups as human now.

[5251962.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I get the feeling that either these people didn't read it, or they couldn't wrap their minds around it because this has become one of their big talking points in this. That and if I see one more, "Well...WHY did we vote on that, if it was just gonna be overturned!" as argument I'm probably going to be a much less tolerant person than I have been about that. Mainly because, I ask the same question only ending it at "that". However, you try explaining that voting on a civil rights issue is ridiculous- and the only thing you really get back inspires a mental image of someone literally eating Faux news and vomiting it back up.

[zeldajean.livejournal.com]

I made the unfortunate discovery yesterday that someone I must continue to work closelywith believes this very strongly. Rather disconcerting for me. And we have nowhere near the power of a judge. I'm pondering putting a similarly worded "out out" msg on my fb/twitter/lj.

[nonsecateur.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've seriously heard people propose exactly that. Something about being 'biased' and 'too emotional'. Straight white guys can continue to have input into straight white guy issues, naturally. That's different!

[idunn.livejournal.com]

The part that kills me is, those arguing that the judge is "biased" cuz he's gay won't stop and think that a straight judge would probably have biases about the case, too. Judges are human, everyone has opinions. Doing your job means putting those aside and going on the facts.

[5251962.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. I don't really think that a sexuality bias has to come to play in this at all- that's one of the reasons I liked how this judge brought everything down. Had really nothing to do with sexuality or any preference, but went right back to the roots of the matter in terms of what is actually Constitutional and what is not about this issue. And according to the Constitution- this isn't right.


..at least, I really, really hope that would be the way it was seen.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Already is.

For some reason, the American Family Association sends out e-mail blasts that get caught in my spamtrap at work. So I saw their initial response, which was "The judge is gay, therefore he is BIASED against us poor oppressed CHRISTIANS!!!!"

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes! I'd forgotten that bit.

It's funny, I don't generally read the legal document that results from a court case but I read this one and listening to the OMG! he's queer so he must have been biased! whining becomes so ... bizarre now that I did.

Even setting aside my own feelings about the issue, I think this brief was excellently written and is really going to force the appeals process to actually deal with the core issues -- that basic rights aren't up for majority vote (and never have been), that the state's interest in marriage is secular, not moral and that there are no measurable harms that occur from same sex marriage.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

I never would have known had that fact never been brought to light. To me, a judge is a judge is a judge, and his arguments certainly don't appeal to emotion so much as the Constitution and logic.

To me, then, the relevant discourse is this: Yes, Virginia, gay judges are just as good as straight ones, if not better.