Robin F. Wilson, a professor and attorney fighting against marriage equality in D.C., apparently lied her face off about case law when she wrote a letter to the D.C. City Council, and then published an op-ed column in the Washington Post, to make her point about granting broader religious exemptions. Guess who caught her in the act? Councilman David Catania, who’s the lead on marriage equality, who promptly “fired off a letter to Wilson [Thursday] morning demanding she recant her previous testimony. To make his point, Catania sent a copy of his letter to Robert A. Smolla, the president of Washington & Lee, and Rodney A. Smolla, the dean of the law school. He also copied the letter to the Chief Disciplinary Council for the State Bar of Texas, where Wilson is licensed to practice law.” Ouch!
Her excuse for lying to the D.C. Council? “They talked to me 45 minutes, it’s possible I misstated something. But the bigger proposition, the one that is important, is that” there should be a broader religious exemption.” That is: It’s okay to lie, if you really, really believe in your position.
Here’s the letter in full (PDF), but Washington City Paper grabs some of Catania’s best lines, including this one:
‘Your misunderstanding apparently led you to claim that “circuit after federal circuit” has found that Title VII requires that police departments allow police officers to refuse to guard places that violate their religious beliefs such as abortion clinics and casinos. You even told Councilmember Jim Graham that this result “may be absurd, but it is the law under Title VII.” Professor Wilson, this is clearly not the law in the Seventh Circuit, the only circuit on which your testimony at the hearing relied. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has made clear that the “undue burden” test you cite is a “de minimus” standard. I find it outrageous that you would claim otherwise.’
[Washington Post, Washington City Paper]
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Ian
These religious right repukes always show they are complete and total hypocrites and the worst liars. They believe that they have the right to discriminate and to FORCE their brand of “morality” onto others, but that they can completely ignore said morality THEMSELVES as they are our “betters”. The only ‘hell’ they create is here on Earth making everyone miserable trying to pass prohibitive laws as they have perpetual guilt complexes about sex and are always pissed off that other people don’t have their hang-ups.
Mike in Brooklyn
“Why Is This Law Professor Lying Her Face Off to D.C. City Council About Marriage?”
Isn’t one of the first lessons of law school: If you have the law on your side, argue the law. If the have precedent of your side, argue the precedent. If you have the evidence on your side, argue the evidence. When you don’t have the law, you don’t have the precedent, you don’t have the evidence, you lie. You shout lies.
She is lying because that is what lawyers do when they have nothing else to argue, they lie.
spindoc
The Mormons call it “Lying for the Lord” and it means that it is ok to lie if it advances the cause of your church.
Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace
It’s time DC.
And kudos to CT on its one year anniversary of marriage equality!
Cheers, Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA
Mick
Yep, didn’t Lord said say something against “bearing false witness”?
Disbar her.
Walter
#2 Mike is correct. As a pro se defendant I kicked the asses of a large Phila firm and their co-claimant’s attorney, a small well known personal injury maven. Two years of motions, briefs, counter claims, cross claims, injunctions, subpoenas, and sneaky document production and outright lying answers. 12 appearances.
Discovery was tracked for 300 days alone. Time and time again I won my motions based on my adversaries’ fabrications, manipulations and dirty tricks. Like trying to trick me into missing a date and get a default judgment or motion granted. The law clerk was covertly cheering me on along the way. Finally, after 6 months of plaintiffs failure to produce in good faith, the judge ruled in my favor and ordered the production MY WAY. Plaintiffs both dismissed with prejudice the day before it went before the bench. Bastards. TWO YEARS of playing chicken all to COLLECT from all parties insurance companies. I could not believe the LIES outright lies at first until I realized the game.
Both plaintiffs’ attorneys asked me if I wanted a job. Uh, no thanks.
The trait is universal and in education? The biggest liars of all. Mind controlling sociological subversives.
schlukitz
A little apropos levity you may have heard before, No. 2, Mike In Brooklyn:
Question: What do you feel about a shipload of lawyers hitting an iceberg and sinking to the bottom of the ocean with no survivors?
Answer: It’s a good start!
Walter
I forgot to say you can always beat a lawyer even if you’re case knowledge is a little weak because their attention to detail is so pathetic. And if you can find case law that YOU can argue more convincingly, and the court isn’t prejudiced (another problem) a strong argument with weak material will win over a weak argument with strong material. Courtrooms are broadway. If you’re good.
Jesse
Why do all of these people think it is alright to sit in judgment of gay people? I thought only God could do that?
Mike in Brooklyn
The highest standard of them all, the Bard: “First thing we do, let’s kill the lawyers.”
Shakespeare: Henry VI, part 2, Act 4, Scene 2 (Dick the Butcher)
Oops, sorry Ricky, still love you. My 2 attorney brothers though….
San Francisco Treat
@ 2,6 and 7 – Actually knowingly failing to disclose adverse precedent is a violation of BINDING ethical constraints on lawyers. Every state bar has different procedures, but in every one of them this conduct would subject the offender to SANCTIONS in some form. Spew all the tacky lawyer jokes you want, but remember when you group a class of people together and make generalizations about them you are displaying your prejudice. We’re not all lying mcliarsons specializing in lies. Many of us are working daily to help move this country toward equal rights.
ksu499
Several years ago, the head of the Cherokee County,GA GOP, also a Christian Coalition member, was overheard to say while discussing campaign tactics that it was OK to lie so long as the outcome was “Godly”.
schlukitz
@ No. 11 San Francisco Treat:
Many of us are working daily to help move this country toward equal rights.
Really, now?
How many might that be and when was the last time a group of lawyers marched on Washington, DC to protest the very laws that have plagued and victimized LGBT people since this country was founded?
Seems to me, that you folks have as little incentive to remove such unfair laws from the books, as doctors do to get you to eat right and help prevent illness.
No sick people = no doctors needed.
No unfair laws = no lawyers needed.
Get my drift?
Jaroslaw
#13 amen to that! Voltaire said “there will not be a lawyer in heaven until hell is full!”
(Sorry #11, there might be a few good lawyers, I hope you’re one of them, but they are few and far between from my own personal experience.)
McShane
No. 2 · Mike in Brooklyn: It’s so easy to be eloquent on that point. Funny there’s not much going for the opposing view. Guess because your right !
Steve
Why is she lying?
She’s a lawyer.
To say anything more would be redundant.
San Francisco Treat
We were among the group that just marched on DC. We’re inside almost every non-profit out there. I think it’s incredibly cynical to sit on the sidelines and accuse organized activism for moving too slowly. The fact is, we’re trying to convince a nation rooted in division and oppression that those things are so two centuries ago.
What incentive structure are you looking at? My husband wants to move to Salt Lake to be closer to his family, but I refuse because I don’t want to raise our children in an environment where the state will not recognize both of as parents. I don’t want to work somewhere I can be fired for having a husband instead of a wife.
In my experience, the legal community is broadly on our side in all of these issues because we (at least the last 10-20 crops of us) all have personal familiarity with people who are lgbt. Further, we are educated – which if I’m not mistaken has been shown to be statistically significant regarding where one stands on rights parity.
I suggest people hold their fire on lawyers and redirect it toward groups that are actually fighting against equality (the LDS Church, the Vatican, Focus on the White Protestant Family, etc.).
Jaroslaw
#17 good for you – don’t give in and move to Utah. I’m surprised your husband would even consider it, while at the same time I understand his desire to be near his family.
An tidbit about “education” – when we in Michigan were debating a constitutional amendment banning marriage – the Wayne County Medical Society refused to come out against it. These are doctors and nurses etc.