Tag: obergefell v hodges
Leaked: Anti-LGBT Republican Delivers Toast At Gay Son's Wedding

Leaked: Anti-LGBT Republican Delivers Toast At Gay Son's Wedding

This week many were stunned to learn Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) had voted against the House Democrats’ bill to protect same-sex marriage at the state and federal level, just days before attending his own gay son’s wedding.

Buzzfeedobtained audio of Thompson’s toast to the happy couple, during which he bestows the warmest of wishes and says he’s just like any parent who hopes their child finds “that one true love so that they have the opportunity to experience that: someone to grow old with.”

Last week Rep. Thompson voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation that rescinds the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, and requires the federal government and states to recognize the existing and lawful marriages of same-sex couples. That bill passed the House with the support of 47 Republicans and all Democrats.

Not only did he vote against the bill, Thompson’s press secretary called the bill a “stunt.”

“This bill was nothing more than an election-year messaging stunt for Democrats in Congress who have failed to address historic inflation and out of control prices at gas pumps and grocery stores,” Maddison Stone told Thompson’s local Pennsylvania newspaper, the Centre Daily Times.

Buzzfeed reports that Thompson “not only attended the event, but he delivered a speech to celebrate the nuptials, which he called ‘a really good experience.’ Media of the speech was provided to BuzzFeed News by a guest, who asked to remain anonymous.”

“I think the word should definitely get out there,” the guest said of their decision for BuzzFeed News to publish it. “These politicians need to be exposed for who they really are.”

Below, via Buzzfeed, is the text of Rep. Thompson’s toast at his son’s wedding, and a portion of the audio Buzzfeed obtained, posted by The Recount.

We really appreciate you all being here, and being a part of that. You know, as a parent — parents have hopes and dreams, right, with their kids, from the time that they’re born and they’re creeping and crawling and walking and falling over and walking again, and all the things that they learn right through their teens and into becoming adults. We have hopes and dreams. First of all, obviously, we hope right from the beginning, it’s all about having a healthy child. But it’s about being healthy. It’s about them being healthy. We hope for safety. We’re hoping that they find their way, find opportunity, they find inspiration. And as they grow and as they get a little older, we also hope and pray they’re going to find that one true love so that they have the opportunity to experience that: Someone to grow old with. So we’re just really thankful that you’re here. It actually goes beyond that, as parents. We love it when they find their one true love, especially when they become a part of our families then. That’s what we’re rooting for. We’ve been fortunate with three sons, and[REDACTED]’sdone a great job of adding to the family. Every kid showed up through cesarean section so it wasn’t all pleasant, right! So this has been a really good experience, especially for Penny, to have a new son enter the family! So we’re just blessed, and we just want to say thank you to everyone here as part of the celebration.


Listen to the audio below or at this link:

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet









What Ted Cruz Got Wrong About Gay Marriage And The Supreme Court

What Ted Cruz Got Wrong About Gay Marriage And The Supreme Court

Anticipating action by the Supreme Court's right-wing majority, Senator Ted Cruz last week said the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide was “clearly wrong.”

Asked about the landmark case, Obergefell v. Hodges, in a video posted to YouTube from his podcast, he claimed, “Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation’s history,” he claimed.

For many, his comments come as no surprise. In his concurring decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to put a target on the landmark LGBTQ+ case, claiming that the court “should reconsider” its decision in Obergefell.

So Cruz’s comments seem to be merely doubling down on Clarence Thomas’ threat to same-sex marriage. “Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states,” said Cruz. He went further, saying that the Obergefell decision “was the court overreaching.”

But he’s wrong. The United States Congress has passed federal legislation regulating marriage previously, and the Supreme Court has decided cases enforcing those laws over the past “two centuries of our nation’s history.” As early as 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which prevented a person from being married to more than one individual at a time, later amended and strengthened by the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act 1882.

Both laws were later upheld by the Supreme Court in Reynolds v. United States (1879) and Late Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States (1890). Congress also passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, defining a marriage as a union between one man and one woman, which was ultimately struck down by the Court’s decision in Obergefell.

The majority opinion in Obergefell largely rested on precedent from previous cases, including the seminal civil rights case Loving v. Virginia (1967), which struck down laws that made interracial marriage illegal. The court echoed the words of Loving in its opinion on Obergefell, claiming that marriage, and the freedom to choose one’s spouse, is “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Consequently, the court concluded that “the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and…couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.”

Given the connection between the rights of interracial couples and same-sex to marry, Justice Thomas’ desire to revisit the court’s decision on Obergefell is odd. Would a reconsideration of the principles undergirding the Obergefell decision force the Court to reconsider its ruling in Loving? Given that Justice Thomas, only the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court, is married to a white woman, perhaps he should not throw stones.

To avoid directly stating his own aversion to same-sex relationships, Cruz instead complained that the Court prematurely truncated the democratic process. “Before Obergefell, some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states were moving to allow civil partnerships. There were different standards that the states were adopting. And had the court not ruled in Obergefell, the democratic process would have continued to operate,” Cruz claimed. “In Obergefell, the court said, 'No, we know better than you guys do, and now every state must, sanction and permit gay marriage.'”

Cruz’s words are oddly reminiscent of the "moderates" in Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, who urged civil rights activists to “wait” for more gradual change. Yet the Court anticipated and answered this objection in its decision. In his majority opinion for the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited Schuette v. BAMN, noting that “when the rights of persons are violated, ‘the Constitution requires redress by the courts,’ notwithstanding the more general value of democratic decision-making. The dynamic of our constitutional system is that individuals need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right.”

Perhaps Cruz and Thomas’ opposition to the expansion of human rights is not because of its timing, but because, as Dr. King observed, “privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”

Top Senate Leaders See Bipartisan Support To Pass Gay Marriage Bill

Top Senate Leaders See Bipartisan Support To Pass Gay Marriage Bill


By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top Senate Democrats and Republicans said on Wednesday they may have the votes to pass a bill protecting same-sex marriage rights nationwide, the day after the measure passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan majority.

The measure, intended to head off any Supreme Court effort to roll back gay marriage rights, passed the House on Tuesday with all Democrats and 47 Republican representatives - just over a fifth of their caucus - voting in favor.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday said he was "really impressed by how much bipartisan support it got in the House."

When the Supreme Court last month struck down its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling protecting the right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should also reconsider its past rulings that guaranteed access to contraception and the right to gay marriage because they relied on the same legal arguments as Roe.

Under Senate rules, Schumer would need at least 10 Republicans in favor to pass the bill in the 50-50 Senate.

Senator John Thune, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said he believed a bill codifying gay marriage could receive enough Republican support to pass.

"I wouldn’t be surprised. We haven't assessed that at all, yet," he told reporters when asked if 10 Republicans could back such legislation. "But as a general matter, I think that is something people in the country have come to accept."

Republican Senator Ted Cruz said on Saturday that the Supreme Court was "clearly wrong" in establishing a federal right to gay marriage. Senator Lindsey Graham said he would not support a bill codifying same sex marriage.

Several other Republicans have said they could support the bill. Senator Susan Collins co-sponsored a Senate version of the House bill. Senator Thom Tillis told CNN on Wednesday that he would "probably" vote in favor.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton, additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

Video: ‘Christian’ Woman Refuses Venue For Interracial Marriage

Video: ‘Christian’ Woman Refuses Venue For Interracial Marriage

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

When the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges — which in effect, legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states — was handed down in 2015, Christian fundamentalists who opposed the ruling sounded a lot like the segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s who argued that if certain states wanted to discriminate along racial lines, they should be allowed to rather than having to adhere to a national standard. Some white Christian fundamentalists oppose both same-sex marriage and interracial marriage, and in Booneville, Mississippi, one such business appears to be Boone Camp Event Hall.

When an interracial couple wanted to use Boone Camp, according to Deep South Voice’s Ashton Pittman, they were told that the event hall doesn’t accommodate either interracial marriage or same-sex marriage. LaKambria Welch, Pittman reports, was hoping that her brother (who is black) and his fiancée (who is white) would be able to rent the hall for their wedding. But Welch was told by a female employee that because of Boone’s Christian beliefs, the venue had a policy against interracial marriages — and noted that it had a policy against same-sex marriages as well.

The employee, according to Pittman, told Welch, “First of all, we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race, because of our Christian race — I mean, our Christian belief.”

Welch replied, “OK, we’re Christians as well” — and when Welch went on to ask what in the Bible prohibits interracial marriages, the woman responded, “Well, I don’t want to argue my faith.”

Welch told Deep South Voice, “The owner took a look at my brother’s fiancée’s page and wrote her back to say they won’t be able to get married there because of her beliefs. He told my mom, and she contacted the owner through messenger to only get a ‘seen’ with no reply. That’s when I took it upon myself to go get clarification on her beliefs.”

According to another woman in Mississippi, Katelynn Springsteen, Boone Camp has refused to serve same-sex couples as well. Deep South Voice quotes Springsteen as saying that in 2018, “I was trying to find my best friend, who is lesbian, a wedding venue. I was immediately shot down when I was asked if they were OK with a gay wedding.”

Springsteen, according to Pittman, said she received a message saying, “Thanks for checking with us, Katelynn, but due to our Christian faith, we would not be able to accommodate you.”

Mississippi is among the red states that has passed some so-called “religious freedom” bills that allow businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples. The first was Mississippi Senate Bill 2681, a.k.a. the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2014; the next was the more explicit Mississippi House Bill 1523, which was passed in 2016 and says it protects “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” that “marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman.” However, 1523 (which was passed the year after the Obergefell v. Hodges decision was handed down) does not mention race.