Friday, June 25, 2010

Supreme Court: Bigots Can Be Identified

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that signatures on a petition can be made public. Anti-gay groups in Washington State had called for a referendum that would overturn a new law there that gave rights to LGBT citizens. The 138,000 people who signed the petitions wanted to take their neighbors' rights away anonymously, saying they were afraid of retaliation for expressing their opinion. The Supreme Court said no, it's okay, people have the right to know who signed those petitions.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the names of people who signed petitions in an attempt to overturn a new gay rights law in Washington could be made public, a victory for state officials who said the case was a test of open government laws.

Justices ruled 8-1 in a case called Doe V. Reed. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. They heard oral arguments in Washington, D.C., April 28.

The ruling dealt broadly with claims by foes of the new gay rights law that disclosing their names would violate their First Amendment rights. However the justices said the plaintiffs could go back to a lower court to try to get a specific exemption on other grounds - and the chief lawyer for people who signed the Referendum 71 petitions said he would do so. Supreme Court on R-71: Names on petitions can be made public

I grew up in a time when we were taught to stand up for our beliefs. We learned to respect differences of opinion, but when it was our turn we said what we believed and we took the consequences. We called it "freedom," and it carried the cargo of accountability.

These people in Washington wanted to express their opinion and then have the government place a hood over their faces so nobody would know who they were.
Protect Marriage Washington asked justices to shield the names of the 138,000 people who signed R-71 petitions in hopes of overturning the "everything but marriage" same-sex domestic partner law. In November Washington voters upheld the new statute. Gay rights groups have said they'll post the petition signers' names online, and some fear harassment or threats if their names are revealed.

State officials had said there are laws in place to protect people who might be threatened. When people sign petitions or referendums they are acting as legislators, [Washington Attorney General Rob] McKenna said, because they are trying to enact or change laws.

Gary Randall of the Faith and Freedom Network said in an e-mail that plaintiffs will go back and seek an exemption for R-71 signers.

"The names cannot be released to the homosexual activists immediately," Randall wrote. "This matter is not settled yet."

It's not settled? The freakin' Supreme Court has ruled, man, it's settled. C'mon, let's see those names.

They are afraid of retaliation, so what? You speak up, sometimes you have to fight for what you believe. That is what these chickenlivers were trying to subvert with this lawsuit, they want to tear other people's lives down under cover of legal darkness, and even this conservative Supreme Court can see that's not the way we do things around here.

14 Comments:

Anonymous Robert said...

The notion that these petitioners need anonymity for fear of violence from gay people is absurd. Mine are a peaceful people.

June 25, 2010 2:04 PM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Pro-prop 8 petitioners have demonstrated repeatedly that they act on the basis of their own irrational fears. They fear that if gays get married, it will in some way diminish their own marriages and now they worry that expressing an opinion about marriage in public requires wearing a hood. Laws remain on the books that address harassment and violence so if any of these petitioners were to become actual victims of such criminal behavior, they. would be able to seek justice.

June 25, 2010 3:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hate to ruin Aunt Bea's day but:

"Now that her post-primary bounce has had its day, Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle is still leading Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in their race for the Senate, according to a poll conducted June 22.

Angle leads Reid by 48 percent to 41 percent with 8 percent preferring some other candidate and 2 percent undecided.

Possibly more worrisome for Reid than the support Angle attracts is that, dating back to February, he has never polled higher than 41 percent in match-ups with Angle."

looks like Nevada is Tea Party central

what are some of those nutty things you quoted from Angle?

they'll be coming from Capitol Hill next January

June 26, 2010 11:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

actually, Reid has raised record amounts for the campaign, with 90% coming from out of state

sounds like Martha Coakley

hahahahahaha

hohohohohoho

hee-hee

maybe Obama will fly in the week before the election to mock and ridicule Angle

sounds like deja vu all over again, man!

June 26, 2010 1:49 PM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

actually, Reid has raised record amounts for the campaign, with 90% coming from out of state

sounds like Martha Coakley


What's your source for that 90% figure Anon because today's WaPo reports it's 80%. The WaPo also noted that Harry Reid has raised $16.9 million so far, while tea bagger Angle has raised $1.3 million with 70% of her total coming from out of state as well.

Do you think 80% funding from out of state contributors is bad but 70% funding from out of state is OK?

The table that accompanies today's WaPo article points out that 3 Democrats and 5 Republicans have gotten most of their 2009-2010 campaign contributions from out of state donors as follows:

Democrats:

Leahy (86%)
Reid (80%)
Wyden (78%)

Republicans:

Crapo (77%)
Thune (72%)
Murkowski (70%)
McCain (68%)
Brown (65%), he defeated Martha Coakley

sounds like deja vu all over again, man!

Yes, it does! Once again you have omitted most of the pertinent facts from your attempt to spin Reid's campaign contributions as suspect.

< eye roll >

If you really want an eye opener about campaign funding sources, check out all the campaign contributions from energy companies and then we all might begin to understand why the House's Republican Study Committee, and the GOP's chief apologizer, Joe Barton, both decreed Obama's ass-kicking of the criminals at BP as a "Chicago style shake down."

June 26, 2010 2:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

BP may be guilty of negigence. Hopefully, they'll have their day in court.

They are all energy companies. As a general rule, energy companies are good. They are a vital contributor to the society we live in, which is a utopia compared to most of history and most of the world.

Barton may have made ill-timed statements but he was basically right. Obama has used a lynch mob technique in a desperate attempt to impress the crowd.

Didn't work- and he's a loser.

June 26, 2010 8:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

correction: they AREN'T all energy companies

June 26, 2010 8:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Harry Reid has raised $16.9 million so far, while tea bagger Angle has raised $1.3 million"

all that money

a state is represented by the most powerful man in the Senate

and yet he trails in the polls to recently unknown member of the Tea Party

what more do you need to know to see that November won't be pretty for Democrats?

June 27, 2010 8:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ooooooh!

Aunt Bea was smacked down

guess that'll shut her up!

June 27, 2010 8:28 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

and yet he trails in the polls to recently unknown member of the Tea Party

Oh sure, according to the rightwing's favorite outlier pollster, Rasmussen, Reid is down by a supposedly statistically significant number five months before the actual vote with more than ten times the cash on hand.

According to RealClearPolitics, which averages polls, including consistent outliers like Rasmussen, Nevada is a toss up state. With a 10 times the money so far, and 5 long months to pepper the airwaves with Angle's own statements, I think it’s way too early to call that particular race.

Some of Angle’s many statements that may come back to haunt her include Angle equating Social Security with "welfare" and Angle scaring and angering seniors by calling for the privatization of Medicare and the Veterans Administration.

You’re right about Angle being ”unknown,” in spite of having served seven years in elected office in Nevada where "...she voted "no" so frequently on matters of wide consensus that votes were often called as "41-to-Angle"...". She's not big on granting interviews or explaining some of her stranger comments. For example, Angle continues to refuse to tell voters what she meant by "second amendment remedies" when she said:

"I'm hoping that we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems."

Does she mean if the voters of Nevada duly elect Reid in five months her sore losers tea bagging supporters should rise up in armed rebellion?

The longer her campaign handlers refuse to make her available for media interviews (see video "Local Nevada TV Now Literally Begging Sharron Angle to do interviews" ) so she can explain to voters what she would offer seniors instead of their earned Social Security pensions and Medicare and what she meant by “second amendment remedies,” the worse it is for her campaign IMHO.

what more do you need to know to see that November won't be pretty for Democrats?

Everybody knows it's common for a new administration that takes over in times of continuing economic bad times to lose seats in the first midterm election. For example, in Reagan's first midterm elections, the Democrats picked up 27 seats in the House of Representatives and seven Governorships.

June 27, 2010 2:42 PM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

You're awful quiet, Anon. Maybe you'd like to discuss the interesting types -- from rednecks to hypocrites to ragheads -- being identified in the South Carolina GOP. The State: South Carolina's Homepage reports:

Lexington Sen. Jake Knotts took to the Senate floor Tuesday to take “hypocrites” within the Republican Party to task, to proudly proclaim himself a “redneck” and to say again he would not resign his seat after using an ethnic slur to describe gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley.

Knotts called both President Barack Obama and fellow Lexington lawmaker Haley a “raghead” June 3, days before the June 8 primary. The term is used to demean Arabs and other cultures who wear headdresses. Haley is Indian-American.

Knotts said no one came to his defense when he was called a “redneck.” Knotts said he is a redneck in the true sense of the word, if that means a farmer who works from dawn to dusk and whose neck is red from the sun.

“If all of us rednecks leave the Republican Party, the party is going to have one hell of a void,” Knotts told other senators.

Appearing contrite at times and defiant at others, Knotts said his remarks, made during a local Internet radio show, raised some doubt even in him about who he really is. He said he also doubted fellow Republicans would have called for his resignation had he made the “raghead” comment about Obama only. Last week the Lexington County Republican Party voted to censure Knotts and asked for his resignation.

“Hypocrites are the true embarrassments” to the state, Knotts said.

Rich Bolen, chairman of the Lexington County Republican Party, said the party is home to “rednecks” if they are defined as voters who believe in limited government and self-reliance, core principles of the party. But the GOP is not a welcome place for people who trade in racial stereotypes, Bolen said.

“If (Knotts) doesn’t believe that, then he will have an interesting Election Day,” Bolen said.
Knotts, who won’t be on the ballot again until 2012, has already drawn an opponent. Katrina Shealy, who battled Knotts in the 2008 Republican primary, said she plans to run again in 2012...

June 28, 2010 9:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh, I'm in SC this evening and, yes, it appears they won't be any help to Obama's socialist agenda

of course, everyone here is excited about unranked South Carolina defeating UCLA in first game of the College World Series final

word on the street: Fear the chicken!

oh, and the Constitution won again:

"The U.S. Supreme Court declared Monday that individual gun rights under the Second Amendment apply and may be used to block enforcement of certain restrictive state and local gun control ordinances. By a 5-4 vote along the court's familiar ideological lines, the justices jeopardized two Illinois ordinances and threw hundreds more around the nation into doubt."

June 28, 2010 11:26 PM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Too bad the Supremes forgot about that pesky little part of the Second Amendment that reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

June 29, 2010 7:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

they read they whole passage instead of peskily taking one part out of context to advance the liberal agenda

July 05, 2010 8:14 AM  

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