Post-8

National Review celebrates.

I can't link to this, but one of the married gay couples I know in California reports that their daughter was harassed at school today by a child of pro-8 parents, who kept running up and chanting ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE!!! in her face until she finally slapped him.

A California legal read of Andrew Sullivan's says the lawsuit against 8 as a "revision" rather than an "amendment" isn't frivolous under California's weird Constitution, and would, in a nonpolitical context, have a good shot in the courts. But he thinks the political context is very bad.

Glenn Greenwald suggests that repealing DOMA is the appropriate response to Proposition 8, noting:

Democrats have a particular responsibility to erase the stain of DOMA. It was Bill Clinton who signed DOMA into law. It passed overwhelmingly in the Senate (85-14) with massive Democratic support, including from Democratic icons such as Paul Wellstone, Chris Dodd, Pat Leahy, Tom Daschle, Patty Murray, Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski, and the new Vice President-elect, Joe Biden...

But are they likely to do so? The conventional Beltway wisdom has already ossified, quite predictably, that Obama and the Democrats must scorn "the Left" and, despite polling data showing widespread support for equal rights for same-sex couples, such a move would be deemed by Beltway media mavens as coming from "the Left." Nancy Pelosi is running around decreeing that "the country must be governed from the middle," while Harry Reid emphasizes that Democrats have received no mandate from the election. ....

Even as leading Democrats flamboyantly condemn Proposition 8, and even with Obama's long record of emphatically vowing that he will support DOMA's repeal, there will be very strong currents pushing Democrats to do nothing.

I'm not holding my breath. But one thing I'm waiting to hear is whether Harry Reid remains Senate Majority Leader, and whether Nancy Pelosi remains Speaker of the House. That should say a lot about the party as a whole.

The beatings will resume

The LA Times has a story on a protest outside a Mormon temple in response to the Church of Latter Day Saints's co-ordinated "Yes on 8" money and efforts. It doesn't include things you can see over here, on YouTube, where you can see one police officer strike a gay protester hard enough to throw him head-first into a cement retaining wall before arresting him and his partner.

This is of course a very bad situation. The millions of dollars sent by Mormons at the behest of the Church were well publicised (and not just in California; see here), and there is now an effort to file political-action complaints against the Church with the IRS, with the intent specifically to cost it its tax-free status on the basis of political activity not allowed to tax-exempt organisations. I don't think this has any chance of getting anywhere - initiatives are not considered "partisan," even when they obviously and clearly are - but the situation has become volatile. Being forcibly excluded will trigger that.

In addition to the initiative's backers, Eugene Volkoh thinks that the plain language of the amendment effectively divorces all previously-married same-sex couples. California's Attorney General has ruled that it only applies to marriages going forward, but I have seen threats (sorry, no link, I lost it) of a lawsuit to force the state to revoke those licenses. The ACLU promises to fight any such lawsuit effort.

Matt Yglesias comments on the anti-gay "backlash" narrative, disputing it.

On a personal note, my friend Thom was arranging his marriage to his partner Jeff next year before this hit. He's an Obama supporter and wanted to be part of the celebrations last night, but, as he says:

...in the midst of those moments, though, I kept being reminded that the promises inherent in an Obama presidency were not truly mine, as a gay person in America, to fully share. And while at the time I wrote that I was happy again to be an American, the truth is that by the next morning, recognizing the passage of California's Proposition 8, I no longer felt as though I truly were even considered an American by even half my adopted home state of California, much less by anywhere near half the country as a whole... Fifty-two percent of California voters Tuesday night... amended the state's constitution to strip a civil right from one group of people only. ... That same night, 70% of California voters voted to give additional rights to farm animals raised for food.

How am I supposed to feel now that a sizable percentage of the people I see on a daily basis in my neighborhood, at work, in stores and restaurants, not only believe that my life and my relationship are worth less than theirs, but vote to back up their personal religious beliefs with the force of the state?

Thom's not the only person to note that the same California voters who stripped rights from queer couples endorsed - strongly - additional legal protections for farm animals. Which is nice and all, but the contrast really, really lets us know exactly where we stand.

The push to move right

More suggestion that Mr. Obama shouldn't do anything about torture or Gitmo too soon, or he'll look "soft on terrorism." Similarly, the press continues to play its bullshit "equivalence" game, as Maureen Dowd at the New York Times looks at Mr. Clinton's blowjob and Mr. Bush's torture, ending of habeas corpus, unlimited-power executive, and discarding of rule of law as roughly equal failures. Fuck you, Maureen Dowd, and fuck the New York Times for still publishing you.

In similar incompetent media news, apparently a variety of reporters sat on various Sarah Palin stories until after the election; I personally presume this is related to not wanting to offend Senator McCain or make him look bad, which remained throughout the campaign a key motivating factor for most so-called reporters covering his campaign.

But hopefully no one will be fooled that "not looking soft on terror" will make the right more accommodating of an Obama presidency; three people commenting on this New York Times blogger's post are already hoping for Mr. Obama's impeachment. (See previous commentary on an early Impeach Obama website being online before balloting even opened.)