Something to ponder for the "no difference" crowd

[rufus dog]

Do you really think the Prop 8 decision and the SB1070 decision would have gone down the same way under Republican control?

[Wilms]

1. So a judge will rule differently depending upon who the President is.

And continued torture, wiretapping, habeus corpus suspension, and protection of war criminals represents "change"?

:shrug:

[MH1]

20. a different judge could have ruled, depending on who was appointing

and that different judge would have ruled differently.

[Wilms]

26. Sure. But was that the point of the OP?

And if so, how would that explain THIS judge who was appointed by King George I?

[Bluenorthwest]

2. The judge who ruled on Prop 8 was a Republican appointee

Bush 41. And yes, I do think it would have been the same. You suggest that the judiciary is fully corrupted. I do not fully agree.

[MH1]

21. Bush 41 would have a tough time in the GOP today

just sayin'.

[vi5]

3. Uh.....

Weren't both of those decisions made by judges? What does that have to do with Republican or Dem control?

You could maybe make a vague correlation if Obama were appointing hardcore liberal firebrand judges and/or making a huger stink about Republican obstruction of his appointments. But neither one is true.

You could also make a vague correlation if Obama and/or major figures in the Dem leadership had issued statements in support of the decisions. But unless I missed them, that's not true either.

[discopants]

5. SB1070 was challenged by Holder

I doubt a President McCain would have let his AG do the same.

[pnwmom]

4. If McCain/Palin were in office, they'd be leading the charge to a Constitutional

Amendment banning gay marriage. And, since most of the country lags California, they'd have a decent chance of getting one.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Based on what?

Palin and Biden agreed about equal rights during the debates, Joe shouted that he and Obama agree with her.
I do not recall that they were running on pushing such and amendment, I do remember Biden agreeing with her, and I remember Donnie McClurkin, Rick Warren, and I also remember that being a tad better than McPalin is a heinously low bar to set.
No such amendment could ever pass, especially under senile and insane leadership, although I see you think Palin and McCain capable of great things, I think they were unable to even be taken seriously as candidates.
And as far as 'lagging CA' goes, the people of CA passed Prop 8. A judge overturned it. At this point, all of the country lags behind MA. CA is not the leader of that pack at all.

[pnwmom]

8. Based on that it's what their base would want. Palin definitely does not believe

in gay marriage, no matter what she said in the debates about equal rights.

Saying that Obama is a "tad" better than Palin is even worse than saying Gore was a "tad" better than Bush. After 8 years of Bush, you should know better.

[Dr.Phool]

9. Neither does Obama, as reiterated by Gibbs yesterday.

[Radical Activist]

12. Let's compare.

Gibbs was pointing out that Obama's position hasn't changed and spent 1/2 second out of a 10 minute interview listing marriage as a position he's consistent on (along with his support for civil unions and opposing prop 8).

Then we have Palin's demagoguery on Fox News.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cable-news-takes-on-proposition-8-ruling-in-california-in-very-different-ways/

I don't know what to say to anyone who can't see the difference.

[pnwmom]

15. Obama's walking a tightrope not of his choosing. His administration will have to defend DOMA..

Why? Because the Court decision tossing it out relies on an interpretation of the 10th amendment that is untenable. And not because of gay rights -- because of all the other federal law that would be affected. If the Court's ruling is allowed to stand, then the state's rights people win -- which would have serious ramifications for federally guaranteed civil rights and federal law in many other areas.

Justice Walker's ruling is a wonderful step forward. But the other judge's ruling against DOMA relies on a states rights theory that can't be allowed to prevail. It would represent a terrible step backward.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/06/supreme-double-rainbow-tw_n_673653.html

Perhaps more importantly, Tenth Amendment arguments prove entirely too much. As much as liberals might applaud the result, they should be aware that the logic of his arguments, taken seriously, would undermine the constitutionality of wide swaths of federal regulatory programs and seriously constrict federal regulatory power.
And that would have some seriously far-reaching ripples:

The arguments of Judge Tauro's two opinions are at war with each other. He wants to say that marriage is a distinctly state law function with which the federal government may not interfere. But the federal government has been involved in the regulation of family life and family formation since at least Reconstruction, and especially so since the New Deal. Much of the modern welfare state and tax code defines families, regulates family formation and gives incentives (some good and some bad) with respect to marriages and families. Indeed, social conservatives have often argued for using the federal government's taxing and spending powers to create certain types of incentives for family formation and to benefit certain types of family structures; so too have liberals.

In both opinions, Judge Tauro takes us through a list of federal programs for which same sex couples are denied benefits. But he does not see that even as he does so, he is also reciting the history of federal involvement in family formation and family structure. His Tenth Amendment argument therefore collapses of its own weight. If the federal government cannot interfere with state prerogatives in these areas, why was it able to pass all of these statutes, which clearly affect how state family law operates in practice and clearly give incentives that could further, undermine, or even in some cases preempt state policies?

As nifty as it might be to watch the Tenthers hoisted with their own petard, Balkin lays out the many reasons that the Obama administration would be obligated to defend the DOMA in this case. Not that they'll look forward to doing so: when it comes to bad political "optics" nothing is going to give progressives -- at least the ones lacking the keen sense necessary to divine the larger threat to a progressive federal agenda -- greater fits than watching the Obama administration go to the wall in the defense of the Defense Of Marriage Act.

[SunsetDreams]

14. Palin and Biden did not agree about equal rights

I didn't remember a "shout" from Biden or that they agreed about equal rights, so I went back and reviewed the exchange.
What they did agree on was gay marriage, NOT civil rights or equal rights. The word "TOLERANT" pisses me off all over again.

youtube here on entire exchange: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfIKdRmWkBI

“The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she thinks there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple,” Biden said. “If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.”

“Is that what you said?” asked Ifill.

But Palin stuck to the definition of marriage rather than engaging the topic of constitutional rights. “Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not,” she said.

Ifill concluded, “Wonderful. You agree. On that note, let's move to foreign policy.”

The nuanced discussion may well have been lost on average viewers, who easily could have walked away thinking that the two candidates hold essentially the same view: They do not support gay marriage. But Senator Biden argued that same-sex couples should be treated equally under the law and afforded all the same rights and responsibilities as straight married couples.

Governor Palin did not clarify whether she agreed with Biden on that point. Based on past statements, one might reasonably deduce that she does not. Although she did veto a bill in Alaska that would have denied health benefits to partners of state employees, she did so at the urging of her attorney general, who argued that signing the bill would have been a violation of the state constitution as interpreted by Alaska’s highest court. At the time, Palin said she personally disagreed with providing same-sex partner benefits but was legally compelled as governor to kill the bill.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2008/10/03/Biden,_Palin_Debate_Same-Sex_Marriage/

Furthermore Sarah Palin thinks being gay is a choice, grrrrrrrrr FU Sarah Palin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTH7yb3Ap5g

[Starry Messenger]

7. Yes.

Most of these gains are being pushed by the grassroots.

[LostinVA]

18. You said it, Sister!

Our rights come mainly from Grassroots, not from the Top.

I mean, we have TED OLSEN to thank for helping this ruling be made. And, now Arnie is asking for marriage equality to resume in CA.

[TheKentuckian]

10. I honestly don't understand the logic of the question. What impact are you claiming Obama made on

the ruling?

I'm not saying there is no "there" there but I know I'm not seeing any tangible connection.

[Radical Activist]

11. I notice the lack of demagoguery about gay marriage.

We have a President who simply stated his opposition to prop 8 and his support for the decision. Yes, it would be a very different picture if a Republican were President.

[treestar]

13. Prop 8 no difference

But there would have been no challenge to SB1070.

The main difference would be two more Scalia types on the Court.

[niceypoo]

16. Wasnt the judge a GOP appointee?

[LostinVA]

19. Yes -- Reagan AND Poppy

[LostinVA]

17. WTF difference would the President have made about Prop 8???

It's a REPUBLICAN JUDGE.

[LatteLibertine]

22. The parties

also differ drastically on how they view relationships between labor and management/owners.

The Republicans would be perfectly content to let wealth and power continue to rise to the most wealthy in a rigged system. To them, the poor and middle class are meat to be exploited and abused. We're objects without feelings and our only meaning is to create revenue for them.

Republicans howl about unions and due to scare tactics like losing your employment, many don't join.

Get out and vote this November. Going back to Republican rule would be a nightmare.

[Milo_Bloom]

23. Yes

[Aramchek]

24. Kagan and Sotomayor would not be there to decide the case

[Touchdown]

25. Yes. I do.

The judge was a Republican appointee, and the chief prosecutor is a longtime Republican attorney who argued for Bush in 2000. What's more...

A Democrat passed DOMA and DADT into law. Never forget that! As horrible to everything else in the world Bush was in the last 8 years, he did nothing punitive to gay people, nor did the GOP leadership in congress... and there were a lot of fundy reps who wanted to. A democrat ran in 2008 promising a repeal of those two laws, and he is actively stalling and sabotaging their repeal now.

The awful truth? Dick Cheney was more pro gay than Barack Obama.