defense

...now browsing by tag

 
 

Congressman Honda Wants Hearing on Rising Cost of DOMA Defense

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Defense of Marriage ActMike Honda, a Democrat representing California’s Silicon Valley, wants a House hearing to address the rapidly rising price tag for keeping the Defense of Marriage Act alive — where legal bills could now total $1.5 million.

Honda is a ranking member of the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. In a letter sent yesterday to the Subcommittee’s Chairman — Ander Crenshaw (R-Florida) — Honda asked for a hearing so the American people can understand why the House is spending taxpayers’ money on the defense of DOMA.

Initially, House leadership agreed to spend no more than $500,000 on legal services for DOMA. The House general counsel upped that amount to $750,000, then said up to $1.5 million can be spent with written consent.

Full Story from The Advocate

Click here for gay wedding resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook. We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Problems With Study Used to Defend DOMA

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

Defense of Marriage ActYesterday, I mentioned how Speaker of the House John Boehner’s hired team of lawyers was using bad research to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court.

I zeroed in on a poor study, No Difference?: An Analysis of Same-Sex Parenting. which was a part of the team’s documentation. This study, written by George Dent, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, contained many errors, including citing the work of discredited researchers such as Paul Cameron and George Rekers.

I also made note that the Dent’s study also cited work from the American College of Pediatricians, a group designed to pass along anti-gay junk science as fact.

Full Story from Pam’s House Blend

Click here for gay wedding resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook. We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Boehner’s DOMA Brief Insults Gay/Lesbian Americans

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and the Republican waste squad have no right to lecture the Democrats or the American people about over spending. Given the spend-rant that held up the debt ceiling deal, Boehner’s duplicity is all but too obvious.

The House Speaker led this Congress to recess today, waved goodbye to his pals as they boarded planes heading for home States. All the while tens of thousands of FAA workers were forced into financial turmoil and uncertainty, laid off because Mr. Speaker failed to complete his work, and to add insult to injury, at a cost of over a billion dollars to U.S. taxpayers. Well it gets worse – now he is spending tax money on an attack against the inherent rights of Gay Americans.

This week attorney, Paul Clement, filed a brief on behalf of Boehner, to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA,) which has been ruled unconstitutional in the US Courts in the Edie Windsor case, a widow who was compelled to pay exorbitant federal inheritance taxes when her wife of 44 years passed away because the government did not recognize their marriage under DOMA.

Full Story from Gay USA

Click here for gay wedding resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook. We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Clement Trots Out Old Lies in DOMA Defense

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Former solicitor general Paul D. Clement and his legal team have been arguing that the Defense of Marriage Act has a presumption of constitutionality and that the US Supreme Court has already stated that “an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage does not offend the equal protection clause.” Clement, the pet lawyer for House Speaker John Boehner’s anti-LGBT agenda, made the argument in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit Windsor v. United States which was brought by Edith Schlain Windsor.

The precedent cited by Clement and his team predates the rulings in which it was established that lesbians and gays were a protected class under the law, and predates Lawrence v. Texas by almost three decades.

Edith Windsor brought the suit because she was married to Thea Clara Spyer, a marriage recognized by the state of New York, but not by the United States. Windsor was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes whenn Spyer passed away.

Full Story from Lez Get Real

Click here for gay wedding resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook. We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Judge Orders House’s DOMA Defense Lawyers to Answer Plaintiff Questions

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Defense of Marriage ActLast week, we wrote about the request from Edie Windsor’s lawyers for an order compelling John Boehner’s lawyers to answer questions. Today, the Judge issued that order, telling Paul Clement that he must answer two of the key questions. I’ve posted the order here.

Here’s the key passage from the order:

The two interrogatories pressed by the plaintiff ask “What, if anything, do you contend are the compelling justifications for section 3 of DOMA, 1 U.S.C. S 77″ (Interrogatory no. 1) and “What, if anything, do you assert are the legitimate government interests rationally advanced by section 3 of DOMA, 1 U.S.C. S 7?” (Interrogatory no. 3). BLAG objects to both on the ground that, to the extent they are construed as contention interrogatories, they are premature. That argument is disingenuous; at the time BLAG responded, the discovery deadline was three days away, and it is now closed. (emphasis added).

Full Story from AmericaBlog

Click here for gay wedding resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook. We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Boehner: DOMA Defense Contract is All Legal

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Remember the article that Amanda Terkel wrote a few weeks back about the possibility that signing the DOMA legal defense contract may have violated the law, specifically the Anti-Deficiency Act?

Well, Chris Johnson asked Boehner about it. And, surprise, Boehner thinks it’s all okay because he didn’t break House Rules. Maybe. But, there’s a federal statute at play here — and Boehner doesn’t decide whether that law was broken:

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) asserted on Thursday that a contract executed to hire a private attorney to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court complies with the law — despite earlier reporting that the agreement may be in violation of rules regarding government contracts.

Full Story from AmericaBlog

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

DOMA Defense Lawyer Clement Took Case Without Firm’s Knowledge

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Defense of Marriage ActRemember how Attorney General Eric Holder, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan all jumped to the defense of Paul Clement over the King & Spalding/DOMA controversy. Yes, they all know Clement is such an honorable man and the rest of us were just too mean. Well, people working in the Obama administration should have learned something from the Shirley Sherrod scandal. Get the facts first.

King & Spalding is telling its side of the story. And, Clement isn’t the hero after all. Seems the oh-so-honorable Clement did not follow his firm’s policy when he accepted the defense of DOMA.

He apparently signed the contract to defend DOMA without informing the firm or following its procedures. The lawyers at King & Spalding didn’t even know about the contract for four days. They found out the same day we all did.

Full Story from AmericaBlog

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Taking the DOMA Lawsuit Divided Management, Staff at King and Spalding

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

The law firm King & Spalding stunned many observers Monday by abruptly withdrawing from representing the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — barely a week after coming under fire for signing on to defend the law on behalf of House Republicans. But the real shockwaves may have taken place within the firm, where, according to one insider, employees were at each other’s throats over its decision to take on the case.

A source at the firm described the “mayhem” that ensued after employees learned King & Spalding agreed to defend DOMA.

“Management was divided, people were threatening to quit,” the source said. In addition, it was unclear if members of the firm’s Diversity Committee had been consulted ahead of time about taking on the case.

Full Story from The Huffington Post

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Three Democrats Press Boehner on New DOMA Law Firm

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

Three Democrats are asking House speaker John Boehner for more information about the new law firm hired by House Republicans to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court.

House Administration Committee ranking member Robert A. Brady and committee members Zoe Lofgren of California and Charles A. Gonzalez of Texas sent a joint letter to Boehner after the law firm of King and Spalding decided to pull out of the case; one of its partners, former solicitor general Paul Clement, had signed on to defend the government.

Soon after King and Spalding withdrew its resources, Clement resigned from the firm and joined Bancroft PLLC.

Full Story from The Advocate

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

US: House to Decide This Week Whether or Not to Defend DOMA

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Under federal law, whenever the Executive branch declines to defend a law it believes is unconstitutional, the Attorney General must inform Congress of that decision. Congress can then decide whether or not to defend the law. We’re seeing that play out now on DOMA. Now, it’s up to the House to decide what to do. Yesterday, via On Top Magazine, Boehner talked to Christian Broadcasting Network about options on DOMA. Here are some excerpts from CBN:

Speaker John Boehner: “We’ve been researching all the options that are available to us. We’ll be talking to the members in the next few days about that and I expect we’ll have a decision by the end of the week.”

David Brody; “Rick Santorum says that the Speaker of the House should appoint a counsel representing the House of Representatives to take up the case and argue DOMA in federal court. Is that a good idea?”

Speaker John Boehner: “It’s an option being considered.”

Full Story from America Blog

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.