Yet Another “Family Values” Republican Caught With His Pants Down

I find all this hypocrisy very tiring, so I’ll just summarize:

– Republican Assemblyman from California Michael D. Duvall
– Married with two kids
– Pro “family values” and supported anti-gay Prop 8
–  While waiting for a legislative session to start, was caught on a live mic speaking to a colleague about the graphic details of the affair he is having
– The affair is with a lobbyist.
– He just resigned.  (And I guess that gets a pat on the back these days?)

Sigh.  It’s becoming all so predictable, isn’t it?

Video from the local news, after the jump.

Marriage Equality Videos

Here are a couple videos put out by Keith Hartman (I have no idea who that is).  They hit on a similar theme – the selective use of Biblical scripture to further your cause – and do so pretty effectively.

Obama: What Promises?

Obama just spent two days in California raising $4 million dollars for the Democratic National Committee.

Outside the Beverly Hills location of last night’s event, groups waving pride flags protested the California Supreme Court’s recent Prop. 8 decision (above). Obama apparently made eye contact with one of them as he entered the building, as he referenced them in his remarks:

“One of them said, ‘Obama keep your promise,’ ” the president said. “I thought that’s fair. I don’t know which promise he was talking about.”

Not funny, Obama. Not. Funny.

Source.

Stay Positive, Gays

Dan Savage on the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8:

This morning’s decision was expected but, in the wake of so many recent victories, still saddening. But we have to remember that this is a long game and, despite this setback, we are winning. We’re going to hear a lot about Prop 8 today, and the fight to overturn it, but let’s not forget about Prop 22.

In 2000 California voters approved a law banning same-sex marriage. It was a ballot initiative, like Prop 8, but just a law, not a constitutional amendment. And it was that law, Prop 22, that the CA Supremes struck down in 2008, in their historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. And voters in 2000 approved Prop 22 in by a nearly 22-point margin. And eight years later the same voters would approved Prop 8 by four points. That’s an 18-point shift in favor of marriage equality in just eight years. That’s extraordinary progress. A loss is still a loss, and a loss sucks, but the trend is so strongly in our favor that we cannot lose hope. The anti-gay bigots know that they’re losing this debate, and it’s why they’re so hot to amend state constitutions now, while they still can, while they can still count on the votes of the old, the bigoted, and the easily manipulated. But they are losing and they know it.

We’re going to go back to the ballot box in California in 2010 or 2012 and voters are going to repeal Prop 8. Fundamental civil rights should not be subject to a popular vote, of course, and the CA Supremes had an opportunity to reaffirm that ideal. They chose not to, they buckled, and so we, unlike other minority groups, face the challenge of securing our rights at the ballot box. That seems daunting prospect until you recall 2000’s Prop 22 and compare its margin of victory to that of 2008’s Prop 8. Again, we witnessed an eighteen point shift in favor of gay marriage in California in just eight years. We can move another four points. We just have to stay in the fight and remind ourselves and each other that we are winning.

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting, via Twitter, that arrests have began of of non-violent protesters in San Francisco.

San Diego Pride is encouraging civil disobedience among those protesting in that city.

Day of Decision is coordinating protests across the nation. Go here to find your state/city.

Towleroad has more.

NYT: Iowa’s Family Values

Op-Ed contributor Steven Thrasher:

If it weren’t for Iowa, my family may never have existed, and this gay, biracial New Yorker might never have been born.

In 1958, when my mother, who was white, and father, who was black, wanted to get married in Nebraska, it was illegal for them to wed. So they decided to go next door to Iowa, a state that was progressive enough to allow interracial marriage. My mom’s brother tried to have the Nebraska state police bar her from leaving the state so she couldn’t marry my dad, which was only the latest legal indignity she had endured. She had been arrested on my parents’ first date, accused of prostitution. (The conventional thought of the time being: Why else would a white woman be seen with a black man?)

[…]

That I almost cried last week upon reading that the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state law banning same-sex marriage will therefore come as no surprise. I’m still struck by one thought: over the years, I’ve met so many gay émigrés who felt it was unsafe to be gay in so-called flyover country and fled for the East and West coasts. But as a gay man, I can’t marry in “liberal” New York, where I’m a resident, or in “liberal” California, where I was born, and very soon I will have that right in “conservative” Iowa.

Read the rest here.

Kathy Griffin Rallies For Gay Marriage

Super-ally Kathy Griffin gave a nine-minute speech yesterday at the California state capitol defending the rights of gay people to get married. To opponents to marriage equality she asked, “What the fuck is it to you!?”

Perfect.

The CA Supreme Court is yet to issue their ruling on the legality of Prop 8 but most analysts agree that it will probably stand.

Via Towleroad.

What He Said…

From the Prop 8 hearings.  Source.

Starr: Any Right Of The Minority Can Be Taken Away By The Majority

The general consensus is that yesterday’s oral arguments in California’s Supreme Court on the validity of Prop 8 did not go well for The Gays. The LA Times summarizes:

An interaction between Chief Justice Ronald George and Kenneth Starr, who is defending Proposition 8, gets to the heart of the argument.

Starr argues that voters have an inalienable right to amend the state constitution as they see fit through simple majority vote, inlcuding “things that tug at the equality principle.” But George leans in on the question and asks whether, if Proposition 8 had specifically said that homosexuals had no right to form a family relationship or raise children, that still could be done by amendment? Starr replies yes.

George pursues it further, asking if California voters could remove the right to free speech? Starr says yes.

“Tug at the equality principle?”  Right. Could you white-wash that a little more, Ken? I think you mean, “create inequality.”

It would be nice to believe that this exchange will finally lead the general public to believe that gay marriage is bigger than a bunch of ‘mos who want to get hitched and does, in fact, have something to do with them. Unfortunately, I’m not that optimistic.

Prop 8 Hearings Begin Thursday; New Pro-Equality Ad

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on the legality of Prop 8, specifically whether it was an improper revision of the state’s constitution.  On Friday, Equality California will begin airing this 30-second ad, calling for it’s repeal:

I’m not sure how I feel about (spending money on) this ad. Since the court’s ruling will have nothing to do with public opinion, it’s seems a bit odd for this spot to be airing now (as opposed to, oh, I don’t know, before the election?!), and I think I agree with Towleroad on this that, while the images are grave and moving, the music and voice-over are too saccharine for this point in the battle.

For more coverage on Thursday’s hearings, see Google News.

Thanks Joe. My. God.