Obama Files Brief Against Proposition 8 at SCOTUS

Graphic from New Yorker

I'm very impressed and pleased at how far the Obama administration has vocalized (and followed through) on gay rights issues over the last year or so. Given the President's proclaimed "fierce advocacy," followed by a perceived period of inaction, and a very (very) bitchy gay blogosphere ragging on them, I wasn't sure we'd end up here. But, I'm glad we did.

[Excerpt]

Obama’s Brief Against Proposition 8 Goes Far

Thursday night, just hours before a filing deadline, President Obama’s Justice Department submitted an amicus curiae brief asking the Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8—California’s gay-marriage ban. Even more importantly, it did so by asserting a bold claim to full equality for gay and lesbian Americans, which is a significant development in the nation’s rapidly moving consideration of the issue.

Read more: New Yorker

Obama is the One Taking Our "Freedoms?"

I think this guy was a mistake. Image from LA Times

Since early 2009--practically the day of President Obama's inauguration, possibly earlier--conservatives have been saying that Obama is taking our "freedoms" away. Rarely do they enumerate these freedoms that have allegedly been removed, and when they do there are usually flaws in their arguments.

But what is the right doing when our freedoms really are being taken away? Republican Governors all over the country have been stomping on a woman's right to choose whether or not to remain pregnant. And even if you disagree that there is such a right (though it was acknowledged by the Supreme Court), what about the forced vaginal probes? That would seem to be a freedom stomping right there. Or, how about whole towns in Michigan that have their vote taken away, and their elected officials replaced with "emergency managers?" Indefinitely?

Those are just a couple of areas. There are many other examples, including the orchestrated attempt by the GOP (and their owners, ALEC and others) to systematically reduce the number of registered Democratic voters through a series of laws. They use excellent smokescreen justifications for Voter ID laws and other measures, but the aim is very clearly voter suppression. And what is more fundamental than the right to vote?

How about the constitutionally guaranteed right to not be unreasonably searched or seized? Because the Supreme Court of the United States has just made it a-okay for citizens to be strip searched if they have been detained by police, for any reason. You don't have to be guilty, you don't have to be charged, just detained. The guy at the center of this case was detained for six days on a bogus charge, and strip searched twice. He broke no law, and was suspected of no contraband, but they did it to him anyway. And the conservative five on SCOTUS says they're cool with that.

[Excerpt]


Supreme Court upholds strip-searches for jail inmates


The Supreme Court refused to halt routine strip-searches of new jail inmates, including those arrested for minor offenses, saying the need to screen out weapons and drugs outweighed the right to privacy.
The 5-4 majority ruled it would be "unworkable" to require guards — who at large county jails must screen hundreds of new inmates — to spare those who may not appear dangerous. . .

Read more at: Los Angeles Times