400-408 – Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (frc.org), and co-author of Personal Faith: Public Policy with Bishop Harry Jackson.
• SF Gate (5/26/09) Lawsuit seeks federal ruling on gay marriage.
My Summary: Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, long identified as opposing forces for conservative and liberal groups, filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that a California constitutional amendment eliminating the right of gay couples to marry violates the U.S. constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Olson said, "This is a federal question. This is about the rights of individuals to be treated equally and not be stigmatized… We wanted to be a symbol of the fact that this not a conservative or a liberal issue. We want to send a signal that this is an important constitutional issue involving equal rights for all Americans…We believe this is the kind of matter where Americans must come together and recognize the rights of all citizens."
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday, before the California Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday upholding the state's voter-approved Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage. The lawsuit argues that Proposition 8 creates a category of "second-class citizens" in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The lawyers said that by relegating same-sex unions to "the separate-but-unequal institution of domestic partnership," California is violating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection for all.
It seeks a preliminary injunction against imposition of the amendment until the lawsuit is resolved, immediately reinstating marriage rights to same-sex couples.
• Gallup (5/27/09) Majority of Americans Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage: No change in support from last year.
57% oppose same-sex marriage while just 40% support it – nor has support for it ever been higher than 46% in 2007. 75% of liberals support it, as do 50% of moderates, while just 19% of conservatives do. 55% of Democrats support it, as do 45% of independents, while just 20% of Republicans do. By age group: 18-29 (59% for, 37% against), 30-49 (40% for, 57% against), 50-64 (37% for, 61% against), and 65+ (32% for, 66% against).
Support for gay rights – 67% support health insurance and employee benefits, 73% support inheritance rights, 67% support hate-crimes legislation, 69% believe they should be allowed to teach in elementary schools, and 54% support full adoption rights.
• Tony Perkins' Washington Update (5/27/09) For Marriage, the Supreme Test.
• Google News (5/27/09) Gay groups call federal marriage suit premature.
A coalition of gay rights groups said Wednesday that a federal same-sex marriage lawsuit brought by two high-profile lawyers is premature and they'd rather work through state legislatures and voters to win wedding rights. A day after the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other national organizations issued a statement saying they think the U.S. Supreme Court is not ready to rule in their favor on the issue.
"In our view, the best way to win marriage equality nationally is to continue working state by state, not to bring premature federal challenges that pose a very high risk of setting a negative U.S. Supreme Court precedent," said Shannon Minter, legal director of National Center for Lesbian Rights.
"There will be many people who will think this is not the time to go to federal," Olson said Wednesday at a news conference in Los Angeles. "Both David and I have studied the court for more years than probably either one of us would like to admit. We think we know what we are doing."
Boies agreed: "Reasonable minds can differ, but when you have people being denied civil rights today, I think it is impossible as lawyers and as an American to say 'No, you have to wait, now is not the right time.' I think if we had done that in prior civil rights battles, we would not be where we are."
Chad Griffin, (Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, equalrightsfoundation.org) a gay political consultant and former aide to President Bill Clinton, said he approached Olson about taking on the case several months ago while the California Supreme Court was considering several legal challenges to Proposition 8.
428-437 – Brigitte Gabriel, is the founder of the ActForAmerica.org, and author of the best-seller They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. Brigitte grew up as a Christian little girl from a well to do family in Lebanon, who endured Muslim persecution that began in 1975, when she was 10. Her family lost everything. She grew up to become a news anchor in Israel, and now heads up an organization warning the world about the threat of radical Islam – a threat she saw realized in her own life, family, and country.
443-452 – Brigitte Gabriel
458-508 – Clarke Forsythe, is a leading policy strategist in bioethical issues and senior counsel for Americans United for Life (aul.org), a national pro-life public policy organization. He has published more than fifteen law review articles and book chapters on bioethics and the law. His latest is Politics For The Greatest Good: The Case For Prudence In The Public Square.
Prudence is practical wisdom, and involves making good decisions and implementing them well. Prudence requires discernment, deliberation, decision, and execution. As applied to politics, prudence asks four questions of political leaders, activists, and citizens: 1) Are we pursuing good goals? 2) Are we exercising wise judgment as to what's possible? 3) Do we successfully apply means to ends? And 4) Do we preserve the possibility of future progress when the ideal cannot be immediately achieved?
Prudence is necessary to have more realistice expectations of politics, to improve the prospects for political change and to succeed with political reform. This book attempts to resolve the historic debate between the "purists" and the "incrementalists" with a return to the cardinal virtue of prudence. The prudential approach to public policy strives for the greatest good possible when the ideal cannot be reached. Rather than the "all-or-nothing" approach, prudence calls for "all-or-something." The aim of politics is not the perfect good, but the greatest good possible. Both William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln were successful because of their prudential strategies.
512-523 – Clarke Forsythe
528-538 – • MSNBC (5/22/09) Toddler buys earthmover in online auction: Mother had made bids on toys and assumed she had bought a toy digger.
544-554 – • MSNBC (5/27/09) Here, here! 13 years of perfect attendance: Get-up-and-go Maryland teen hits 2,340 straight days of school.
558-608 – Calls. What's your perfect attendance story?
612-623 – Calls. What's your favorite ditch-school story?
628-638 – Calls. What's your favorite ditch-school story?
644-652 – Calls. What's your favorite ditch-school story?
657-700 – • MSNBC (5/27/09) Dog that saved owner from fire is euthanized: Bulldog whose barking awakened owner had been diagnosed with cancer.
• Neomi Rao (5/27/09) Questions for Sotomayor: The confirmation process shouldn't be a rubber stamp. Ms. Rao, an assistant professor at George Mason School of Law, was associate counsel and special assistant to President George W. Bush and nominations counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Jonah Goldberg (5/27/09) Empathy vs. Impartiality: When they conflict, the Supreme Court must choose the latter.
• George Will (5/27/09) Identity Justice.
• Rich Lowry (5/27/09) A Bad Day for Impartiality: Obama uses empathy as a code word for judicial liberalism.
• Andrew C. McCarthy (5/27/09) Rule of Law, or Rule of Lawyers? Sotomayor claims an unlimited license for judicial activism.
• Robert Barnes, WaPo (5/26/09) More Than One Way to Diversify the Supreme Court: Beyond Race and Gender, Today's Justices are Homogenous. [great for calls]
• Ken Timmerman (5/27/09) Republican Donors Hit by Chrysler Closings.
• Thomas F. Cooley (5/27/09) The Need For Failure. Cooley is the Paganelli-Bull professor of economics and Richard R. West dean of the NYU Stern School of Business, and a contributor to a new book on the financial crisis entitled Restoring Financial Stability (Wiley, 2009).
• Dennis Buchholtz (5/27/09) GM Bondholders Are People Like You and Me: The government is punishing one group of workers to reward another. Mr. Buchholtz is a retired trade worker from Warren, Mich.
• Tenth Amendment Center, Tenth Amendment Talking Points.
• Telegraph (5/27/09) Obama's green guru calls for white roofs: President Obama's energy adviser has suggested all the world's roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming. Professor Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary, said the unusual proposal would mean homes in hot countries would save energy and money on air conditioning by deflecting the sun's rays. He also thinks roads in rural environments should be lighter.
"If you look at all the buildings and if you make the roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of colour rather than a black type of colour and if you do that uniformally, that would be the equivalent of... reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years – just taking them off the road for 11 years," he said.
701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550
Glendale, CA 91203
Office (818) 956-5552
Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com
Get Podcasts here