Without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold’s lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life.

With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O’Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O’Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

Marriage is more than about hospital visitation rights.  Had Harold and Clay had the right to marry, none of this would have been possible.  The bigoted actions of those who perpetrated this crime against these two elderly citizen was given the weight of law and carried out by the county government.  Those responsible for this travesty of justice must be punished for their crimes.

You can help – make a donation to the National Center for Lesbian Rights as they fight to prevent any more Harolds and Clays from happening again.  Get involved and assert your rights to be free from government molestation.  EQUAL MARRIAGE NOW!

Liz:  show some wisdom and realize that marriage just isn’t for you.  Although, Mr. Winters is very sexy!

Equally, you’ve seen the defense attorneys completely unable to impeach either the credibility of the plaintiff’s expert witnesses or their factual testimony.  What’s more, the defense so-called expert witnesses were so utterly unprepared and lacking in expertise that when David Boies cross-examined them, I almost felt sorry for them.  He truly humiliated Professor Kenneth Miller, who’s supposed expertise in the ballot initiative process (and especially as it related to gay and lesbian people) was exposed for the completely empty and shallow body that it is.  Miller must have felt about three inches tall when Boies was finished crushing him like an aluminum can.

But it was the sparring with David Blankenhorn that really nailed the defense’s coffin shut.  Challenged on every facet of his expertise, Blankenhorn not only agreed with the plaintiffs that same-sex marriage would benefit not just the people who want to marry, the children of such couplings, and society’s furtherance of tolerance and equality, he also denied that he was even an expert, but was merely “repeating things that they say,” that “these are not my own conclusions,” and “I’m a transmitter here of findings of these eminent scholars.”  His cartoonish puffery and sanctimonious buffoonery on the witness stand shredded all possible credibility with the judge.

So for now, the trial is over.  February 26th is the deadline for the submission of more documents to the judge, as well as the date which we hope the judge will set the date for closing arguments.

Rights, Responsibilities and Love
June 21, 2009

Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds. But I firmly believe that it’s important to keep learning. Last week, while I was in Connecticut meeting with members of the gay and lesbian community from across the state, I had the opportunity to tell them what I’ve learned about marriage, and about equality.

While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

The reason was simple: I was raised to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And as many other Americans have realized as they’ve struggled to reconcile the principle of fairness with the lessons they learned early in life, that’s not an easy thing to overcome.

But the fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore.

The Connecticut Supreme Court, of course, has ruled that such a distinction holds no merit under the law. And the Court is right.

I believe that effective leaders must be able and willing to grow and change over their service. I certainly have during mine – and so has the world. Thirty-five years ago, who could have imagined that we’d have an African-American President of the United States?

My young daughters are growing up in a different reality than I did. Our family knows many same-sex couples – our neighbors in Connecticut, members of my staff, parents of their schoolmates. Some are now married because the Connecticut Supreme Court and our state legislature have made same-sex marriage legal in our state.

But to my daughters, these couples are married simply because they love each other and want to build a life together. That’s what we’ve taught them. The things that make those families different from their own pale in comparison to the commitments that bind those couples together.

And, really, that’s what marriage should be. It’s about rights and responsibilities and, most of all, love.

I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage.

And I want them to know that, even if he was a little late, their dad came down on the right side of history.

I have always been proud of my long record fighting for the civil rights of the LGBT community. I’ve co-sponsored legislation to strengthen hate crime laws and end discrimination in the workplace. I’ve spoken out against “don’t ask, don’t tell” and always supported equal rights for domestic partnerships.

But I am also proud to now count myself among the many elected officials, advocates, and ordinary citizens who support full marriage equality for same-sex couples.

I understand that even those who oppose discrimination might continue to find it hard to re-think the definition of marriage they grew up with. I know it was for me.

But many of the things we must do to make our union more perfect – whether it’s fighting for decades to reform our health care system or struggling with a difficult moral question – are hard. They take time. And they require that, when you come to realize that something is right, you be unafraid to stand up and say it.

That’s the only way our history will progress along that long arc towards justice.

Senator Christopher Dodd from Connecticut.  Thank you for your changing position – we need just a few other leaders like you to help pave the way.  Like our fierceless leader.

I do not agree with Seth’s analysis of what has happened. Obama said over and over that he believes marriage is between opposite sex couples. Administrations have a great deal of leeway in how they defend laws.

Let’s assume for a moment that the case is decided in the government’s favor and that DOMA is upheld. It will then go to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court, which will likely overturn the decision and will then probably go to the Supreme Court, which is in the habit of overturning the 9th Circuit more than any other court. This process will probably take a good year or two, in the meantime, Obama doesn’t have to worry about doing anything because he can say that there’re pending court cases and to let them wend their way through their process.

At the end, the Supreme Court will uphold DOMA, not because it is constitutional, but because the majority will have Sotomayor at that point who is far more conservative than not.

This is a punt, and a highly insulting punt at that. Obama is proving, in his decisions on Gitmo detainees, continued defense of the patriot act, and now DOMA and DADT that he doesn’t really care about civil rights.

Barack Obama is an enemy of the gay community and should be treated as such. While there are hugely pressing issues facing the country right now, he has made the wrong decisions to file briefs upholding Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. In the case of DADT, he could have issued a moratorium stopping the law from taking effect and appointed a commission on the issue to get the ball rolling on creating a plan to deal with it while Congress repeals it. With DOMA, he could have declined to defend the law, as other administrations have done with other federal laws in the past (Clinton’s Communications Decency Act non-defense comes to mind, thanks to Aravosis.)

Yes, there are very pressing issues facing the country right now: economic problems, wars overseas, but civil rights are the foundation of American society.  There are still 38 states where you can be fired for being gay.  There have been at least 200 competent, dedication U.S. servicemen and -women who have been fired for being gay.  To be honest, marriage equality isn’t anywhere near as high a priority to me as employment and housing discrimination, but since that seems to be the big battle that the right-wing is throwing at us, we have to fight back.

But what can we do?  The HRC is way too timid in fighting – they seem more interested maintaining Joe Solmonese’s mega-salary than actually doing anything for us.  Other groups like Marriage Equality USA with their carefully scripted non-protest protests designed to be media friendly rather than government unfriendly are just as bad, if not worse.  We need someone who is willing to take our fight into the streets, to disrupt the status quo, to demand, loudly and forcefully, our civil rights.  That’s the only way to achieve them.

But also, no money for Obama and the Democratic Party.  No more money for MoveOn until they support us as well, and the same with other “progressive” organizations.  That’s the other thing they respect.  Give money to the Greens, or the Socialists, anyone but the big two parties.  The Republicans and the Democrats are both controlled by their money wielding masters – the big corporations and lobbying organizations.  Until we make it unprofitable for them to ignore the rights of the people, we will not get any change.

Civil rights are the most important thing there is.