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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
Maybe Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, just plain don't like lgbts.
From ThinkProgress:
In March, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told the state’s colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing that schools have no legal authority to adopt such statements. On Friday, Cuccinelli appeared at Boys State, where a high school student asked him, “How is that not a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?” Cuccinelli responded by suggesting that the amendment was not designed to protect gay men and women:
“State universities are not free to create any specially protected classes other than those dictated by the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli said. “Your question is, why is that not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment,” he said.
“There are judges who think these things ‘evolve,’ is the word they like to use,” Cuccinelli said, but the correct approach to making such a change would be a constitutional amendment, he said.
I feel safe in saying that Cuccinelli's statement goes so far that I don't envision any religious right head or organization coming to his defense. But man, wouldn't it be fun if they tried!
Igor Volsky of ThinkProgess's Wonk Room disputes Cuccinelli's statement and does it very well:
It’s certainly true that the authors of the 14th amendment may not have “contemplated” protecting gay people from discrimination, but the Supreme Court has. Despite Cuccinelli’s rather arrogant attempts to dismiss legal precedent and impose his own vision of the Constitution on America, the Court has found that laws motivated solely by anti-gay animus are unconstitutional — and Cuccinelli is bound by that case whether “the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment” “contemplated” about gays or not.
In 1996’s Romer v. Evans the court ruled that a Colorado law called Amendment 2, which rescinded recently anti-discrimination measures, violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause because animus towards a certain group of people does not constitute “a legitimate governmental purpose.”
“‘[I]f the constitutional conception of `equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.’ Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534 (1973),” the Court wrote. “Amendment 2, however, in making a general announcement that gays and lesbians shall not have any particular protections from the law, inflicts on them immediate, continuing, and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justifications that may be claimed for it.”
17 Comments
It’s easy, Alvin!There’s only one reason why the Virginia Attorney General believe sexual orientation and gender identity’s not covered under the Fourteenth Amendment — HE’S A BIGOT!!
As far as this minority is concerned, he’s no better than a Klansman from the 1950s who didn’t blink at lynching a black man, or executing an ally for being either a Jew or a “race traitor” during Freedom Summer.
Cuccinelli, for all his education, is as ignorant as a tree stump. He’s a prime example of someone I’d love to send to Planet Stonewall, where heterosexuals are the ones fighting for their rights, and have to struggle with rampant discrimination and bias.
protect lgbtsI know of LGBTs who are fiscal conservatives, who have refused to join the Republican party and remain independents because of it’s extremist views in marriage. But with the Gov of VA now issuing protection to LGBTs and even UT now coming out with laws that protect LGBTs does that mean more same sex couples will join the Republican Party?
Pro Cleanse Gold
Huh?What have you been smoking? The Virginia governor, “Taliban Bob” McDonnell, is rabidly anti-gay — but he has far more charm and political skills than Little Kenny Kookinelli, who’s probably planning on reviving Virginia’s anti-sodomy laws, Lawrence v. Texas be damned.
No, the GOP is adamantly anti-gay, and will remain so as long as homophobia continues to be an effective GOTV tactic.
(And, speaking of fiscal conservatism, haven’t you heard of the fiscal consequences of Dubya’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy and unaffordable wars?)
When the constitution was written, it was not designed to protect women, blacks and those who did not own propertyHis point is…?
I’ll make an equivalent proposalin terms Cuch can understand:
Since the founders could not possibly have conceived of high-powered rifles, automatic weapons, or semi-automatic handguns, the Second Amendment obviously doesn’t apply to those. The line to turn them in begins to the left.
Kudos to the high school student who asked him about that!
I agree!Especially coming from Boys State, JT!
This is sponsored by the American Legion, which is about as conservative as it can get. The boys and girls are screened by the local Post, who send I think 3-5 of each gender to their respective gatherings.
For those who don’t know what Boys and Girls State is, it’s a week-long gathering of high school seniors and juniors, who then separate into mock cities, running and electing for all sorts of city and county positions, and ultimately electing a Governor, who then go on to Boys and Girls Nation.
I know a woman who’s a Marine veteran, and when she went to her local post, they naturally thought she was there for the wives auxiliary. She’s worked for the Ohio Boys State for years and is rightly proud of her activism.
One year, the Klan held one of their rallies, and an attendee expressed support for the Klansman, and I fired off a letter to the then legion President heading up that year’s meeting, who claimed the First Amendment protected him, which didn’t surprise me.
So you have to be a “strict constructionist” when you like their rulings – but when it’s not one that draws the conclusion you want, then you have to fall back on “interpreting their intent” when they wrote the Constitution.
Certainly, that makes sense. Heads you win, tails I lose.
How long before there’s a scandal involving a rentboy or bathroom with this bigot? Seems like all the guys preaching against the homo sex so loudly lately are doing something on the side their wives wouldn’t be so approving of. I’d guess he’d be a bottom with a strong desire to be humiliated by a big ole bear in leather, but that’s just random speculation. Maybe Porno Pete can take him along on his next undercover operation.
He’s right, but an idiot.It’s true the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment wasn’t written, specifically, to protect gays (or women, Mexican-Americans) and that, no doubt, those who wrote never considered the possibility. But that’s irrelevant because, by its very wording, it was written to protect EVERYONE.
The 14th Amendment says what it says:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
So, to interpret as narrowly as Cracker Ken wants is laughable. Cracker Ken should study the ‘law of unintended consequences,’ a relatively modern adage that reminds us that when people intervene in complex areas, invariably that intervention causes unanticipated and often (to some people) undesirable outcomes. And for Cracker Ken, that means gays, blacks, women, etc., have the same rights as him. Period.
ActuallyJudge Walker has been informed that SCOTUS actualy has strongly (if not explicitly) implied that gays are constitutionally protected under the 14th amendment as recently as the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
Interestingly, would this render the “born that way”/”lifestyle choice” argument moot?
More mindless idolatry of the FoundersThe right wing’s rabid, perfectly dippy obsession with “original intent” of the men who drafted the constitution makes no sense whatever to me. What other country fetishizes its past leaders in such a dim way? ”Oh, we can’t do this–King Edward I wouldn’t have liked it!” ”Pass a civil rights law? Horrors! What would Garibaldi have thought!” But the American right continues its weird hangup with what the Founders (or in this case the authors of the 14th amendment) might have thought, under social and political conditions drastically different from those we live under. The authors of the Reconstruction amendments would have found it severely difficult (if not impossible) to envision social conditions in 21st century America. Yet we’re supposed to be slaves to their “intent”?
I remember a Star Trek episode in which Spock said, “Change is inevitable. It is therefore illogical to work against it.” How strange is it that a character on a 60s TV show displayed more wisdom than a lot of politicians in 2010?
unfortunately he’s rightUmfortunately Cuccinelli is correct because the 14th amendment was not intended to give anyone but the freed former slaves equal rights. When the 14th amendment passed, women and native Americans still did not have the right to vote (including the newly freed slaves). Which people the states were not to “deny… equal protection of the laws” is not spelled out in the 14th amendment, which is why more amendments were later passed including the right of women and native Americans to vote.
There are people in the LGBT community who actually believe that our civil rights movement began 41 years ago and we have not been working at this freedom and equality thing long enough. What they don’t seem to know is that when the slaves were finally freed, gay and lesbian Americans of all colors were still considered criminals. They don’t know that when American allies liberated the nazi death prisons, they incarcerated the gay and lesbian Europeans considering them criminals. They don’t know that when women and native Americans were finally given the right to vote, they were still imprisoning gay and lesbian Americans. Until Lawrence v Texas our behavior (love making) was still a crime, and still is in many states.
Until the Hawaii marriage equality decision, for almost 40 years all court cases challenging marriage equality argued 14th amendment constitutional protections, and in every case (creating precedents piling on) the courts ruled that we were in fact not a protected class under the 14th amendment.
Who’s in?I’m sure the founding fathers didn’t have Italian Catholic immigrents in mind either.
The founding Fathershad no concept, no inkling, that the science of psychology would be born in the late 19th Century, nor that we would be flying to the moon either. These nutballz that harken back to the founding fathers want to live in some kind of static world circa 1789 where their particular mores and fetishes ruled the day. GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON.
And the First Amendment…The First Amendment wasn’t designed for ignorant idiots like Ken
MussoliniCuccinelli.Romer v EvansI’m glad Romer v Evans was mentioned. Before reaching the SCOTUS, the case Evans (plaintiff) v Romer (CO Governor) wended its way through state courts till it made its way to the CO SC. Amendment 2 was struck down, basically because it prohibited this group of citizens from petitioning the legislators at any level in the state to support laws for their groups benefit, while all other groups were free to do so.
Later, the Chief Justice quipped, “A majority cannot use the ballot box to vote away the rights of a minority.” In a nutshell, that’s what all these ballot initiatives are all about.
Romer v Evans was the governor’s attempt to use the federal courts to strike down the CO SC’s decision.
The only case before the CA SC concerned the technical definition as to whether or not Prop 8 was an “amendment” or a “revision” to the CA constitution. It had little to do with whether or not Prop 8 was constitutional in and of itself. So I always have this uneasiness that somewhere in the federal system a court will say wait a minute here. Prop 8 was a change to the CA constitution. It should be argued before the CA courts first, on its merits, not just a technicality, before it comes to the federal courts.
Can anyone ease my mind on this?
I may be wrong about thisbut a question regarding equal protection was not brought before the California Supreme Court (although Carlos Moreno referred to it in his dissent) precisely because of the fear that the federal courts would get ahold to it at that time. Or, in other words, no federal question was brought before the CASC.
(My question: if the CASC did argue the federal question, that would have kicked it straight to SCOTUS, correct? (just as the 2000 Florida recount cases ruled on by the Florida Supreme Court were kicked straight to SCOTUS)
Nah. There’s another reason.God’s in the mix. Have you forgotten? Different party, same BS.