“The National Defense Authorization Act is a good bill that is important for the overall health and well being of our forces, especially given the ongoing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world,” White House spokesperson Shin Inouye said in a statement. “This legislation received bipartisan support in the House and in the Senate Armed Services Committee and the President hopes it receives similar bipartisan support in the Senate.”

Funny how at this crucial moment there is absolutely no acknowledgement that this is the make or break moment to repeal. No inspiring rhetoric. No comment at all.

It’s not just incredibly disappointing, it’s infuriating and sadly not shocking. With more than 75% of Americans supporting repeal, it shows a shocking lack of political backbone and is just plain baffling. Lots of people are to blame if the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell fails, and unfortunately it may be one of the few bipartisan efforts we’ll see this year.

A New York City cab driver was attacked Tuesday evening just after 6 p.m. by a passenger who asked him if he was Muslim, says the NYPD. A spokesman for a New York City cabbie group blamed the attack on the proposed construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack, but police said they were not aware of any link.

According to police, passenger Michael Enright, a 21-year-old from Brewster, New York, hailed a taxi at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan driven by Ahmed Sharif, a resident of Queens.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago…

…Mehlman’s leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities — such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party’s platform (“Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country…”). Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.

Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.

“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”

More at The Atlantic

The analogy that Josh Lyman lies out is that Islamic Extremist is to Islamic as the KKK is to Christianity.  To me, this makes sense.  This is about people who are distorting faith to justify murder and terror.  So, I have to wonder if anyone would oppose the construction of a christian church near the site of any KKK violence?  Seems to me the South would have fewer churches today.  Opponents think they are justifying their religious bigotry by wrapping themselves in the American flag, but they’re doing it by undermining our Bill of Rights.

The way that the sexual orientation of Judge Vaughn Walker — the federal judge who overturned Proposition 8 last week — has been targeted and exploited by proponents of Prop 8 is not only an example of the ugly smear tactics of the theocratic thugs who call themselves Christians; it’s a testament to how easily the media is manipulated by the right into doing things about which editors and reporters claim to be staunchly opposed…

…Most [mainstream media] quoted the San Francisco Chronicle as the source, and often in the context of reporting on the attacks on Walker coming from the right-wing extremists who now claim his sexual orientation biased his decision.

So what exactly did the Chronicle say on the matter back in February? That it was an “open secret” that Walker was gay.

That’s it, folks. No sourcing of any kind — no witnesses, no former or current boyfriend, no person who Walker confided in, no comment from Walker. Just an “open secret.” Gee, there are many Hollywood celebrities and Washington politicians — Senator Lindsay Graham and Senator Mitch McConnell come to mind — about whom we’ve always heard about an “open secret,” but I don’t see the New York Times reporting on them ever.

BREAKING NEWS: Boston Federal Judge Strikes Down DOMA!

Better yet?  This judge, who will undoubtedly be called an activist liberal, was appointed by Richard Nixon.

For once, Brown is remotely accurate.  For those who are legally inclined, the ruling is here [.pdf].  For the rest of us, Lisa Keen’s recap is here.

In one challenge brought by the state of Massachusetts, Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Congress violated the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when it passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be considered married. In the other, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, he ruled DOMA violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

In Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services, Tauro considered whether the federal law’s definition of marriage — one man and one woman — violates state sovereignty by treating some couples with Massachusetts’ marriage licenses differently than others. In Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), a gay legal group, asked Tauro to consider whether DOMA violates the right of eight same-sex couples to equal protection of the law…

You may recall a bit of buzz when Senator Kerry supported the challenge from Attorney General Coakley.  The background on the GLAD case is here.  This effort was led by Mary Bonauto, who I’ve praised before.  Here’s the key point fo the challenge:

Section 3 of DOMA applies to the federal government only. It overrides a state’s determination that a same-sex couple is married and says that they are not married for purposes of all federal laws and programs, even though the federal government has always deferred to state determinations of marital status. Under this law, “the word ‘marriage’ means only the legal union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” This law requires all federal departments and agencies to disrespect the valid state-licensed marriages of same-sex couples but not other married couples. As a result, only married same-sex couples are denied all rights, protections and responsibilities associated with marriage at the federal level [my note: i.e. tax benefits].

And as a slight digression from the excitement here, check out my favorite line from Brown’s email:

Despite the explicit language in DOMA that the law was designed to protect children’s right to their mothers and fathers, the judge disavowed that DOMA has anything to do with responsible procreation.

“Responsible procreation.”  Not sure what that is.  Are two loving individuals who wait to make a conscious effort to have children and raise them engaging in “responsible procreation?”  Or only two people who can produce a child biologically–regardless of their intent to start a family or even see their partner again?  If you want to address “responsible procreation,” don’t come after two people who are making a commitment to each other and jumping through hoops to have children.  Try targeting one night stands or deadbeat dads.

Here’s the quote from the judge’s ruling, via The Family Equality Council, that addresses parenting:

A consensus has developed among the medical, psychological, and social welfare communities that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are just as likely to be well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexual parents. Denying their parents federal benefits of marriage, said the court, “prevent[s] children of same-sex couples from enjoying the immeasurable advantages that flow from the assurance of a stable family structure.

Like all this progress?  Sign the Freedom to Marry Pledge here.

Over at AMERICAblog there is a petition for Obama to fire Jonathan Katz, who he recently appointed to a team offering federal scientific and technological support to BP engineers.  Why?  Because he’s a self-described (and self-published) homophobe and climate change denier.  John and Joe point out some of his worst moments in his “In Defense of Homophobia,”  (yes, that’s actually the name) including this one:

The religious believer may see the hand of God, but both he and the rationalist must see a fact of Nature. The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts. Engaging in such behavior is like riding a motorcycle on an icy road without a helmet. It may be possible to get away with it for a while, and a few misguided souls may get a thrill out of doing so, but sooner or later (probably sooner) the consequences will be catastrophic. Lethal diseases spread rapidly among people who do such things.

Unfortunately, the victims are not only those whose reckless behavior brought death on themselves. There are many completely innocent victims, too: hemophiliacs (a substantial fraction died as a result of contaminated clotting factor), recipients of contaminated transfusions, and their spouses and children, for AIDS can be transmitted heterosexually (in America, only infrequently) and congenitally. The icy road was lined with unsuspecting innocents, who never chose to ride a motorcycle. Guilt for their deaths is on the hands of the homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers who poisoned the blood supply. These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves.

But it doesn’t stop there.  It turns out that being gay is just like being a potential murder or adulterer.

What of those cursed with unnatural sexual desires? Must they forever suppress these desires? Yes, but this is hardly a unique fate. Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married. Morality requires them to suppress these desires, and most do not commit adultery, though they feel lust in their hearts. Almost everyone, at one time or another, covets another’s property. They do not steal. Many people feel great anger or intense hatred at some time in their lives. They do not kill.

I am a homophobe, and proud.

No matter how smart he is (and I have to doubt his scientific prowess as he denies climate change), there is no way someone who openly advocated discrimination against some other minority would be serving in this role.

Sign the letter.

But once we stop laughing, we must remember that culture wars are called wars for a reason. For all the farcical shenanigans they can generate, they do inflict real casualties — both at the micro level, on the lives of ordinary people, and at the national level, where, as we’re seeing right now, a Supreme Court nominee’s entire record can be reduced to a poisonous and distorted debate over her stand on the single culture-war issue of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Rekers is no bit player in these wars. Though he’s not a household name, he should be. He’s the Zelig of homophobia, having played a significant role in many of the ugliest assaults on gay people and their civil rights over the last three decades…

Rich goes on to look at the Kagan nomination and the distortions of her history with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

But the rear-guard remnants of the Rekers crowd are not going down without a fight, and their focus on Elena Kagan has been most revealing. There are many grounds to debate Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court, wherever you are on the political spectrum. There are many questions about her views and record that remain unanswered. But from the get-go the preponderance of the debate on the right has been about her handling of military recruitment as dean at Harvard Law School. Here her history is unambiguous.

Despite her critics’ cries, Kagan never banned military recruitment of law students and never denigrated the military in word or deed. She followed Harvard’s existing (and unexceptional) antidiscrimination policy while a court battle played out over a Congressional act denying federal funds to universities barring military recruiters. She was so cautious — too cautious, I’d argue — that she did not join the majority of her own faculty in urging Harvard to sue the government over the funding law, limiting her action instead to the signing of an amicus brief.

Courtesy of the GW Hatchet

Meghan McCain spoke at The George Washington University last Thursday after a conflict with the GW Young America’s Foundation and College Republicans over McCain’s scheduled appearance with Allied in Pride, the campus’ gay rights group. With a few digs at the College Republicans, she spoke about the need for the Republican Party to expand its tent.  How to do the College Republicans react?

We want to protest McCain’s version of ‘Redefining Republicanism.  If you’re not toeing the party line then you’re not really that party affiliation.

From the GW Hatchet:

“I am not Ann Coulter. I am not Glenn Beck. I am not trying to be a pundit. I am not trying to have a show on FOX,” McCain said. “My intention is to promote dialogue in this country.”

“I do [support marriage equality], got that George Washington Young Republicans?” McCain said in reference to the GW College Republicans’ January withdrawal of financial support for her speech. The CRs removed their support from the event after saying that they had been misinformed of the purpose of McCain’s talk.

“I had to get that little jab in,” she added to some laughs.