None of the parties (including the Greens and Libertarians) are perfect on LGBT rights. The major third parties are certainly better than the Democrats, but that’s a low bar… and the third party guys have also sold LGBT Americans out for power (see Ralph Nader’s “gonadal politics” comments and the LP’s Bob Barr candidacy).

The best course of action is for LGBT people to declare our independence and affiliate strategically with those who make us the best offer. If it’s the Dems or Reps or Greens or Libs or whoever else, so be it.

The key is not to get entangled inextricably with any of them. The present situation underscores the dangers of that approach!

The only party worth supporting is the Green party of which I’m a member. I don’t hear the two major parties declaring support for FULL equality. At least the Greens are unabashedly supportive of that but are never taken seriously. That will remain unchanged sadly, unless the LGBT voting bloc grows a pair and stops supporting political careerists in both parties who take our votes and our money for granted then give us the shaft once they’re elected, the democrats in particular. THAT has to stop and the time is NOW! Of course, its an oxymoron to believe that the GOP will author any piece of legislation favoring our rights. I can’t name one, can you?

The problem with Congressional action on this is that if anything happens before 2012 which I doubt, the republicans will filibuster if Arlen Spector votes with his former party of not and hate and Al Franken isn’t seated. Same predictable crap we put up with every four years.

Also – just to add the President does not run the DofJ.

LOL! The spin continues.

Do you honestly believe the Administration would be incompetent enough to allow a “Bush era policy to slip through” on this issue?

Give me a friggin’ break. You sycophants are hilarious.

What next, will the “Bush-era appointees” be able to overturn “Roe v Wade” or “Brown vs. Board of Education” because of an “Obama administration oversight?”

Turkeys! Keep gobble-gobbling to cover for your homophobic master.

I’m a Libertarian too, and before you get too “amazed and baffled” over the stupid voting records of queer Americans, I’d urge you not to get too cocky. The Libertarian Party nominated the author of the DOMA as its presidential candidate (despite many Libertarians’ efforts to stop that), and the Republican “libertarian god” Ron Paul has a long history of supporting homophobic bigotry, including proposing a law that would overturn the Supreme Court ruling that nullified “sodomy laws.”

Neither was a particularly compelling candidate for the LGBT community either.

If you want to create alternatives and gather support from a disillusioned LGBT community, you have to start by offering candidates of your own who aren’t raving bigots like Barr and Paul.

Do that, and then you have a bit more of a platform to express befuddlement at why voters would choose a slick-talking politician over the author of DOMA or the author of the “Marriage Protection Amendment.”

The DOJ has a number of holdovers from the Bush administration and the attorney who wrote this brief is one of the Bush holdovers. Moreover, he’s also a fucking MORMON. What in fuck is the DOJ doing having a MORMON writing a brief dealing with gay marriage.

How stupid are the DOJ attorneys? Or did they think we would never find out??!!!

Professor of Law Emeritus Donald Gaudard

The DOJ once appointed has nothing to do with the President.

Repealing DADT and DOMA has very little to do with the President -although I do accept he can suspend DADT. Where is Congress on this? They have Primaries soon for the Mid Terms. Why are people not fighting them?

Once a bill is presented to President Obama that calls for the repeal of DADT and DOMA, then I will get reactionary if he vetoes it. Until then, no bill, how can he be blamed?

It’s hard to get over this man when he has given us a dose of crabs and a case of the clap. ;P

We’re still waiting for the syphilis and HIV tests to come back from the lab.

Now let’s get over this man like a bad one-night stand.

Signing DADT was a much worse betrayal than if Clinton had vetoed it. *That* would have been integrity. We won nothing with DADT and we lost plenty. Discharges increased after DADT was signed, and it codified the position that it’s okay to be gay if you just shut up and stay in the closet.

Nuttybarb obviously does not have a TV set in the dark, dank cave that she lives in a yet undiscovered part of the world

Incest is defined thus:

FYI: The law defines incest as being committed by a person who has sexual intercourse with another who is related in any of the following ways:

•where the offender and the victim are directly descended from the other (that is father/daughter)

•where the perpetrator is the adoptive parent, adoptive grand parent, and the victim is the adopted child or adopted grand child of the other

•the female, who is the victim, is the sister of the male by full or half blood or by adoption

•the female is a descendant from either of them

•where the male is the brother of the female either by full or half blood or by adoption

•where the male is the son of the victim’s brother or sister (that is the nephew) by full or half blood or by adoption or is a descendant from either of them

•where the male is the son of her husband by another mother (that is a step son)

•where the male is, or is her deceased daughter’s or grand daughter’s or mother’s or grand mother’s husband.

Even when the marriage or adoption is not legal due to a legal problem, still it is an offense if the relationships exist.

The laws regulating incest in different states:

Incest in this country is regulated through two parallel sets of laws: marriage regulations and criminal prohibitions. Marriage laws prohibit unions of parties within certain relationships of consanguinity (by blood) or affinity (by marriage). They declare such marriages void from the start.

Criminal laws prohibit marriage and sexual relationships based on the same ties (with the necessary consanguinity and affinity usually defined the same way as in the marriage laws). They penalize those who disobey with fines or imprisonment.

Every state today has a statute defining eligibility for marriage, and each and every one prohibits marriages between parents and children, sisters and brothers, uncles and nieces, and aunts and nephews. Some prohibit all ancestor/descendant marriages, regardless of degree. Four states extend the prohibition to marriages between parents and their adopted children.

Twenty-four states prohibit marriages between first cousins, and another seven permit them only under special circumstances. Utah, for example, permits first cousins to marry only provided both spouses are over age 65, or at least 55 with evidence of sterility. North Carolina permits first cousins to marry unless they are “double first cousins” (cousins through more than one line). Maine permits first cousins to marry only upon presentation of a certificate of genetic counseling. The remaining nineteen states and the District of Columbia permit first-cousin marriages without restriction.

The origins of incest laws

Incest laws in this country have largely religious origins. In England, incest was punishable only in ecclesiastical courts, which ostensibly applied the law of Leviticus prohibiting persons more closely related than fourth cousins to marry. This ban applied equally to relations by blood and by marriage, based on the canonical maxim that husband and wife were one, and therefore equally related to each other’s kin.

American jurisdictions departed from English law by declaring incest a crime, as well as a basis for invalidating marriage. However, many states only punished relationships between first cousins and closer, and others only punished relationships of consanguinity, but not affinity.

The modern justifications for incest laws:

Today, the justifications given for retaining statutory prohibitions on cousin marriage (and even debating the passage of new ones) are largely based on the fear that such unions will cause genetic problems for the children they produce.

The states that permit cousin marriage only under certain circumstances make this underlying justification clear – since a common thread runs through all their laws. Each requires a showing that the couple will not reproduce (because of age or sterility) or, at the very least, that they have undergone counseling to understand the risks of reproduction.

There are other justifications for incest laws that might be more compelling. Anthropologists Margaret Mead and Claude Levi-Strauss both wrote convincingly in defense of the “incest taboo.” Mead characterized the widely held belief that incest is wrong as “among the essential mechanisms of human society.”

You’re an idiot. Incest is as old as the world not a recent phenomenon with the advent of same sex marriage in seven countries. Thus far, there has not been ONE reported case of incest among gay married couples, can you produce any evidence?

Per capita, there are more incestuous crimes and even marriages between straights than there are among gays Check out the incest statistics pal, it occurs far more among non-married straight brothers and sisters and in many instance with the parents.

A brilliant example of an incestuous marriage is former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani who married his first blood cousin, cheated on her, divorced her, married again, had two children, cheated on her and married again.

If you recall, there was a recent Austrian case in which a father continuously raped and fathered a child with his own daughter whom he kept locked up in his basement for 20 years plus, sexually abusing her throughout…just another example of this overwhelmingly straight phenomenon. Adress that, moron and get your own house in order before you start spreading lies and other forms of hate against us.

What will happen? You and the Gay mafia will attack me with your poodles and eyeliner???

Gimme a break

Not anymore.

Incest = Gay Marriage

Obama ’08
Yes We Can

If Obama and Congress are not going to uphold the spirit of the constitution – freedom of religion and equal protection under law – two fundamental things currently denied to tens of millions of gay Americans and their families, then why should anyone do so.

The courts have followed this principle, moreover, in relation to the validity of marriages performed in other States. Both the First and Second Restatements of Conflict of Laws recognize that State courts may refuse to give effect to a marriage, or to certain incidents of a marriage, that contravene the forum State’s policy. See Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws § 134; Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 284.5 And the courts have widely held that certain marriages performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See, e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, “though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened the public policy of th state”); Wilkins v. Zelichowski, 140 A.2d 65, 67-68 (N.J. 1958) (marriage of 16-year-old female held invalid in New Jersey, regardless of validity in Indiana where performed, in light of N.J. policy reflected in statute permitting adult female to secure annulment of her underage marriage); In re Mortenson’s Estate, 316 P.2d 1106 (Ariz. 1957) (marriage of first cousins held invalid in Arizona, though lawfully performed in New Mexico, given Arizona policy reflected in statute declaring such marriages “prohibited and void”).

This is not some “sycophantic defense of Obama’s latest outrage”.

On DADT, he can in 5 minutes effectively rule it inoperative, I agree. On DOMA he can not.

Ironically, this may turn out to be one of the few instances when Obama actually told the truth. Perhaps he really does mean it when he says that marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman. And Obama, with the stroke of a pen, could do away with DADT anytime he wishes. Just like Truman integrated the armed forces by executive order over the screams of protest from the JCS. Paper. Signature. DONE. That’s all Obama needs to do. It wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes away from his monumental tasks.

In the words of John Lydon: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

And once again, LGBT is left hoeing the fields with the rest of the minorities on the Democrat Plantation, all the while muttering, “Next time… Next time, they’ll do the right thing. If we just keep totin’ that barge and liftin’ that bale, they’ll take care of us.”

Damn fools.

I’m a straight. I’m conservative/libertarian. I support, wholeheartedly and without caveat, full equal rights for every citizen of the United States. That means that I support, once again, wholeheartedly and without caveat, gay marriage.

And it continues to amaze and baffle me why the LGBT community keeps voting for the same liars and hucksters time and time again, only to be fooled again.

Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

Nicely stated.

its not my fault gays are lazy…Ive fought more for their equality than most gay people…stupid idiot I was…I can always spend my straight dollars somewhere else.

Well, you’ve made the decision to put your party ahead of the constitutional rights of individuals. Republicans made the same decision you did when they supported the Patriot Act and the Guantanamo prison camp… as a non-major-party voter, I find both of you to be identical, putting your own power above the rights of others.

@TheBigotBasher:

Cousins marrying cousins is not in reality incest, nor does it say it is, someone marrying a 16 year old is not paedophilia and the deposition does not state that either.

It actually does say both things, and it also argues that LGBT Americans have no 14th Amendment rights.

Just to be clear, my earlier post in this thread summed up my position perfectly:

The sycophantic defense of Obama’s latest outrages aren’t very surprising… just sad.

If you and your cohorts would like to return to a discussion that doesn’t involve sycophantic defenses of Obama, seeking to blame the Senate, gay Americans, or Bill O’Reilly for Obama’s decision to place this homophobic writ down as official Administration policy, please do so.

If, on the other hand, you’re going to persist in said sycophancy, please save yourself (and the rest of us) the electrons — we’ve read all that crap before.

People like to use headlines to push an agenda. One I agree with, but it was still disingenuous.

its not my fault gays are lazy…Ive fought more for their equality than most gay people…stupid idiot I was…I can always spend my straight dollars somewhere else.

I swear the gay community does more harm to their equality issues than anyone else.

Go after PELOSI and REID…

Yeah, you’re right.

I mean, the Constitution isn’t law. Only statute is.

For 8 years you all hated Bush because he ignored the LAWS and did what he wanted. Do no bash Obama for being a President who upholds the Law. CHANGE THE LAW.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....-A-Promise