Zack Ford writes:
This week we get a first look at how House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) intends to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. If the briefs filed by attorney Paul Clement yesterday are any indication, the House Republicans will be pushing every anti-gay message possible to ensure the federal government continues to discriminate against same-sex couples. And of course, taxpayers are covering the bill for all these legal fees.The case was brought by Edie Windsor, who was forced to pay exorbitant federal inheritance taxes when her wife of 44 years passed away because the government did not recognize their marriage under DOMA. Clement?s primary goal in defending the law is to prove that sexual orientation is not a characteristic that deserves ?heightened scrutiny??essentially, that gay people have not been historically subject to the kind of irrational discrimination that justifies constitutional protection. Doing so requires perpetuating common myths and misperceptions about sexual orientation to convince the court to toss out Edie?s lawsuit. Here are five attacks he makes against gays and lesbians pulled from two of the briefs filed this week:
1. GAYS HAVE NOT HISTORICALLY FACED DISCRIMINATION [...]
2. SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS A CHOICE [...]
3. GAYS HAVE PLENTY OF POLITICAL POWER [...]
4. SAME-SEX COUPLES MAKE BAD PARENTS [...]
5. THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE MUST BE PROTECTED
Beneath each of those bold-faced subheads Ford includes the details.
At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:
There is no doubt about it - tonight's results represent a tidal wave in Ohio (and perhaps national) politics. In 2004, the Democrat running in OH-02 lost by 44 points. Tonight, the Democrat, Paul Hackett, lost by a mere 4 points - just 4,000 votes out of over 114,000 cast. That's one-eleventh the prior margin, and that's fighting against one of the most corrupt state Republican parties in the land.
Tonight's results exceeded my wildest expectations. Don't get me wrong - I would have been overjoyed had Hackett won. But I am still thrilled, and his tremendous showing in an incredibly red district should buoy the hopes of Democrats everywhere. Tomorrow, we can begin the important task of dissecting the Hackett campaign's operations in fine detail, to figure out what contributed most to its success - to see what results this extraordinary lab experiment yielded.But tonight, we should celebrate an amazing, against-all-odds showing by a strong, fearless Democrat. We all owe our thanks to Paul Hackett and to all the people who joined in this effort.
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