CAN A MOONBEAM SAVE A MARRIAGE?

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LINDA RONDSTADT'S EX-BF SINGS "YOU & I TRAVEL TO THE SOUND OF A DIFFERENT DRUM"

GOLDEN STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL TAKES A POSITION IN FAVOR OF GAY RIGHTS



FORMER CALIFORNIA GOV. JERRY BROWN SAYS PROP 8 "UNCONSTITUTIONAL"

Former talk-show host and son of former Governor Pat Brown [ante Reagan], former Governor Jerry Brown [post Reagan], the former Mayor who "saved" Oakland, is working to save thousands of formerly lawful gay marriages in the Bear Republic. Silent until now on his intent in bringing the new law before the California State Supreme Court, Jerry has come down on the side of equal rights for homosexual couples. His last-minute reversal left anti-gays no time to respond. Intentional, Jer'? Slick!

Gay-haters were caught off-balance by the move, but slime-master Ken Starr, the $60 million Presidential BJ detector, is already moving to invalidate same-sex nuptials performed before the passing of Proposition Eight in the November 2008 California State ballot initiative. Moonbeam & Starr will square off in Sacramento, before the same Court that legalized queer weddings in the first place. Right-wingers, who normally argue to suppress election results, will be trying to present the hatred, fear and dis-information-inspired vote as inviolable. Popular hero Brown will be making the point that inviolable rights are not subject to popularity contests, especially not unfair and demeaning ones. Memo to Starr: Never argue with a Jesuit.

Cali's learned Justices will make the call, but the issue is not likely to be finally resolved there. After their stinging rebuke in the national election, right-wingers may be trying to reorganize their demoralized forces around an old source of anger, fear, hatred and spite. Though they chose not to scapegoat gays before the general public this election year, doubtless realizing it could backfire, no such constraints exist with regard to their homophobic base now. A litigious run at the U.S. Supreme Court may be their last stand, before Obama gets a chance to put some non-Nazi's on the bench.

Ultimately, SCOTUS will have to decide to put centuries of precedent aside and invalidate the "Full Faith & Credit" Clause of the U.S. Constitution (which requires recognition of each State's laws & contracts by every other State), and the Equal Protection Amendment (XIV), which guarantees the same rights to all; or else legalize gay marriage by upholding the Constitution. Their only other other option would be to fudge the issue, or refuse to consider it, leaving us with a patchwork of State laws making a couple legally married in one State, but not in another, leading to endless inter-State squabbling and legal chaos. The fact is, there is no choice here. According to Federal law, same-sexers have the same right to civil marriage as heterosexuals, and all States must recognize that, eventually, in the name of human rights and common sense. But when? That's up to Scalia & Co, or whomsoever Obama may put in their places. Stay tuned.

Oh, and both Star & Moonbeam may be gay. Damn. Buried the lede again.


SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
"Brown: Invalidate Prop. 8"
JER-RY! JER-RY!! JER-RY!!!

' Saying Proposition 8 violates constitutionally protected liberties, Attorney General Jerry Brown on Friday asked the California Supreme Court to strike down the same-sex marriage ban, even as supporters filed a brief that would erase the legal recognition of couples married before Election Day. In a brief filed with the high court, the state top's lawyer argues for the first time that Proposition 8 should be invalidated, saying it is "inconsistent with the guarantees of individual liberty safeguarded" by the California Constitution. Brown had not taken a position on the measure until now. "There are certain rights that are not to be subject to popular votes, otherwise they are not fundamental rights," Brown said in an interview. "If every fundamental liberty can be stripped away by a majority vote, then it's not a fundamental liberty." Proposition 8 supporters on Friday further pumped up the wattage of the coming legal confrontation by naming Kenneth W. Starr, the former U.S. solicitor general and independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation against then-President Bill Clinton. Starr, dean of the law school at Pepperdine University, will argue the Yes on 8 case before the Supreme Court, in arguments that could begin as soon as March. '

FOX NEWS: KTUV2 OAKLAND, CA
"A.G. Brown Makes Legal U-Turn on Prop 8"
Making a U-turn is what you're supposed to do when you realize that you're going the wrong way, conservatives.

' Attorney General Jerry Brown made a legal u-turn on Friday on Proposition 8. He had been expected to defend the ban on same-sex marriage in front of the California Supreme Court. Friday was the deadline for supporters of the measure to respond to a lawsuit that argued Prop 8 is a revision of the constitution, not just an amendment.Instead the Attorney General's said when his office began looking at it they quickly decided it was an amendment. But they said they determined it was an unconstitutional one that violates a fundamental right to the pursuit of happiness. The attorney general's office determined it should be stuck down. '

NBC NEWS: BAY AREA TV
"Prop 8 Sponsors Want to Nix 18,000 Gay Marriages"
Redefining "mean-spirited."

' A new war of words over gay marriage erupted on Friday as the sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the California Supreme Court to nullify the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters last month approved the ballot initiative that outlawed gay unions. The Yes on 8 campaign filed a brief Friday arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions. '

WIKIPEDIA
"Jerry Brown"
Gay in Oakland? Wow, that takes balls!

' Brown also had a long friendship with Lorenzo Jacques Barzaghi, his aide-de-camp, whom he met in the early 1970s and put on his payroll. According to author Roger Rapaport, writing in California Dreaming 1982, "this combination clerk, chauffeur, fashion consultant, decorator and trusted friend had no discernible powers. Yet late at night, after everyone had gone home to their families and TV consoles, it was Jacques who lingered in the Secretary (of state's) office." Barzaghi lived with Brown in the warehouse in Jack London Square, and was brought into Oakland city government upon Brown's election as mayor in 1998, where Barzaghi first acted as the mayor's armed bodyguard. Brown later awarded Barzaghi with high paying city jobs, including "Arts Director." Brown dismissed Barzaghi in July 2004. '

WIKIPEDIA
"Kenneth Starr"
They might BOTH be gay! This should be interesting.

' Though his judicial reputation earned him some note for three and a half years after his appointment[citation needed], particularly after his aggressive emphasis on engaging political issues in Arkansas — culminating in the fraud prosecution of then-sitting Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker and Clinton real estate investment partners James and Susan McDougal — Starr was accused of doing the bidding of Richard Mellon Scaife, who had funded a position at Pepperdine University that Starr first accepted but later relinquished. In 2004, he became the Dean of Pepperdine Law School.[16] Rumors began spreading that members of Starr's staff were gay, and Doug Ireland alleged in The Nation that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal was spreading them. Susan McDougal, in the book and film documentary The Hunting of the President, alleges that Starr's office pressured her to lie under oath in order to back up its allegations against Clinton. '

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