Brian Brown and Lambda Legal's Susan Sommer debate on C-SPAN

This was very interesting to watch. This debate is all about state rights and gay marriage. Brian is a mess as usual.

Please watch for yourself.

A Couple of LGBT Groups are not overly excited about the Immigration Action

Some LGBT group voiced their opinions over President Obama's Immigration plan.

NCRL stated

“We welcome today’s announcement as a first step towards repairing a broken and discriminatory immigration system that has victimized undocumented immigrants and their families, including at least 267,000 undocumented people who identify as LGBT,” said National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) Policy Director Maya Rupert. “We applaud the vision and courage of our President in making good on his promise to act on immigration reform. We know that this is a first step and we are gratified that many of the cruel policies of the past will be replaced with more humane and effective strategies. However, we remain deeply concerned that the plan leaves out too many LGBT immigrant families. LGBT families are less likely to have legally recognized or biological relationships with each other, and thus relief based wholly on familial ties will exclude too many LGBT families. In addition, many of the restrictions requiring consistent employment and limiting access for people with non-violent criminal histories will disproportionately impact LGBT immigrants, especially in the transgender community.”

Francisco Dueñas, Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Proyecto Igualdad at Lambda Legal stated:

"While we praise President Obama’s efforts to do what is in his executive power to improve immigration, we are deeply disappointed that his plan unfairly excludes many members of the LGBT community. President Obama’s plan allows immigrants who have children who are citizens or lawful permanent residents to obtain legal work documents and temporarily be protected from deportation.

"We urge President Obama to undertake reforms that are more LGBT-inclusive, such as recognizing length of residency as a stand-alone qualification. Thousands of LGBT immigrants, many who have fled countries where LGBT people are unprotected and subjected to horrific abuse and violence, have been waiting for humane immigration reform for years due to Congressional inaction and cannot afford to wait any longer.

"This effort by the President does not absolve Congress of its responsibility to provide a permanent fix to our outdated immigration system so that it is fair to all the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US today, waiting to be fully American. So while we commend this order for providing much-needed immediate relief to many undocumented immigrants, we note that requiring individuals to have children disproportionately excludes LGBT immigrants who are childless because the barriers to creating a family are higher for people who cannot afford assisted reproduction or are disqualified from adoption by antigay laws.

"We need a plan that recognizes community ties and longtime residency."

The president said it's not perfect, so I hope these pieces are noted and considered in later plans.

Lambda Legal's List of Pending Marriage Equality Cases

If you wasn't sure about the same-sex marriage cases across the country, Lambda Legal got you covered. They have a page dedicated to every case out there.

Here's the intro:

Marriage equality now exists in 17 states and the District of Columbia: CA, CT, DC, DE, HI, IA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, RI, VT, and WA. In addition, approximately 1,000 same-sex couples married in UT following the district court ruling that the state’s marriage ban was unconstitutional before that order was stayed and more than 300 same-sex couples married in MI following the district court ruling that that state’s marriage ban was unconstitutional before that order was stayed. In TN, the district court’s ruling requiring recognition of the marriages of the three plaintiff couples remains in effect. In other cases in which state marriage laws have been ruled unconstitutional, the rulings have been stayed pending appeal (in KY, OK, TX, and VA). In addition, comprehensive civil unions or domestic partnerships (but not the right to marriage for all) now exist in CO, NV, and OR, and limited domestic partnerships (but not marriage) now exist in WI.

Key

M = Cases seeking only the freedom to marry for unmarried same-sex couples.
R = Cases seeking only recognition of marriages entered by same-sex couples in other jurisdictions.
B = Cases seeking both.
I-S R = Cases seeking in-state recognition of marriages entered in-state.
D = Cases in which same-sex couples are seeking a divorce.
A = Cases in which second-parent adoptions are also being sought.

*Cases filed, or that newly included a marriage claim, since the decision in Windsor are marked with an asterisk.

Check it out here

Lambda Legal’s Jennifer Pizer has questions about the OPM decision.

After the OPM announced their decision on the Karen Golinski case, Pizer, a Lambda Lawyer, felt that their answers only led to more questions:

“Is it possible for Judge Kozinski to be acting in some capacity other than as an Article III judge?” she questioned, “We think when he’s sitting in an employee grievance procedure, he is an Article III judge, that’s the only capacity he has.”

Pizer explained that although the order he issued was not an opinion of a ninth circuit panel, “it is an order that has Article III force to it and he's speaking in his role as an Article III judge when he interprets federal law.” But Pizer was even more troubled by the fact that OPM chose to present its conclusion by issuing a public statement rather than actually countering Kozinski’s rationale in a legal brief.

“They’re stating their position via press statements,” said Pizer. “If they have confidence in their analysis, they should do what people do in legal proceedings.” In the case, Kozinski argued for a separation of powers — saying that if the judiciary has the inherent power under the U.S. Constitution to regulate itself, then it has to be the case that employees of an executive branch agency (OPM in this case) do not have superior authority to dictate what goes on in the judicial branch.

“They’ve said they disagree but they’ve never deigned to explain why. They’ve never written that analysis,” Pizer said of OPM, which took its cues in the case from the Department of Justice.

“What is the Obama administration’s analysis for why the ninth circuit doesn’t have the constitutional authority to regulate its own employee practices?”

She poses good questions, I hope they can explain their reasons. I believe it has a lot to do with DOMA and how this case could become a monkeywrench in the overall repeal. My explaination is probably way off, however, her questions should be answered, very clearly and truthfully.

Question of the Day

After being rejected from the Federal Prop 8 case, what will Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union do now?

And what did they learn from this?

The story is here