While Dutch Men Protest Gay Couple Attack Hand-in-Hand, Anchorage Protests By Electing Two Gay Men To Assembly

Last summer,  already campaigning at PrideFest, Christopher Constant told me (off camera, but his poster didn't hide things) that if he won his seat on the Anchorage Assembly (city council), he'd be the first openly gay member.

He won yesterday, but he wasn't exactly right.  Because another openly gay candidate, Felix Rivera, in mid-town, won a seat as well.  Here's the video I took of Chris last summer. You can see he's not coming onto the Assembly without experience and knowledge about the neighborhoods he will represent.

I took some liberty with the headline.   I doubt any Anchorage voters even knew about the Dutch hand-holding protest when they voted.  I'm guessing that most people who voted for Christopher Constant or Felix Rivera didn't even knew they were gay.  It didn't really come up in the election until the very end when one of Rivera's opponents sent out a last minute attack ad, and even that used coded language rather than say he was gay.  And Rivera got 46% of the vote in a four way race. The next highest opponent got 29%.

No, Anchorage elected two gay men, not because they were gay (though perhaps some voted against them for that reason) but because they were the strongest candidates in their races.


As understated as gender was in the race, it is a big deal in Anchorage.  After years and years of fierce opposition from an evangelical pastor, Anchorage finally added LGBTQ to its anti-discrimination ordinance in 2015.  There was an attempt to put an initiative on yesterday's ballot to block parts of the 2015 change, but it didn't meet the legal requirements for an initiative.    Mayor Ethan Berkowitz won his mayoral race in 2015 by a landslide supporting gay rights against a rabidly anti-gay opponent.

Felix Rivera at candidate forum March 2017

So this is a milestone after a lot of bitter history over this issue.

And here's Felix Rivera at the AFACT candidate forum a couple of weeks ago.





Dutch Hand Holding Protest

While there was no direct connection between the Anchorage election, and the Dutch protest, there are a lot of indirect connections.  The article says that after the attack on the married couple who were walking home holding hands, the prime minister condemned the attack.  But two lawmakers took it a step further.

"Alexander Pechtold, who is the leader of the Democrats 66 (D66) party, arrived hand in hand with his party’s financial specialist, Wouter Koolmees, in support of Vernes-Sewratan and Sewratan-Vernes. “We think it is quite normal in the Netherlands to express who you are,” Pechtold said, according to People."

Then lots of Dutch men posted pictures of themselves holding hands in support of the couple.  One picture in the article shows a group of men who work at the Dutch embassy in London walking along the street holding hands.


Jay Brause, Gene Dugan, and Out North

Which gives me a bridge to mention Jay (Jacob) Brause and Gene (Eugene) Dugan, a gay Anchorage couple who sued the state of Alaska when they weren't allowed to get married here way back in 1994.  They won their case!  But then the state (led by that pastor) amended the constitution to define marriage to involve a man and a woman only.

Jay and Gene ran Out North, a small theater/art space that regularly brought acts that challenged conventional thinking.  They played a huge role in giving Anchorage a space in which to stretch its mind and continue to reexamine long held assumptions.  I'm sure Out North played a role in preparing Anchorage for this day, when two openly gay men have been elected to the Assembly in a race where their sexual preference was almost completely a non-issue.  For those of you who think I've gone off in a totally different tangent, Jay and Gene now live in London where those Dutch Embassy colleagues held hands.  Jay and Gene they got fed up living in a state that vigorously denied their right to get married and moved to UK.  But they did come back to Anchorage to get married here after that became possible.


Holding Hands In Thailand 

I'd like to make one more connection to the idea of men holding hands.  When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, one of the American values that was deeply embedded in me was that men do NOT hold hands.

But in Thailand they do.  It's no big deal.  It happens all the time.  Dealing with my own visceral response when men wanted to hold hands with me in Thailand, helped me understand the idea of biases that our cultures teach us without us even knowing that they are biases.  Instead we think that they are 'truths' about nature.  In this case, that it is unnatural for men to hold hands.  But in Thai culture it isn't and a gradually became comfortable when someone took my hand as we walked somewhere.  



The Other Winning Assembly Candidates

Here are some pictures of the other winners last night.





Suzanne LaFrance at the AFACT candidate forum March 12.  She's won the south Anchorage seat 6 that tends to be conservative.  But not always.  Janice Shamberg held this seat.   Suzanne LaFrance was supported by Berkowitz.  In fact all the winners were except Dyson.

Pete Petersen was reelected to his east Anchorage seat 5. Not only are there now two gay men on the Assembly, Petersen is one of two returned Peace Corps volunteers on the Assembly.

Fred Dyson Introducing Joe Miller 2010

Fred Dyson won in Eagle River's seat 2.  He wasn't at the forum, but I had this picture from 2010 when he introduced US senate candidate Jim Miller.  That was the meeting where Miller famously said, If the East Germans could build a wall, we could.  And it was the same meeting where journalist Tony Hopfinger was handcuffed by Miller's 'security.'






Tim Steele also missed the March 12 forum and I don't seem to have a picture of him in my files.


I realize this post seems to wander all over the place, but society is complicated.  Lots of things are interrelated and if we look at everything as an isolated event suitable for a Tweet, then we don't get all that interconnectedness.

AIFF2015: From The New Yorker Cartoons, Political Brainwashing, Afghanistan, Mt. Marathon Race, Transgender Dad

There are lots of documentaries at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  I'm still working on a post about the ones in competition.  But just because a film doesn't get into competition, doesn't mean it's not terrific.  Here's a quick look at a few of the docs to show you the breadth of topics covered this year.  Including two very dramatic parental transformations.  In both cases, the filmmakers' dads.  I haven't seen any of them so I can't tell you for sure if they are good.  But even if they aren't great cinema, the topic might be of interest.  And I'm betting they  are all good cinema.

The links will take you to more information about the films including when and where they'll play so you can put them on your calendar now.  The festival begins Friday Dec. 4, 2015.

Very Semi-Serious - New Yorker cartoons	Janey Makes a Play A 90 year old playwright writes and directs her play
No Greater Love An American military chaplain in Afghanistan.	3022 Feet Historic look at Seward's Mt Marathon race.
From This Day Forward  - The filmmaker examines her parents' marriage and how her transgender dad and straight identified mom kept it together	A Courtship  An evangelical Christian arranged marriage
*The Brainwashing of My Dad  Filmmaker examines the forces that helped her Democratic dad transform into "an angry right wing fanatic." "Brainwashing" unravels the plan to shift the country to the Right over thelast 30 years through media manipulation"	Harry and Snowman -  Post WW II Dutchman in US rescues Amish plow horse from glue factoryand soon they win the triple crown of show jumping.

*Note:  Brainwashing is a film in progress and the filmmaker is looking for audience reactions before final editing.

For Some, Religious Discrimination Means Not Being Able to Impose Their Religious Beliefs On Others

Kim Davis, a Democratic Kentucky County Clerk, was imprisoned for refusing to issue marriage licenses (to any couples) because she believes God's law forbids marriage of same sex couples.

From a public administrative perspective, this would seem to be pretty cut and dried - she's required to carry out the duties of her job and not let her religious beliefs interfere with those duties.  So I've been poking around the internet to find out more about her and her beliefs to figure out why she isn't doing the obvious.

For those in a hurry, here's my preliminary hypothesis:

1.  She's worked in a very closed system - her mom has been her boss for years.
2.  She found Jesus after a life with less than "Christian values' marriage record.  Her actions may be part what her new faith tells her and part a convert's attempt to prove her faith.
3.  She's represented by a radical Christian law non-profit that is probably pushing her to be a martyr and get the law group more attention. 

For an example of #3, here's what Kim Davis' attorney said: 

“Today, for the first time in history, an American citizen has been incarcerated for having the belief of conscience that marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” Mr. Gannam said after a hearing that stretched deep into Thursday afternoon. “And she’s been ordered to stay there until she’s willing to change her mind, until she’s willing to change her conscience about what belief is."

I guess I'd rephrase this.  She's not being incarcerated because of her religious beliefs.  There are lots of people who share the same religious beliefs and they haven't been incarcerated for them.  She's being incarcerated because as the county clerk, she's not performing her legal duties to issue marriage licenses and that non-performance is interfering with the legal rights of people her office is supposed to serve.


What's religious discrimination at work?
Let's be clear about religious discrimination at work.  The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission tells us that people may not be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.  If there is a conflict with an employee's religious beliefs and their job duties, the organization should try to make reasonable accommodations.  From the EEOC website:

"Religious Discrimination & Reasonable Accommodation. The law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business. This means an employer may be required to make reasonable adjustments to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice his or her religion.
Examples of some common religious accommodations include flexible scheduling, voluntary shift substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and modifications to workplace policies or practices."

So an employer (and this is aimed at all employers, not specifically at governments as employers where the obligation to serve the public is even greater) should attempt to find an accommodation.  In this case, she could, as the court suggested, delegate the task she finds objectionable, to someone else.  There are deputies in the office who are willing to do this.

But since Davis is the head of the office, I can see her thinking that if she lets a deputy issue a license to a same-sex couple, it would be the same as if she were condoning it.  This gets us to the next level of consideration.  Is making an accommodation an undue hardship to the office and the people it serves?  Back to the EEOC website:

"Religious Discrimination & Reasonable Accommodation & Undue Hardship. An employer does not have to accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices if doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer. An accommodation may cause undue hardship if it is costly, compromises workplace safety, decreases workplace efficiency, infringes on the rights of other employees, or requires other employees to do more than their share of potentially hazardous or burdensome work."

In the Davis case, it compromises one of the duties of the clerk's office - to issue marriage licenses - and it causes major harm to some members of the public.  Apparently, Davis' way of accommodating her religious beliefs was to stop issuing marriage licenses to anyone.  She's not, in her mind, discriminating because heterosexual couple also are denied marriage licenses.  The court rejected that. 

To turn this around and say that Kim Davis is being discriminated against based on her religious beliefs is understandable only if you believe that Kim Davis has the right to impose her religious beliefs on the people of her county who  have the legal right to wed.

Here's some interesting background I found while trying to understand Davis' reasoning.

1.  Davis has been a deputy county clerk for over 24 years, working under the chief clerk, her mother.
2.  Working for a relative is legal in Kentucky.  
3.  There were some challenges to her salary which was significantly greater than the deputy sheriff and chief judge deputy.  (I didn't see how long these two had been in office compared to Davis.)
4.  She's an Apostolic Christian.
5.  When her mother stepped down, Davis ran and won.  I'd note she beat her Democratic primary opponent by 23 votes, or by less than 1/2 percent.

From The Morehead News:

"The highest staff wage in 2011 – $63,113 – was paid to Bailey’s chief deputy clerk, Kim Davis, who also happens to be her daughter.     Davis is listed at $24.91 hourly for a 40-hour work week and an annual wage of $51,812. She received an additional $11,301 in overtime and other compensation during 2011.     Her rate of pay apparently triggered most of the complaints, The Morehead News has learned from various sources.     Kentucky law permits elected county officials to employ family members and to set their levels of pay. It is a common practice throughout the state."

 She has been married four times to three different men, according to US News and World Report. Wikipedia (which has put most of these references together) describes her marriages this way:

Davis has been married four times to three different husbands. Her second and fourth husbands are the same. The first three marriages ended in divorces in 1994, 2006, and 2008. She is the mother of twins, who were born five months after her divorce from her first husband in 1994. Her third husband is the biological father of her twins, who were adopted by her fourth husband, Joe.

Look, I'm not judging her here.  Love and marriage is hard to figure out, especially when you get married at 18.  We don't know what her circumstances were.  But I suspect this past, which is not the ideal of her new faith, puts some pressure on her to show that she is now truly committed, like standing firm for her idea of God's will in this case. 


She became an Apostolic Christian in 2011.  Their website may help people understand the stand she is taking. 

Apostolic Christian beliefs are rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible. We believe that the Bible’s teachings are applicable to all times and all cultures.

I'm not sure this is how they mean it, but the words suggest that they believe that everyone should obey the doctrine they believe.  

Their doctrine might also help us understand why a woman who has had a somewhat turbulent married life might now be standing firm with her new beliefs:

We believe salvation is obtained by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. True faith is evidenced by obedience to God's Word, which instructs a soul to do as the Lord Jesus emphatically taught, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."¹ The biblical pattern of repentance is observed, which includes godly sorrow² for a past sinful life, confession of sins, restitution for past wrongs, and becoming dead to sin. The wonderful and matchless grace of God is given to those who are humble in heart, along with peace and forgiveness from God.
Following conversion, which is manifested by a new walk of life in Christ, the convert gives a testimony of his or her faith and conversion experience to the congregation. This is followed by water baptism by immersion.³ Baptism symbolizes the burial of the old sinful nature into the death of Christ, and the subsequent rising of a soul out of the baptismal waters as a new creature in Christ Jesus. This is followed by the laying on of hands, whereby a church elder prays over the new member. This prayer acknowledges and entreats the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer's heart, and consecrates the new child of God into a life of service for him. The new member is thus formally united with the church, which is Christ's body.
Self-denial, separation from sin and unfruitful works, and nonconformity to worldliness are integral parts of the Christian walk of life and they lead to a life of peace and joy." [emphasis added]

 So as a convert to a religion that frowns on her former lifestyle, she could feel strongly compelled to stand firmly by the new teachings of the church.  We'll see whether this ultimately leads to peace and joy. 

The proper action for a government official whose religious beliefs are in conflict with his official duties is to either find an accommodation or resign from the position.  An accommodation was offered - allow others in the office to issue the licenses - and rejected by Davis.  Her key option now is to resign and find a job that is consistent with her religious values.

Another contributing factor may be the legal non-profit - Liberty Counsel - supporting her.  Other clerks in her situation apparently have found resolutions without resorting to lawsuits.    Raw Story reports that another right wing Christian legal non-profit that fights against same-sex marriage, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has found solutions for their clients.

"Jim Campbell, an ADF lawyer, said his group has not consulted with Liberty Counsel on the Kentucky case and is not representing any county clerk in related litigation. Campbell said he worked with a few employees of county clerk offices outside Kentucky seeking to avoid issuing licenses to same-sex couples based on religion and said those situations were resolved within those offices and had not escalated to a lawsuits."

The RawStory article includes a comparison between the ADF and the Liberty Counsel:

Among those who support gay marriage, Liberty Counsel has a reputation for being more extreme than ADF.
“Liberty Counsel is among the most irresponsible of ‘Religious Right’ organizations,” said Greg Lipper, an attorney at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “ADF at least tries to fit its legal arguments within existing law; Liberty Counsel openly flouts it.”

 It's hard for anyone to know what is in the heads of people like Liberty Counsel executive director Matthew Staver, a former law professor at the Jerry Falwell founded Liberty University.  To a certain extent, he probably believes his cause is right and just.  But possibly there's also a need to get attention.  Is Kim Davis a perfect client to make this losing case with?  Or is she an imperfect client who finds herself in way over her head?  Her life has been difficult already.  This may not be the best option for her future well being.  Right now she's in jail and Staver isn't.

And so called liberal organizations have also looked for good situations to make their legal and political points.  But this seems such a totally lost cause, so out of step with the law.  

The Will Of The Irish

The size of the majority of the vote on same-sex marriage in Ireland yesterday says this was not about luck, but about will.  

A regular reader here who lives much closer to Ireland sent me links to two different articles on the election, one from the Irish Times,  "Ireland has left ‘tolerance’ far behind" and the other from The Guardian, "Ireland is a kinder, fairer place after voting for same-sex marriage."

The Irish Times article says near the beginning:

"It looks like a victory for tolerance. But it’s actually an end to mere toleration.

Tolerance is what “we” extend, in our gracious goodness, to 'them'. It’s about saying 'You do your own thing over there and we won’t bother you so long as you don’t bother us'."

The word 'tolerance' as a goal has always bothered me.  Tolerance is the lowest level of acceptance.  Tolerating is  putting up with something that you don't agree with.  Tolerance is not a word I imagine that Jesus Christ would have used or approved of.  He said to 'love' one's neighbors, even one's enemies.  Not 'tolerate' them. 

I did actually google  Jesus and the word tolerance, and I got an article entitled "Bible Verses About Tolerance: 21 Scripture Quotes."  None of the 21 quotes actually has the word tolerance in them.  Someone merely found passages that seemed to cover the idea they had of tolerance.   Quotes like:

"Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand."

How people 'know' things and by extension, how the come to change what they 'know' is an underlying theme of this blog.  I'm convinced that 'knowing' is something we do non-rationally.  It's somehow linked in our brains to our fight or flight response - is this a danger to me?   And the less we know about something, the more likely we are to put it into the danger category.  It's why some people fear flying, but think nothing of driving, even though statistically one's odds are much better flying.  But it's easy to viscerally understand that if cars crash, they are, at least, already on the ground, and relatively few of us truly understand what keeps a plane up in the air.  We may have read an explanation, even be able to recite the explanation.  But unless we 'get it' in the sense that we 'feel' its correctness, we don't really 'know' it.  

We can 'know' a lot of things that are incorrect.  Things that 'make sense', that feel natural.  But are wrong.  And the more being 'right' threatens our way of life, the longer we believe what's wrong.  Find me a climate change denier today, and I'll find you some strong connection they have to the fossil fuel industry. 

So how do we people change what they know?  How can we help that process along?

When I taught about values in my graduate classes, I had one section where everyone had to bring some food that would help us understand who they were.  They also had to talk about a value they believed in strongly and explain what happened in their lives to cause that to be an important value.  For instance, for me, siding with immigrants fleeing from a dangerous homeland has always been important.  My parents were immigrants who fled Nazi Germany, so I come to this value in a very personal way.  Sure, there are people who take advantage of the system, but it's better, in my mind,  to let in a few fakers, than turn away genuine refugees fleeing from terrible deprivation and death.  

I recall one night in class where one student showed us photos of her cats, dogs, and a bunny, I believe.  She was a member of PETA and a strong animal rights advocate.  She talked about how important pets had always been in her life.   About 30 minutes later, another student showed us a photograph of himself and his dad with the first time caribou he'd ever shot.  This was an important father and son bonding activity.  

These class sessions profoundly changed how students interacted in the rest of the class.  The PETA member didn't necessarily agree with the hunter (or vice versa) but at least they understood how the other got to that value.  It made a visceral sense. 

Watching the rapid (for significant social change) acceptance of gay marriage over the last 30 years (and if you were gay and of marrying age 30 years ago, I'm sure it didn't seem rapid),  I think a lot of it came about because people came to know lgbt people as the same as themselves, with this one minor difference.  I say minor, because when J and I were first married, our closest neighbors were a lesbian couple.  The better we got to know them over the years, the more their daily lives seemed to be wrapped around the same kinds of issues as ours: working, paying the bills, preparing food, keeping the garden nice, washing dishes, going to the movies,  getting the car fixed, and on and on.  They had good days as a couple and bad days.  The fact that they were both women really was a very minor difference.  Sure, it meant they weren't going to have children, but we had hetero friends who weren't going to have children either. 

When I was a kid growing up, I can think of one gay person that I knew of.  He was the brother of a friend of our parents.  He played the piano professionally and when we were at Seders at their house, I remember him always smoking a lot.  But so did his sister.  I don't even know when I came to know that he was, in those days, homosexual.  Probably when I was about 15 or 16 it slipped out from one of my parents' lips.  It was like saying he had cancer.   He was sort of a shadowy person and I don't recall ever even having any sort of conversation with him beyond hello and please pass the peas.    

In those days few people were open about their homosexuality.  There were men or women who never got married, and I guess adults may have wondered, but people didn't publicly openly identify themselves as gay.  There was no publicly visible gay community that I knew about.  Kids might call someone a faggot or queer at school, but it wasn't until my 10th or 15th high school reunion that I learned about classmates who were gay - because, by then, they had died of AIDS.  No, that's not quite true.  One came out in college and my step-father saved me a newspaper article about him being head of a gay student group at Berkeley. Randy had been a close friend in high school, but I never had a clue.   Later, he became the first openly gay judge in Los Angeles.  

I give all this history, because I think that once LGBT folks began to come out and thus force the rest of the world to acknowledge their existence, things began to change.  Until then, parents could pretend their daughter was living with her good friend because it made economic sense to share an apartment or house.  They could ignore the fact that not only was their 40 year old son unmarried, but he never seemed to talk about dating any women.  He was just too busy at work or something.   They might suspect, but they never talked about it.  Everyone could just pretend everything was 'normal.'

But once people started to come out to their parents, the parents had to come to terms with what they 'knew' about homosexuals and what they knew about their gay or lesbian (often adult) children.  Some disowned their children.  Others disowned what they knew about homosexuals.  

And once parents began accepting their children, aunts and uncles and grandparents were forced to make the same sorts of choices between throwing out the kids or throwing out their false knowledge.  And then it spread to friends of the parents, to people at work, and on and on.  The more people came to know they actually did know gay folks, people they had thought were good, normal people until they had come out, the more people had to reassess what they 'knew' about gays.  

Television and movies mirrored this by adding gay characters as 'real' people.  

Just as in my class exercise on values, people had to match what they knew about real individuals against their stereotypes.  

I suspect this evolution might have happened faster than for other outsider groups in society because gays were embedded, so to speak, in every racial and ethnic group, in every religious group, and in every economic and social group.   Protestant Irish probably have been more likely to have a gay dinner guest as part of a family holiday, than to have a Catholic.  (OK, that's a gross speculation on my part, but the point is, they've been less likely to have a family member of the 'other' religion than a gay family member.  You have to have someone convert or marry into the other religion, but a son or daughter or nephew or niece, is someone you've known all their lives.  

So I'm probably asking here whether we can learn to be first tolerant and then embracing of other 'others' the way Ireland has.  (And I'm assuming that everyone has heard that Ireland is the first country to actually vote for same-sex marriage, not have it imposed by a court or law, and that they did so with a very strong yes vote.)  Or whether there is something about the distribution of lgbt folks in society that gives them access to every part of society, that other outside groups don't have.  

In any case, the world is a better place today than it was a week ago, because of this vote.  While some will disagree with that assessment, mine is based on the assumption that the more people accept each other as fellow, equal human beings, the better off the world is. 

As one person is quoted in the Irish Times article, before the election, wrote: 

“I have two adult children. One is allowed to marry, the other is not. How can this be right?”

Alaska Commons Sending Reporter To The Supreme Court Next Week

John Arono tweeted this evening:

So, we're quite happy to make this announcement: Alaska Commons' Brandon Roulet will be reporting from inside #SCOTUS for #Obergefell.
— Alaska Commons (@alaskacommons) April 24, 2015

What the hell is Obergefell?  Or SCOTUS?

SCOTUS is the Supreme Court Of The United States.

Obergefell is short for  Obergefell v. Hodges.  It's the Ohio case challenging the state's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside of Ohio.  But there are actually four cases combined under Obergefell.  From SCOTUS blog:

The merits brief filed in the Kentucky case (Bourke v. Beshear) is the only one that discusses both questions: the validity of state bans on same-sex marriage, and the validity of state bans on the recognition of existing same-sex marriages.   The brief filed in the Michigan case (DeBoer v. Snyder) discusses only the marriage question, and each of the briefs filed in the Ohio (Obergefell v. Hodges) and Tennessee (Tanco v. Haslam) cases deals only with the recognition question.  (When a final decision is issued, it will have the Obergefell v. Hodges title, simply because that case was the first to reach the Justices.)

 Got that?  Two challenges:

1.  Can states ban same-sex marriages?
2.  Can states ban recognition of existing same-sex marriages?


This will be heard Tuesday (April 28) in the Supreme Court.


So what lies ahead for Mr. Roulet?  SCOTUS blog has a special page telling journalists what to expect at the Supreme Court Tuesday.

First, reporters are told they need to get press passes.  This, Mr. Roulet has succeeded in doing.  Next, they are told to get familiar with the case and this page for reporters has a section briefing them on how to do that.

Then comes the section on what actually happens at the Supreme Court.  I wish I had had something like that when I went to the Federal Court hearings in Anchorage back in 2007, but it was not near as competitive getting in and I was able to learn on-the-job.  Plus the rules changed from the first trial to the next.  (Reporters could bring cell phones past security and their computers into the court room after the first trial.)

Here's what Mr. Roulet has ahead of him:

"On the day of the oral argument, plan to arrive early. The Court’s Public Information Office will tell you when to check in, but give yourself plenty of time before that, because you will need to go through security to enter the Court building, and there may be lines to do so. Once you are through, head to the PIO for your pass, which will include a seat assignment, and information on using the wifi in the press room, which is right next door to the PIO. You can’t take any electronics into the Courtroom, but you can leave your laptop, phones, and other belongings in the press room. The press room will be crowded: most of the room is devoted to cubicles for the roughly two dozen reporters who cover the Court on a regular basis, so there will be lots of people milling around (and packed into) the remaining space.
The staff of the Public Information Office (who are, by the way, extremely helpful) will take reporters up to the Courtroom in groups, based on their seat assignments. If you are in one of the early groups, be prepared to sit and wait for a while. (On the bright side, that will give you plenty of time to observe, and perhaps participate in, a time-honored tradition for reporters covering really high-profile cases: standing up and craning your neck to see what celebrities – or what passes for celebrities in Washington – are in the public seats.)
Before you enter the Courtroom, you will have to go through a second security screening. This one involves both passing through a metal detector and a close visual examination of anything you want to bring in with you. Be warned: this inspection can include opening up smaller items like wallets or lipsticks, so it may be easier just to leave everything but your notepad and pens (and, if you are over forty, your reading glasses) in the press room.
At about five minutes before ten, one of the police officers in the Courtroom will make an announcement that includes instructions for the audience: Remain completely silent throughout the proceedings, notify an officer if you see anything suspicious, and in the event of an emergency do exactly what the officer tells you to do.
At ten o’clock, you will hear a buzzer, the Court’s marshal will call the Courtroom to order, and everyone (including you) will stand up as the Justices enter the Courtroom. The Chief Justice sits in the middle, and then the other Justices are arranged around him in order of seniority: Justice Antonin Scalia, the most senior Associate Justice, is on his right, while Justice Anthony Kennedy, the second-most-senior Associate Justice, is on his left. This continues through (in order of seniority) Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen Breyer (who sits next to Justice Thomas and often has animated conversations with him), and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, until you get to Justice Elena Kagan, the Court’s junior Justice. She sits on the far right (the Chief Justice’s left) end of the bench."  [emphasis added]

 If you want to know what happens next, you can go to the SCOTUS blog "A reporter’s guide to covering the same-sex marriage cases at the Supreme Court."

The piece talks about what might happen next:

There could be
1.   summaries of opinions for earlier cases.
2.   swearings-in ceremonies for members of the Supreme Court bar.

The regular Supreme Court bar will run upstairs and take their assigned seats in the press section after hearing the opinions downstairs.  It also mentions that there are seats from which you can't see the justices and recommends people listen to tapes so they can recognize the voices.

Then there will be oral arguments which have been allotted two-and-a-half hours - 90 minutes longer than normal.   The first part (90 minutes) is for the marriage questions and the second part (60 minutes) is for the recognition question.  The plaintiffs (those challenging the ban) go first.  The SCOTUS blog goes into detail about each of the attorneys on both sides of each question. 


If you want to know details of the arguments themselves you can't go wrong by going to the SCOTUS blog page that indexes all their posts on this case.

Congratulations Brandon and Alaska Commons!  We're looking forward to hearing your first hand account. 

If you want to hear the proceedings yourself, here's what the Court posted on March 5:

 The Court will provide the audio recording and transcript of the oral argument in 14-556, Obergefell v. Hodges, and consolidated cases, on an expedited basis through the Court’s Website. The argument is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday, April 28 from 10 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.
           The Court will post the audio recording and unofficial transcript as soon as the digital files are available for uploading to the Website.  The audio recording and transcript should be available no later than 2 p.m. on April 28.
           Anyone interested in the proceedings will be able to access the recording and transcript directly through links on the homepage of the Court’s Website. The Court’s Website address is www.supremecourt.gov.

 So, by 10am Alaska time, next Tuesday, you should be able to listen in.

What will they decide?  A SCOTUS blog commentary predicts, after a lengthy explanation in part 1 and part 2, the Court will overturn the bans on same-sex marriage.

I looked for a conservative opinion and checked the CATO Institute's post on this case.  While conservative, CATO also leans libertarian.  So I guess I shouldn't have been surprise to read this:

"Joining with noted originalist scholar (and Federalist Society co-founder) Steven Calabresi and Yale law professor William Eskridge—one of the leading experts on American legal history—we urge the Court to reverse the Sixth Circuit’s decision and finally fulfill the Constitution’s promise of equal protection under law to millions of gay Americans and their children. We argue that the lower court’s ruling was inconsistent with the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The fact that the provision’s ratifiers didn’t automatically or explicitly understand that it would eventually require states to recognize same-sex marriages is irrelevant; all that matters is what it meant in 1868 for a state to 'deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'”

But we won't know until June (probably) what they actually decide.  


I have no idea how the court's public information office decides who gets passes.  I'm wondering though, whether the fact that Alaska is listed on one of the amicus briefs helped secure the pass.  While I decried the decision to put us on that brief, maybe this is a positive side-effect.  Or maybe it has nothing to do with it. 

". . . with the state's dire financial crisis, pursuing expensive litigation that has little chance of victory is an unwise use of our dwindling resources," [Updated]

[UPDATE April 4, 2015:  Here's an update where the governor says he wouldn't have done it, but his attorney general called the shot.  Since he's the one who can hire and fire the AG, sounds like a lame excuse.]  

"Despite my personal views on marriage, with the state's dire financial crisis, pursuing expensive litigation that has little chance of victory is an unwise use of our dwindling resources," he [Walker] said."  (ADN October 13, 2014)

Yet today I learned that Alaska is party to the Amicus Brief against gay marriage in the appeal of the 6th Circuit Court's decision to the US Supreme Court.  

The governor's statement comes pretty close to an explicit promise.  I know lots of Alaskans who took it as a promise not to pursue the state's appeal of the decisions against the decisions that resulted in gay marriage being legal in our state, despite our state constitutions amendment saying marriage is between one man and one woman.

Given that, it didn't occur to anyone that we would join to fight for the rights of  Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, and Kentucky to block gay marriage.

As an Alaskan, I'm chagrined and embarrassed.  Governor, you don't have a lot of support among the Republicans in the legislature on key issues.  You shouldn't also piss off the majority of Alaskans who elected you as well.

Here's the outline of the argument being made in our names:

Argument................................................................................ 2
    I.    Determining the shape and meaning of marriage is
 a fundamental exercise of self-government by
state citizens .................................................................. 2
    A.    Our Constitution ensures that state citizens
 have the sovereign authority to govern themselves ............................................................... 2 

    B.    The States’ exercise of sovereign authority is
 at its apex in domestic relations law........................ 4 

    C.    In deciding whether to adopt same-sex marriage, state citizens exercise their sovereign authority to determine the meaning
of marriage ................................. 7 

    II.    A decision constitutionalizing same-sex marriage would erase the sovereignty of state citizens to determine the meaning of marriage............................... 9


   A. Such a decision would abandon the premise of Windsor .......................... 11 

    B.    Such a decision would dilute the numerous democratic victories recently won in the States
by proponents of same-sex marriage..................... 17 

    C.    Such a decision would eliminate the States’
role as laboratories of democracy in the realm
of domestic relations ............................................. 19 

    D.    Such a decision would announce that state citizens are incapable of resolving this issue through constructive civil discourse...................... 21 


OK, with that off my chest, does Alaska's name on the brief matter?  I suspect not much, but it is one more state the group can point to.   I'm guessing our Department of Law didn't contribute a lot to the amicus brief from the states.  But, it's the first major broken promise to the coalition that elected Walker.  We knew Walker was a Republican, but he did promise to focus on the gas pipeline and the budget and leave social issues alone. 

"Lost Causes Are The Only Ones Worth Fighting For" - Should Parnell Keep Fighting Same-Sex Marriage?

A lot of people are criticizing Governor Parnell's decision to continue to appeal the rulings allowing same-sex partners to get married in Alaska.  Mainly, they argue, given the Ninth Circuit and US Supreme Courts' recent actions, appealing is a lost cause.  But are no lost causes  worth fighting for?  Which ones would you fight for?  Which wouldn't you?  And what factors make the difference?   I'm going to start that discussion in this post.


"Lost Causes Are The Only Ones Worth Fighting For"

After the death of a US senator in the movie Mr. Smith Goes To Washington Mr. Smith (Jimmy Stewart)  is  appointed to take his place. His hero is the senior Senator from his state, Mr. Paine.  But Smith learns that Mr. Paine is supporting corrupt legislation and Smith filibusters to stop the legislation.  Near the end of the filibuster, tired and near collapse, Mr. Smith says:

"I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for,  and he fought for them once, for the only reason that any man ever fights for them."

Here's the clip of that scene:





What Exactly Does It Mean?

"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."  If might be good rhetoric, but it really doesn't make any sense.  It implies that good causes that  have a chance of winning aren't worth fighting for.  That's clearly not the case.  It's a phrase, spoken passionately though, that might sway an unthinking audience

And it wasn't the last word on lost causes in the movie either  If you watched the video clip to the end, you heard that Jimmy Stewart didn't stop there.  He gives a rule for why you fight lost causes.

". . .   for the only reason that any man ever fights for them. Because of just one plain,  simple rule, "Love thy neighbor,"     

That makes a lot more sense, but again, this is rhetoric.  It sounds good.  "Love thy neighbor" is a sentiment many will agree with (until they think about the neighbor who leaves his barking dog outside in the cold all day) but is it really the only reason to fight lost causes?

I'm going to end this post here and in a near (I hope) future post, try to come up with a model of lost cause situations.  I've already come up with a list of different situations that onlookers might label a lost cause.  I'll try to tease out of these examples, a way to evaluate how noble any specific lost cause situation is. 

Here are a couple I've thought of so far:

1. Searching for a missing child, all leads are cold, and the odds of finding her now are low to nil.
2. Fighting an armed battle, grossly outnumbered and outgunned, against an enemy who tortures and kills their captives.
3. Refusing to divulge information about your fellow rebels to your torturer. 
4. Refusing to accept a plea bargain because you know you are innocent, even though there are witnesses who swear they saw you and you’ll get life, when you could bargain for a lighter sentence. 

Then when the model is complete, we can apply it to the Governor's insistence that he must spend state resources to fight the overturning of the same sex marriage ban in court.

One friend I chatted with about this said I was making this too complicated.  It's just about power and the election.  That may well be the case.  But I hate to jump to conclusions about other people's intentions.  And such a model surely will have usefulness in other situations. 

Alaska Federal Judge Finds Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional - 16 Years After Alaska Judge First Ruled For Same Sex Marriage

October 12, 2014:

"For the reasons that follow, the Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is GRANTED. The Court finds that Alaska’s ban on same - sex marriage and refusal to recognize same - sex marriages lawfully entered in other states is unconstitutional as a deprivation of basic due process and equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."

The whole decision is here.


I would remind folks that back in 1998, Alaska Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski ruled that not allowing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.  Michalski ruled:

"It is the duty of the court to do more than merely assume that marriage is only, and must only be, what most are familiar with. In some parts of our nation mere acceptance of the familiar would have left segregation in place. In light of Brause and Dugan's challenge to the constitutionality of the relevant statutes, this court cannot defer to the legislature or familiar notions when addressing this issue." He ruled that "marriage, i.e., the recognition of one's choice of a life partner, is a fundamental right. The state must therefore have a compelling interest that supports its decision to refuse to recognize the exercise of this fundamental right by those who choose same-sex partners rather than opposite-sex partners."
 

That ruling led Alaskans to pass a state constitutional amendment saying that marriage meant one man and one woman.  It's that constitutional amendment that has now been found to violate the US constitution. 

It's people like Judge Michalski and plaintiffs Jay Brause and Gene Dugan who helped clear the path for the ruling today (and the rest of the rulings in the US in the last couple of years).

Sixteen and a half years to get back to the same place.  But that is the history of change in the world.  Many people's lives would have been much easier - many people might still be alive - if people had accepted Michalski's ruling back then.  And we all could have spent time on more productive activities.  But that wasn't to be.  

The ADN reports that the state vows to appeal the judge's decision.   In anticipation of the (last) Friday court hearing, the judge's inevitable decision given the US Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court's recent rulings, and the high probability that the state would appeal the decision, I've been working on a post exploring when it makes sense to fight battles you know you're going to lose.  I hope to get it up soon.

Steps To Happiness In Marriage - 1949 Advice From LA County To Newlyweds

I found this while sorting things in my mom's garage trying to make more room and less clutter. 


I sort of expected this to be really bizarre and sexist.  It was put together by a panel of 21 clergymen, 13 of whom have Dr. before their names, a couple of Rt. Rev's, a Most Rev, and a VeryRev. Msgr, plus two Rabbis.  All the names are male.  Though there are three with just initials.  I don't think there were many (or any) women clergy back then.   Imagine living in a world where no one thinks there's anything wrong with 21 men writing advice for a partnership of a man and a woman to be distributed by Los Angeles County.  And, reflecting that the establishment seems to have seen nothing wrong in males writing this, women are presumed to be in charge of the household.

  There's a section "Making a Beautiful Home" that is aimed at the women:

"...the wise bride will look for the chance to express, for the first time perhaps, her personality in the home.  This will not be an adventure to be experienced but once.  On the contrary, daily, by her flower and furniture arrangement, by her selection of books and magazines, by the change of colors in table covers, napkins and various bits of china, by artistic draperies and lamp shades, and by her personal neatness, the wife, will express her personality."

The other parts are much more egalitarian; the basic theme is togetherness.   It tends to stay general, though here and there - as in the budget section - there's actual practical advice.

The Table of Contents includes:

• Steps to Happiness in Marriage
• Off to a Good Start
• The Honeymoon
• How Love Grows
• The Fifty-Fifty Spirit
• Making a Beautiful Home
• Making Sense Out of the Family Dollar
• Important Legal Knowledge
• Preparing for Children
• The Family
• Why We Have Been Happy in Marriage
• Maturity or Childishness in the Home
• Daily Work and Family Happiness
• How to Meet the Usual Causes of Friction
• Our In-Laws
• Living Together in God's Universe

Some other excerpts from this eleven paged pamphlet:

The Honeymoon

It is better that a honeymoon should start in the early afternoon so that the pace of the first night may be reached by dinner time.  The place should be preferably within easy driving distance.  It is not well to spend the first night on the train.  No disturbing pranks should molest the couple after their journey."

How Love Grows

. . . The marriage experience does nothing to the bride and groom which eliminates the need for all the lovely expressions of concern and appreciation which were such a joy during courtship.  If married life is made a perpetually extended honeymoon in the sense that the little an big courtesies and marks of attention are continued day by day, then the love which made the days efore the wedding such an unceasing delight will grow in beauty and strength.

Making Sense Out Of the Family Dollar

". . . A budget is a tentative family agreement upon a plan by which we try to balane expenditure with income.  Budgets never succeed 100 per cent.  Each month they may need revision in the light of new needs.  budget books may be obtained at your bank or your book store, where you may also received counsel on its use.  In the budget there should be items for Food, Clothing, Shelter, Transportation, Dental and Medical care, Education, Recreation, Gifts, Insurance, and Savings."

Nothing for cable or internet.  Most people didn't have televisions in 1949 and radio, once you bought the set, was free.  I guess telephones and other utilities were cheap enough not to get a category. 

Important Legal Knowledge

"Through ignorance of the laws relating to communal or family property, many distressing cases arise.  Be sure that you hae arranged your property affaris, both through informal agreements and through the making of wills, so that in case of sudden death difficulties may not arise.

In one case a wife deserted without a divorce.  The husband worked and saved for his three children.  When he died without a will, the undivorced widow had a legal claim to the entire estate."

 Oops.  It would be interesting to have listened in to the conversation that decided to use that example of poor planning.  I wonder how many examples of abandoned husbands raising the kids there were back then compared to abandoned wives.

Preparing for Children

"Mutuality is the secret of happiness in marriage.  In the previous pages we have tried to picture the importance of mutual interests in work, recreation, money matters, homemaking friendship, and many of the small affairs of married life.  Mutuality in the se relationship is also most important.  This intimate aspect of married life, if always an expression of tender love, helps to keep alive and enrich the bond of afection.  With the coming of children, the character of husband and wife shold grow stronger, and the home should become more beautiful.  Marriage without children is a picture with only the two dimensions of length and width.  Children add the depth necessary for beauty, balance, and richness of experience."

While most of this is advice that they hope will lead to a happy home, they also, acknowledge marriage doesn't always (usually?) work that way.

Maturity or Childishness in the Home

The California state law sets certain requirements as to the age at which people are old enough to marry.  It is unfortunate that more attention is not paid to the fact that people must be grown up emotionally as well as chronologically, if they are to succeed in marriage.  Temper tantrums, sulking, moodiness, and other childish actions occur much more freqently between married people than they would care to admit.  Too often we go through the day building up reentment againt an employer or neighbor, and the explode emotionally at home in the evening.  this is a sure road to marital unhappiness and a path to discord and the divorce courts.  Emotions are the driving forces of life, but, if they are out of adjustment, the more we turn on the power, the greater the harm that can be done. . ."

 I can't imagine that a county today could pull together a group of major clergy in their community to write up as sober a guide to marriage.  Issues about the proper roles of the spouses would make it much more difficult.  These men, in the 1940s, saw the woman's role in the home.  This was after World War II when many women went into the workforce to support the war effort.  But when the men returned, women lost their jobs to them.  But many women didn't have a choice about working -  their incomes were critical to the family budget.  Yet, much of the advice in this book is surprisingly modern in their emphasis on mutuality, on both partners working together. 

Today's discussions of marriage seem much more influenced by the religious right's literal interpretation of the bible.  Their descriptions of marriage drip with biblical references as in this description from Focus on the Family's Divine Order of Marriage:

For what reason is man to marry a wife? Because woman was originally a constituent part of man, she must return to become one with him again, so that the full expression and design of God's image in human beings can be revealed.

 For those wondering what the last section of this pamphlet - Living Together in God's Universe - covers,  it's basically about togetherness and mutual interests.  There's a story about a couple walking hand in hand along a trickling rivulet that grows and grows until

"Presently, however, the brook because a stream that widens and deepns until the couple can no longer make each other understand."

The only mention of God, besides the heading, is in a long list of things families should do together.

"Successful marriages are those in which the husband and wife plan together, work together, play together, suffer together, sacrifice together, succeed together, raise their children together and worship God together."

Even though clergymen wrote it, it's pretty light on religion.  But I suspect that because clergyman advise people during crises, they learn a great deal more about marriage than most people.  And if they are wise, intelligent, and caring,  they can write a decent brief guide to marriage.  But it still seems, from a 2014 perspective, incredible that they could think that a panel of all men should do this.  

Same Sex Marriage: What Happened Yesterday At The US Supreme Court?

I started to write a post about whether the State of Alaska should continue to fight a challenge to the state's same sex marriage ban.  I'll still do that, but I realized that not everyone understands the US federal justice structure and that I needed to explain that first.  [This took much longer than I expected, but it's helped me clarify for myself what happened yesterday and I hope it will make it easier for others who aren't lawyers.]

So, first the background:

The following is edited and reformatted from the Federal Judicial Center website to make it easier to follow.  Note, this is just looking at federal courts, not state or local courts.



 

 "Congress has divided the country into ninety-four federal judicial districts. 

In each district there is a U.S. district court. The U.S. district courts are the federal trial courts -- the places where federal cases are tried, witnesses testify, and juries serve. Within each district is a U.S. bankruptcy court, a part of the district court that administers the bankruptcy laws.

Congress uses state boundaries to help define the districts. Some districts cover the entire state, like Idaho. Other districts cover just part of a state, like the Northern District of California."

 

"Congress placed each of the ninety-four districts in one of twelve regional circuits."

Image from Federal Judiciary Center Website

For a map with the districts AND state names click here.

"Each circuit has a court of appeals. If you lose a case in a district court, you can ask the court of appeals to review the case to see if the district judge applied the law correctly. There is also a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, whose jurisdiction is defined by subject matter rather than by geography. It hears appeals from certain courts and agencies, such as the U.S. Court of International Trade, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and certain types of cases from the district courts (mainly lawsuits by people claiming their patents have been infringed).
The Supreme Court of the United States, in Washington, D.C., is the highest court in the nation. If you lose a case in the court of appeals (or, sometimes, in a state supreme court), you can ask the Supreme Court to hear your appeal. However, unlike a court of appeals, the Supreme Court doesn't have to hear it. In fact, the Supreme Court hears only a very small percentage of the cases it is asked to review."

It's important to note that the Circuit Court of Appeals' decisions rule in their region.  So it's possible for Circuit Courts in different regions to rule differently.  Then the law covering some states would be different from the law covering other states.  In last year's rulings on same sex marriage, the decisions at the US Supreme Court impacted the states in the 2nd and 9th circuits where the cases came from.   When there's a conflict in rulings from different Circuit Courts of Appeal, then the Supreme Court has to weigh in.



Now, the details of what happened Monday at the US Supreme Court.

1.   What were the cases? From which states? From which circuits?
There were petitions from  seven cases (from five states).  In all cases, both the plaintiffs and the defense wanted the Supreme Court to hear the cases.  From a September article by Mother Jones, here are the cases:

1. Herbert v. Kitchen (Utah): SCOTUS briefly dealt with this case earlier this year. In December 2013, a federal district court struck down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage. Weddings began immediately. In January, the high court issued a temporary stay, putting a halt to marriages while the state's appeal was considered. In June, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's ruling that the state's same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional.

2. Smith v. Bishop (Oklahoma): First filed in 2004, this case originally sought both to overturn Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriages and to recognize marriages performed in other jurisdictions. In January, a district court judge ruled that the state's ban is unconstitutional, but dismissed the portion of the lawsuit addressing marriages from other states, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Both sides appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the district court on both counts. In its appeal to SCOTUS, the state of Oklahoma is asking the court to rule exclusively on the marriage question.

3. Bogan v. Baskin (Indiana): This case began as three separate suits filed on behalf of a widow and 11 couples. Several plaintiffs have same-sex marriage licenses from other states that are unrecognized in Indiana. In June, a district court judge consolidated the suits into Baskin, and struck down the state's ban on gay marriage. He did not stay the decision, allowing marriage licenses to be issued immediately. Earlier this month, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision.

4. Walker v. Wolf (Wisconsin): In February, the American Civil Liberties Union filed this case on behalf of eight same-sex couples, three of whom had married in other places. In March, a district court judge denied the state's requests to dismiss the case. In June she ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, overturning Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriage. Her ruling was unclear on whether marriages could begin or not: Still, clerks in some cities began marrying couples immediately. Earlier this month, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision.

5, 6, and 7. Rainey v. Bostic, Schaefer v. Bostic, and McQuigg v. Bostic (Virginia): These three cases are different iterations of a suit filed in July 2013 by plaintiffs Timothy Bostic and Tony London, who seek to get married in Virginia. Carol Schall and Mary Townley joined the case in September 2013. They were legally married in California in 2008, but their union is not recognized in the Old Dominion. This has made it impossible for Schall to formally adopt her own daughter. In February, a district court judge ruled on all three cases, concluding that the state's laws barring in-state gay marriages and prohibiting recognition of out-of-state marriage licenses is unconstitutional. In July, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's ruling. A fourth case, Harris v. Rainey, a class action suit, has been incorporated into Rainey v. Bostic.

2.  What were the decisions?

The Supreme Court declined to hear all seven cases.

3.  What are the consequences?  Take this with a grain of salt.  Here's a pretty fast analysis from a Scotus Blog post,  but Scotus  Blog- Supreme Court Of The United States - had a lot more updates that suggest there's still some room for maneuvering in these states before the dust settles.  For example Idaho (and by extension Nevada) got a stay from Justice Kennedy on 9th Circuit's ruling to legalize same sex marriage. But I'm sure the dust will settle with same sex couples able to marry.

"First, as a direct result of Monday’s action, same-sex marriages can occur when existing lower-court rulings against state bans go into effect in

• Virginia in the Fourth Circuit, 
• Indiana and Wisconsin in the Seventh Circuit, and  
• Oklahoma and Utah in the Tenth Circuit."

"Second, such marriages can occur when the court of appeals rulings are implemented in federal district courts

• in three more states in the Fourth Circuit (North and South Carolina and West Virginia) and 
• in three more states in the Tenth Circuit (Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming).  

The other states in the three circuits where bans have been struck down had already permitted same-sex marriage, under new laws or court rulings (Illinois, Maryland, and New Mexico, which have been counted among the nineteen states in that category)."

"Third, four other circuits — the Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh — are currently considering the constitutionality of same-sex marriages.  Of those, the Ninth Circuit — which had earlier struck down California’s famous “Proposition 8″ ban and uses a very rigorous test of laws against gay equality — is considered most likely to strike down state bans.  If that happens, it would add five more states to the marriages-allowed column (Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada), which would bring the national total to thirty-five."

4.  What's still out there?


The court declined to hear seven cases from five states coming from three regional judicial circuits.  This means the court isn't going to make any statements for now on the legality of same sex marriage beyond what they said in the two cases last year.

Last year's cases came from the 2nd and 9th Circuits. As mentioned above, the US Supreme Court's rulings on those cases only covered those two districts.  Yesterday's ruling covered  the 4th, 7th, and 10th Circuits.

That leaves the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th, 11th, and 12th Districts.  I've poked around online to see what is happening in these circuits.  This isn't comprehensive, but gives a sense of what's happening.

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Circuits cover New England and the Northeast from Maine down to Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.  In all these states same sex marriage was legal before yesterday's court ruling.

4th Circuit was covered yesterday, and as mentioned in 3) above, the other states, besides Virginia, North and South Carolina and West Virginia it's just a matter of implementation of the appeals court's rulings before same sex marriages will take place.

5th Circuit which includes Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi has yet to rule on cases on appeal.  One Texas judge ruled the ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional and a Louisiana judge upheld the Louisiana ban.  There are a couple of other related cases in both states - a lesbian couple, married out of state, were denied the right to divorce in Texas.  See more details here.   If the 5th Circuit were to rule that the bans were constitutional, there'd be a split in Circuit Court rulings and the US Supreme Court would probably have to take the case to resolve it.

6th Circuit - from Freedom to Marry

"On August 6, six different legal cases involving the freedom to marry were heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. In each state, federal judges have ruled in favor of marriage for same-sex couples. . .  A ruling is expected at the 6th Circuit this fall."

7th Circuit was covered in yesterday's decision.  See 3 above.

8th Circuit  includes North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas. It upheld a ban on same sex marriage in 2006.  However, an Arkansas federal judge has ruled against the same sex marriage ban, but the case has not been heard by the Court of Appeals.

From KELO:

"[A] South Dakota case Rosenbrahn v. Daugaard is currently before the South Dakota District Court on a motion to dismiss filed by the State."

9th Circuit  is also covered in 3 above.  This is where this post began, because I wanted to write about the ethical issues the governor and attorney general of Alaska might consider in determining whether to continue to oppose this challenge to the state's ban considering that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is very likely to overturn the ban.

10th Circuit was covered yesterday because two of the appeals came from Oklahoma and Utah.

11th Circuit  covers the Southeast - Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. In two Florida cases  - apparently state cases because they are headed for the Florida Supreme Court - judges ruled the states ban unconstitutional.  In August 2014 a US District Court ruled the Florida ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional.   There's also a case in its early stages in Alabama.  And in Georgia, according to WMAZ,

 "a lawsuit challenging Georgia's ban on gay marriage is still pending in federal court. It's called Innis v. Aderhold, and it was filed by several same-sex couples."

Finally, there's the DC Circuit.  Same sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia already.

If the Circuit Courts of Appeal all rule against same sex marriage bans, perhaps the US Supreme Court would just leave things as they did yesterday.  If one or more Circuit Courts of Appeals allows a ban to stand, then  there would be more pressure for the US Supreme Court to take the case(s) to resolve the conflicts. 



Researching this was complicated by the fact that most of the websites that had maps of the status of same sex marriage were updated in the last two days making it harder to see where things stood before Monday's ruling.

The Pew Forum has an interactive map that where you can change the date and see the status of same sex marriage in all the states from 1995 to 2014.

And here's a Wikipedia chart on the status of same sex marriage throughout the US.

If you've seen this post a couple of times, it's because feedburner isn't working right and I'm reposting it hoping it will catch.