Eric Holder: If Gay Marriage Case Reaches Supreme Court, I Will File A Brief Supporting Marriage...

[one_voice]

Equality.

This weekend, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that if the Supreme Court takes up a case on whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry, he will file a brief in support of marriage equality.

Holder gave a rare interview to ABC’s Pierre Thomas while he was in London on Friday. The conversation turned to last month’s decision by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out Utah’s constitutional ban on gay marriage–the 22nd consecutive ruling in favor of gay marriage since the Defense of Marriage Act was effectively neutered last summer (since joined by decisions striking down similar bans in Kentucky and Colorado). Utah has already announced it will appeal to the Supreme Court. Holder told Thomas that if the Supreme Court grants cert to that case or any other case regarding gay marriage, the Justice Department will file a brief “that will be in support of same-sex marriage.”

*snip*

If the Supreme Court has to decide these cases, Holder is very confident that it will ultimately rule that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. In his view, the bans that will likely get as far as the Supreme Court “will not survive a heightened scrutiny examination”–that is, he doesn’t think the states defending these bans will be able to prove that they serve an important government interest. He considers the fight for gay rights to be “a defining civil rights challenge of our time.”

It’s hard to get more unequivocal than that. If there is any doubt that this current administration is the most resolutely pro-LGBT administration to date, Holder has definitely erased it.

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/07/13/eric-holder-if-gay-marriage-case-reaches-supreme-court-i-will-file-a-brief-supporting-marriage-equality/

[riderinthestorm]

1. Yay!!!! Happy dance! !!! K and R! nt

[Bluenorthwest]

2. It's most excellent. But let us not forget the context of that 'most pro LGBT administration to date

thing. The context is that Bill Clinton was the first President do ever even mention gay people in an official capacity in a positive light or to mention us as being a part of the Democratic Party. He was followed by religious bigot GW Bush. Then came Obama. So 'most pro to date' means 'of the two which have not been utterly opposed to LGBT rights, this one is the strongest'. The bar is not very high.
This is not meant to be a knock on this administration, it is supposed to be a factual reminder of the history of our Party and of US politics and civil rights progress.

[moriah]

9. As much as I hate the slow speed of incremental progress.... you have to admit....

... that Clinton did more than just talk about gay people positively, and what he did helped lay the foundation for more recent equality victories.

For example, I truly believe it's unlikely we'd have ever gotten to open service in the military without DADT or a policy like it. The military was in such a shameful state re: bigotry so ingrained that the day DADT was announced, the commander of the Little Rock Air Force Base felt it necessary to call an assembly to go over the policy then remind officers and airmen that no matter how much they disagreed that Clinton was still their CIC, and to "embrace the suck". (With euphemisms like that so common, it's no wonder so many of those idiots were homophobic.) DADT shouldn't have been necessary, but sadly it was, to prove to both our military and our civilians that gays could serve honorably.

DOMA, in its own way, was also incremental progress. It kept people from freaking out while the early states explored marriage equality, and kept a national constitutional amendment defining marriage off of the table. It, in my opinion, was worse law than DADT, but without the reassurance to conservative states that they wouldn't have to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, I don't think we'd have nearly as many states with marriage equality. Hell, *Arkansas* married gay people! And DOMA's halfway gone and on the way to completely out.

For the times, Bill Clinton was quite progressive -- at the time, the act that freaked so many straight men out was still illegal in at least 15 states (14 at the time of Lawrence v. Texas, and Arkansas overturned theirs the year before the SC case).

It's only been 11 years since Lawrence v. Texas.

You're right, the bar's not very high. Still. Arkansas married gay people. (To each other, even!)

When I was growing up, I was lucky. I got to know gay people from a very young age, and my cousin is a lesbian. My mother even told me she'd love me just the same if I was straight or gay when we had the sex talk. But things are quite different now, compared to the way they were when Mom felt it necessary to follow that with a discussion of the stigma the LGBT community faces. She said she'd stand by me no matter what, but that it'd be impossible to ever get married and nearly impossible to have or adopt children. Now, if you live in a friendly state you can get married and file jointly on your tax returns, and not only are there agencies that specialize in gay adoption but my state overturned its attempt to ban gay people from foster parenting and adoption.

Full, true equality cannot come fast enough, yet I'm amazed at the progress I've seen made toward it in my lifetime. From "gay cancer" to nationwide gay marriage being only a few court cases away!

[William769]

3. This is great!

The LGBT community owes out fast advancement in recent years to President Obama.

I know some will disagree with me but speaking from the pulpit of the White House has help tremendously.

[Doctor_J]

4. Karl Rove and Fox "News" have also decided gay marriage is OK.

I am reasonably sure this SCOTUS won't go against the wishes of Rover and Ailes.

[bigwillq]

5. That's great.

[sheshe2]

6. Excellent

[msanthrope]

7. Excellent. nt

[iandhr]

8. But but but

The Obama administration is just like Bush. DU tells me every day.

[Ikonoklast]

10. Holder holds finger to wind, decides hurricane is indeed coming his way.

As far as I am concerned, gay people already have the same rights as I do, in every state of the union, period.

If there are still states refusing to allow any citizen the benefit of their natural rights as both human beings and citizens of this nation, that state needs to feel the full force of the Federal Government come down on their necks.

This isn't even something rational people should have to discuss, accept it as fact.