Supreme Court hears other gay marriage case on Federal DOMA law

PHOTO: gay marriage headlines on covers of 'Newsweek': 'Is Gay Marriage Next?' July 7, 2003; 'The Religious Case for Gay Marriage' Dec. 15, 2008; and 'The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage' Jan. 18, 2010. (See previous posts 'Newsweek' gay marriage covers 2003 to 2010 (1/13/10)) and Newsweek gay marriage religious case (12/10/08) where I write about the 2008 cover stories on gay marriage and religion.)

Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in another gay marriage case. This one concerned the case about the Federal Defense of Marriage Act that forbids the recognition, under Federal law, of gay marriages legally sanctioned by state laws. (See Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA Final version (Enrolled Bill) as passed by both Houses (there are 4 other versions of this bill) from the 104th Congress (1995-1996) H.R.3396.ENR posted at thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c104:H.R.3396.ENR:, John Aravosis, ""DOMA is in trouble" (quick read of Supreme Court arguments today)," americablog.com posted Mar. 27, 2013, Jim Burroway, "DOMA's Doom Appears Likely," boxturtlebulletin.com posted Mar. 27, 2013, "Special series: Same-Sex Marriage And The Supreme Court" accessed at npr.org Mar. 27, 2013 and "Transcript And Audio: Supreme Court Arguments On Defense Of Marriage Act," npr.org posted Mar. 27, 2013)

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the other case about the legalization of gay marriage under the California Prop 8 state law. (See previous posts Supreme Court on Jack Baker's gay marriage case 42 years later (3/26/13))

Congress passed DOMA in the 1990's during a period when Republicans were successfully using gay marriage as a "wedge issue" to split off Democrats to vote for Republicans. Republicans exploited the fact that Democrats had historically supported equal civil rights for minorities and women and Democrats had chosen to remain politically silent about the equal rights of gay citizens. As a result the Republicans were able to rally their base over the fear of the gay marriage issue and turn out greater numbers to vote for Republican candidates. Also, Republicans coldly used the wedge issue of gay marriage to help get President George W. Bush get re-elected in 2004 by putting anti-gay marriage laws on state ballots across the country, including Oregon where the ballot measure was also passed as a constitutional amendment that is much harder to overturn by either the voters or courts because it would be very expensive to put on the ballot and state courts can't declare something unconstitutional that is already in the state constitution. Fortunately, the Republicans' failed in their attempt to also amend the U.S. Constitution to bar same-sex marriage -- if the U.S. Constitution had been amended to outlaw gay marriages, then the U.S. Supreme Court would have little power to rule against it.

Gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile writes about being quoted out of context by anti-gay marriage forces when he used the words "redefine marriage" in a column two decades ago:

• Michelangelo Signorile, "How We Got to the Supreme Court," huffingtonpost.com posted Mar. 25, 2013
• Michelangelo Signorile, "Ken Mehlman, Former RNC Chairman, On Supreme Court's DOMA, Prop 8 Hearings," huffingtonpost.com posted Mar. 26, 2013

Supreme Court on Jack Baker's gay marriage case 42 years later

PHOTO: May 18, 1970 Michael McConnell and Jack Baker were married by Hennepin County Minnesota Justice of the Peace. As a law student, Baker brought his gay marriage case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Baker V. Nelson case, which was dismissed with a boiler plate ruling that was frequently used by the court back then. See previous posts Oregon same-sex marriage vote and Pope resigns hits front page (2/21/13), Life Magazine gay marriage 1971 (11/20/08), Gay marriage pioneer Jack Baker starts blog (confirmed) (4.4.12), and Sam Champion gay marriage 2012 vs. 1970 Jack Baker (1/8/13).

The U.S. Supreme court just heard arguments in the latest gay marriage case and I just read the "Transcript And Audio: Supreme Court Arguments On California Gay Marriage Ban," npr.org posted Mar. 26, 2013 1:57PM.

The Supreme Court discussed Jack Baker's gay marriage case from over 42 years ago during arguments in the present California case, but the court seemed to have forgotten how the so-called "decision" they made 42 years ago (essentially that gay marriage is only a matter of state law and not federal law) was only a boilerplate decision that was commonly copied word for word by the court to dismiss cases they had been forced to hear by policy, but cases they didn't want to spend any time actually deciding. (For a photo of an original printed bound copy of the Baker decision, see below or see previous posts Arthur Leonard CA Prop 8 appeal still citing Jack Baker gay marriage case (8/3/12) and Baker v. Nelson 1972 Supreme Court order on gay marriage (7/22/09))

Below is the reference to Jack Baker's gay marriage case as quoted from the "Transcript And Audio: Supreme Court Arguments On California Gay Marriage Ban," npr.org posted Mar. 26, 2013 1:57PM:

"MR. COOPER: The issues, the constitutional issues that have been presented to the Court, are not of first impression here. In Baker v. Nelson, this Court unanimously dismissed for want of a substantial Federal question.

" JUSTICE GINSBURG: Mr. Cooper, Baker v. Nelson was 1971. The Supreme Court hadn't even decided that gender-based classifications get any kind of heightened scrutiny. MR. COOPER: That is --

" JUSTICE GINSBURG: And the same-sex intimate conduct was considered criminal in many States in 1971, so I don't think we can extract much in Baker v. Nelson.

" MR. COOPER: Well, Your Honor, certainly I acknowledge the precedential limitations of a summary dismissal. But Baker v. Nelson also came fairly fast on the heels of the Loving decision. And, Your Honor, I simply make the observation that it seems implausible in the extreme, frankly, for nine justices to have -- to have seen no substantial Federal question if it is true, as the Respondents maintain, that the traditional definition of marriage insofar as - insofar as it does not include same-sex couples, insofar as it is a gender definition is irrational and can only be explained, can only be explained, as a result of anti-gay malice and a bare desire to harm.

" JUSTICE KENNEDY: Do you believe this can be treated as a gender-based classification?

" MR. COOPER: Your Honor, I --

" JUSTICE KENNEDY: It's a difficult question that I've been trying to wrestle with it.

" MR. COOPER: Yes, Your Honor. And we do not. We do not think it is properly viewed as a gender-based classification. Virtually every appellate court, State and Federal, with one exception, Hawaii, in a superseded opinion, has agreed that it is not a gender-based classification, but I guess it is gender-based in the sense that marriage itself is a gendered institution, a gendered term, and so in the same way that fatherhood is gendered more motherhood is gendered, it's gendered in that sense.

" But we -- we agree that to the extent that the classification impacts, as it clearly does, same-sex couples, that -- that classification can be viewed as being one of sexual orientation rather than --"

(Quoted from "Transcript And Audio: Supreme Court Arguments On California Gay Marriage Ban," npr.org posted Mar. 26, 2013 1:57PM)

PHOTO: the first court case on same-sex marriage was initiated by University of Minnesota law student Jack Baker in 1970: Baker et al. v. Nelson, Oct. 10, 1972, "United States Reports, Volume 409, Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court, October Term, 1972," U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974, p. 810. The Appeal was "dismissed for want of a substantial federal question." Notice how this same phrase was used to dismiss scads of other cases. The court seemed to be using it as shorthand to say a case was a matter of state law and not federal law. See previous posts Arthur Leonard CA Prop 8 appeal still citing Jack Baker gay marriage case (8/3/12) and Baker v. Nelson 1972 Supreme Court order on gay marriage (7/22/09)

I mentioned both the Oregon State University professor W. Dorr Legg's conservative case for gay marriage from 1953 and the gender discrimination argument for gay marriage, which was brought up by the court again, in my previous post Would former HP CEO have wanted voters to decide women's rights in the 1950's? (3/22/13)

Although Jack Baker was the first person to champion gay marriage, the Rev. Troy Perry also helped to promote the concept by performing religious marriage ceremonies for gay couples. Perry's past and potential future contribution to gays and religion was discussed in a recent article by Rachel Zoll, Associated Press, "Do gays need a church of their own anymore?" printed in Gazette-Times, Jan. 2, 2013, p. A8, posted on usnews.com Jan. 1, 2013.

The Jack Baker Now is the time Blog Website has copies of letters sent to Jack Baker that are poignantly interesting to read. See previous post Gay marriage pioneer Jack Baker starts blog (confirmed) (4/4/12)

Also see Thomas Kraemer's previous blog posts on Jack Baker and gay marriage activism:

• Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010 for my history of OSU and the positive influence Jack Baker had on it.
• Life Magazine gay marriage 1971 (11/20/08) -- a mass circulation magazine features Jack Baker's gay marriage
• Newsweek gay marriage religious case (12/10/08)
• Sunday paper gay marriage advice (1/12/09)
• Jack Baker gay marriage theory was right (4/28/09)
• Obama wrong on Baker v. Nelson gay marriage case (6/13/09)
• Jack Baker GAY cover 1971 (7/18/09)
• Baker v. Nelson 1972 Supreme Court order on gay marriage (7/22/09)
• Jack Baker 1971 Look magazine gay marriage story (7/23/09)
• Arthur S. Leonard on Baker v Nelson gay marriage case (7/28/09)
• Jack Baker case still cited to bar gay marriage (3/12/11)
• Gay marriage pioneer Jack Baker starts blog (confirmed) (4/4/12)

Would former HP CEO have wanted voters to decide women's rights in the 1950's?

PHOTO: Berlin university students carrying away the library from the home of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) on May 6, 1933 for a May 10-11 Nazi book burning, (New York Herald Tribune, May 17, 1933). See previous posts OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Agreement (1/4/12), Magnus Hirschfeld Book notes 37 to 39 - final post (11/2/10) and "PBS features gay Nazi Joseph Goebbels" (5/29/2006) where I mentioned the May 11, 1933 Nazi book burning and May 6, 1933 plundering of the sex research institute of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) - biography at www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology .

PHOTO: the research journal ONE was ahead of its time when in 1953 it mentioned the idea of "homosexual marriage" long before "gay marriage" or same-sex marriage had become the a cause of a few gay liberationists, such as Jack Baker. The former Oregon State University Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture W. Dorr Legg was one of the major contributors to the ONE homophile magazine and he was also a Christian conservative who probably saw gay marriage as being a conservative value whereas others didn't want gays obligated to get married like straight people were traditionally expected to do. (See James T. Sears, PhD, "1953: When ONE Magazine, Headlined 'Homosexual Marriage,'" GayToday.com posted Aug. 11, 2003 and my previous posts Gay marriage pioneer Jack Baker starts blog (confirmed) (4/4/12), OSU W. Dorr Legg homosexual marriage 1953 vs. CA Prop 8 2010 (8/22/10), Oregon same-sex marriage vote and Pope resigns hits front page (2/21/13) and Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010 for my history of OSU.

I saw the Republican Party's favorite female advocate, Carly Fiorina, on a weekend TV political roundtable responding to the idea of gay marriage with an insidious illogic that motivated me to respond by sending the following letter to my local newspaper that is located in the town where both Oregon State University and a large division of Hewlett-Packard are located:

The former Oregon State University Professor W. Dorr Legg (1904-1994) was a Christian Republican and academic researcher of homosexuality. In 1953, Legg's research journal published an essay discussing his conservative's case for "homosexual marriage."

Conservative GOP Senator Rob Portman recently made Legg's case for gay marriage after finding out his son is gay.

Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican Party star, reacted by repeating the Republican platitude of "let voters decide," not the courts, if marriage equality is a constitutional right. Would Fiorina in the 1950's have similarly wanted voters to decide women's equal rights, which have facilitated her success?

To encourage more research in these areas, I founded the multi-million dollar charitable OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund to honor the gay German doctor whose research books were literally burned by the Nazis.

(Quoted from Thomas Kraemer, "Change in personal situation can reverse anti-gay stance," Gazette-Times, Mar. 22, 2013, p. A9)

Other gay bloggers saw the same hypocrisy in Fiorina's words that I did:

• John Aravosis, "Every time a judge frees a black man or a gay, Carly Fiorina kills a kitten," americablog.com posted Mar. 17, 2013
• Michelangelo Signorile, "The 58 Percent: Rob Portman, Hillary Clinton and the Future of Marriage Equality," huffingtonpost.com posted Mar. 19, 2013
• Jim Burroway, "The Thirty-Six Percent," Box Turtle Bulletin posted Mar. 19, 2013 includes a link to a ABC/Washington Post poll that shows that support for marriage equality has hit an all-time high with analysis byGary Langer, "Poll Tracks Dramatic Rise In Support for Gay Marriage," ABC News polls released March 18, 2013at abcnews.com/pollingunit (PDF).

Customer feedback on Google Reader shutdown - is Blogger next?

PHOTO: screen shot of Google Reader home page set up for a low vision reader, Thomas Kraemer, in a Microsoft Internet Explorer browser window. It summarizes all of my RSS subscriptions and how many items I have not read yet. For example, RSS feeds from various bloggers and a RSS subscription to the U.S. Treasury Department's page that announces new Treasury Bonds being offered for sale.

PHOTO: screen shot of Google Reader set up for a low vision reader, Thomas Kraemer, to read the full text RSS feed from his local city newspaper. The newspaper's Web site is nearly impossible to read for a low vision person compared to the simple reformatted text that Google Reader provides. Also, Google Reader overcomes having to continuously go back to the Web site and check for new stories because Google Reader keeps track of what is read and not read. All users of Google Reader can click on the headline to open the original Web page and see it fully formatted with other page content, if they are interested in the story, otherwise you can skip to the next feed item. Web sites are smart to provide an RSS feed, which costs them almost nothing, because it will drive more traffic to their site and therefore generate more ad revenue, because more readers will spot interesting content while scanning their RSS feed everyday. In fact, RSS feeds might save Websites money because users do not have to constantly reload Web pages constantly to see if there is anything new.

As a loyal Google customer and the owner of a large number of shares of Google stock, I was shocked to see how poorly managed the shutting down of Google Reader has been.

I have decades of experience shutting down products at Silicon Valley's most successful granddaddy and the rule I learned there was to never ask a customer to shop for another service provider, unless you were willing to lose all of the profits the customer gives your company through your other products and services.

For example, I was about to invest big in the Google Android ecosystem, but I am now holding off my decision because I am wondering, if Google killed Google Reader, will they kill Blogger next? More important, will Google ever support the core user need met by Google Rader in any of their other products, and if not, then why would I want to use incomplete Google services?

The second rule I learned was to always provide your customer with a way he can use your other products to meet his needs, even if this means you have to do some engineering upgrades to your other products. Otherwise, the customer will be forced to go shopping and they will very likely abandon all of your products, even the ones you want to keep selling.

Brusquely telling the customer, like Google Reader did, to use their "Google Takeout" program for moving to a competing service is better than providing nothing, but it also tells your customer that they shouldn't count on you for anything in the future.

As a Google stockholder, I fully understand and support Google's stated purpose and strategy of focusing on fewer products by shutting down low usage products in order to free up engineering resources for newer and more profitable programs. However, the core user needs met by Google Rader will not go away and therefore Google is being crazy to risk telling customers to go elsewhere for a core need.

I hope some more mature and experienced managers at Google will recover from this misstep. There was another recent example of Google making this type of misstep and then recovering when Gmail brusquely told users their email would be shut down because they were using an obsolete browser and must upgrade to Chrome to avoid their computer from being infected by a security hole. After more mature managers at Google evaluated this approach, which at the best looked like a tacky attempt to move people from Microsoft IE to Google Chrome, Google changed to saying they were not going to build new features for older browsers and users signing into Gmail with an obsolete browser would be redirected to the lower featured standard Gmail or HTML only Gmail interface, which poses no added security risk. Google would be crazy not to support forever through theses standards.

Some related links about the Google Reader shut down and obsolescence:

• "A second spring of cleaning," Google Official Blog posted Mar. 13, 2013
• "There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products," Alan Green, a Google software engineer, wrote in a blog post. "We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience."
• Google Takeout Link provided by Google "to start downloading your Reader data from Takeout. Once downloaded, your subscription data should be easily transferrable to another product, where you can continue to keep up with your online reading."
• Chloe Albanesius, "Google Reader Shutting Down on July 1," pcmag.com posted Mar. 13, 2013
• Stephanie Mlot, "Digg Building Google Reader RSS Replacement," pcmag.com posted Mar. 14, 2013
• "We're Building A Reader," blog.digg.com accessed Mar. 14, 2013
• www.digg.com/reader for latest update
• Heinz Tschabitscher, "Top 9 Windows RSS Feed Readers and News Aggregators," About.com Guide
• Matthew Guay, "Google Reader is Dead. Here's What You Need to Replace it," appstorm.net posted March 14th 2013

New OSU football uniforms are so gay LOL

PHOTO: The official Oregon State University student newspaper ran a story and an opinion piece on the new uniform design for OSU sports. See article by Warner Strausbaugh, "'Rebranding' of OSU athletics unveiled," OSU Barometer, March 5, 2013, p. 1 and opinion piece by Alex Crawford, "Column: OSU uniforms combine old with new," OSU Barometer, Mar. 2013.

Casual readers of this blog attacked me the last time I called something "so gay," even though I did not intend the term to be an insult. I figure it is worth trying again to take back this phrase by using it again in this post -- please don't beat me!

The reason I call the new uniform's fashion to be "so gay" is because historically fashion and fashion designers have been assumed to be gay and totally the opposite of macho football players who are assumed to be paragons of flaming heterosexuality. Despite this historical stereotype, OSU has had a few famous and macho gay football players over the last century.

PHOTO: student George Hastings (top row, left) and the 1910 football team at Oregon Agricultural College (former name of Oregon State University) as pictured in "The 1912 Orange" yearbook, p. 159. Hastings associated with gay men arrested in Portland. See my previous posts Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010 and OSU gay football player 1908 (6/19/08) and Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010.

PHOTO: Former NFL player Esera Tuaolo comes out as gay on the cover of The Advocate. ("Tackling football's closet," By Bruce C. Steele, The Advocate, Nov. 26, 2002, cover story, pp. 3, 30-39) At Oregon State, he won the Morris Trophy as a junior, awarded to the Pacific-10's top defensive lineman. In 1990, the Green Bay Packers drafted him in the second-round, 35th overall. He played nine years in the NFL with five teams, competing in Super Bowl XXXIII for the Atlanta Falcons, who lost 34-19 to the Denver Broncos. (See my previous posts Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010, Gay OSU Beavers history (1/28/09), OSU Esera Tuaolo gay football star (8/12/06) and OSU gay sports panel (10/17/08) about a front-page newspaper story by Tom Henderson, "Panel: Fear still a foe for gay athletes, Former NFL player, two local coaches cite safety worries," Gazette-Times, Oct. 17, 2008, p. A1. A7)

See my previous posts:

• OSU Esera Tuaolo in BusinessWeek coming out story (3/8/11)
• OSU Esera Tuaolo gay football star (8/12/06)
• OSU gay football player 1908 (6/19/08)
• OSU gay sports panel (10/17/08)
• OSU Esera Tuaolo GLBT History Month 2009 icon (7/28/10)
• Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org

UPDATE Mar. 6, 2013

PHOTO: Political cartoon about Beaver logos and uniforms throughout history by Jack Compere, "Predicting the Future," Gazette-Times editorial cartoonist, currently printed in the alt. weekly "Corvallis Advocate," in the Willamette Valley of Oregon corvallisvanities.blogspot.com posted Mar. 5, 2013. Also see Staff, "Editorial: New Beaver logo draws sharp response," Gazette-Times posted Mar. 6, 2013, which says, "The dark ones look especially good - better than the uniforms of a certain team to the south that has more uniform changes from game to game than the traveling troupe of the Ice Capades. . . . And if you notice a fanciful swoosh as part of his 2020 incarnation, it reflects the speculation over how much Nike -- which designed the new look of uniforms, helmets and logo -- strictly controlled the official rollout Monday. The question is whether that kind of control means it is Nike and not OSU that is controlling the OSU brand." I assume the editor's oblique sissy Ice Capades reference is to that sissy University of Oregon Duck team.