UPDATED! Prop 8 Backers are trying to Oust Circuit Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt

In a desperate, desperate attempt to win, haters are trying to get Circuit Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt removed from the case. Why?  Because they think he too liberal to be fair.

Backers of California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage formallly asked one of the three Ninth Circuit judges scheduled to hear the constitutional challenge to the ban to take himself off the case, arguing that his wife has been actively involved as a foe of the measure.  

In a motion for disqualification, the supporters of the ban called for recusal of Circuit Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt.


Judge Reinhardt’s spouse is Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberies Union’s Southern California affiliate.  “Under Ms. Ripston’s leadership,” the motion said, her organization has taken a lead role “in what it calls ‘the fight to end marriage discrimination’ in California.”  The chapter also has “taken an acive role in this litigation,” it added.

Relying on the federal recusal law, the Proposition 8 backers said that a judge must “disqualilfy himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”  It argued:” The facts of this case would plainly lead a reasonable person to conclude that Judge Reinhardt’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”   Even if the ACLU/SC is not a direct party in the case, it added, the lawyers for the challengers to Proposition 8 consulted with her before filing the lawsuit. amd the affiliate has been involved in other ways.

It noted that Judge Reinhardt had previously taken himself out of cases in which ACLU/SC was involved.  It is up to the judge individually to decide whether to disqualify himself from the Proposition 8 case.

Here's their silly motion
Prop. 8 Recusal Motion 9th CA
source

UPDATE

Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt said HELL NAW!

“Filed order (STEPHEN R. REINHARDT) I have before me defendants-intervenors-appellants’ motion to disqualify myself from this appeal. I have not hesitated to recuse from cases in the past when doing so was warranted by the circumstances. See Khatib v. County of Orange, 622 F.3d 1074, 1074 (9th Cir. 2010); Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., 586 F.3d 1108, 1109 (9th Cir. 2009); Buono v. Kempthorne, 527 F.3d 758, 760 (9th Cir. 2008); Sw. Voter Registration Educ. Project v. Shelley, 344 F.3d 913, 914 (9th Cir. 2003); Valeria v. Davis, 320 F.3d 1014, 1015 n.** (9th Cir. 2003); Alvarez-Machain v. United States, 284 F.3d 1039, 1039 n.1 (9th Cir. 2002); Coalition for Econ. Equity v. Wilson, 122 F.3d 692, 711 (9th Cir. 1997). Here, for reasons that I shall provide in a memorandum to be filed in due course, I am certain that “a reasonable person with knowledge of all the facts would [not] conclude that [my] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” United States v. Nelson, 718 F.2d 315, 321 (9th Cir. 1983); see also Sao Paulo State of the Federated Republic of Brazil v. Am. Tobacco Co., 535 U.S. 229, 233 (2002) (per curiam). I will be able to rule impartially on this appeal, and I will do so. The motion is therefore DENIED. [7564262]”

So run and tell that!

source

God's Chosen Folks pt. 2

From Joe.My.God

If this God's people, I would hate to see Satan's posse.

Yes on Prop 8: This is How they Won

The 'Yes on Prop 8' folks somewhat gloated about how they won. In Politics Magazine, Cultural terrorists, Frank Schubert, president of Schubert-Flint Public Affairs, and partner in crime, Jeff Flint broke it down.

I will highlight several points from the article:

• On the first day that same-sex marriages took place, June 16, we fielded nearly 300 media calls from reporters around the globe. Our message was calm and low-key: Our fight was not with the gay couples getting married, our fight was with the fl awed reasoning of a narrow majority of the California Supreme Court.

• A survey released by the Field Institute in mid-September showed that fully 55 percent of likely voters were opposed to Prop 8, with just 38 percent in favor. The political elite all but wrote off Proposition 8 as being dead once the Field Poll was published. To make matters worse for us, less than a week after the Field Poll came out, the No on 8 campaign began its television advertising in the state’s major media markets. We worked hard during this period to urge our supporters to have faith that Prop 8 could still be enacted despite what they saw on the news. We organized countless meetings and conference calls of pastors and other campaign leaders. And we restructured our online presence and delivered a stream of messages to supporters designed to keep them informed and engaged.

• The dynamics of the Proposition 8 campaign were unique. We were asking voters for a Yes vote to ban same-sex marriage and restore traditional marriage. We strongly believed that a campaign in favor of traditional marriage would not be enough to prevail. We needed to convince voters that gay marriage was not simply “live and let live”—that there would be consequences if gay marriage were to be permanently legalized. But how to raise consequences when gay marriage was so recently legalized and not yet taken hold? We made one of the key strategic decisions in the campaign, to apply the principles of running a “No” campaign—raising doubts and pointing to potential problems—in seeking a “Yes” vote.

• We built a campaign volunteer structure around both time-honored campaign grassroots tactics of organizing in churches, with a ground-up structure of church captains, precinct captains, zip code supervisors and area directors; and the latest Internet and web-based grassroots tools. Our campaign website was rebuilt to serve as an incredibly effective organizing tool. Online volunteer sign-ups were immediately sent electronically to the appropriate ZIP code supervisor for follow up. We set up a statewide voter fi le with remote access for regional volunteer leaders, which allowed them to input results for canvassing efforts remotely, and then download and print updated voter lists.

• The final phase of the volunteer campaign, GOTV, was really a month-long operation. California allows early voting, starting 29 days ahead of Election Day. From Day 1 of this period, we tracked voters who either appeared on the permanent absentee voter list, or had applied for a vote-by-mail ballot. Those who were identified as persuadable received additional volunteer and direct mail contacts. Definite Yes on 8 voters were reminded to return their ballots as early as possible. The effort paid off, as the early returns reported on Election Night—which consisted of votes cast before Election Day—showed us with a commanding 57 percent to 43 percent lead.

• Fundraising was also a critical activity of this early period, the success of which enabled us to ultimately exceed our initial voter contact objectives. By this time, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had endorsed Prop 8 and joined the campaign executive committee. Even though the LDS were the last major denomination to join the campaign, their members were immensely helpful in early fundraising, providing much-needed contributions while we were busy organizing Catholic and Evangelical fundraising efforts.

There's more, but I wanted to give some key points from the article. It's an interesting read.

Thanks to Queerty for posting

Boycott Time!

Californians Against Hate are not playing around, y'all. The launched a boycott attack on Mrs. Katharine Garff, wife of Ken Garff Automotive Group Chairman of the Board and CEO Robert Garff for donating $100k to the Yes of Prop 8 campaign.To give y'all some insight about the Garffs, they own many car dealerships in Utah, California, Texas and Iowa.

According to the site, she has given smaller amounst to similar causes, but this glorious amount, placed her on top of the largest contributors to Prop 8.

Robert Garff started trouble with this statement: "We do believe in the proposition of marriage as being between a man and a female,'' he said. “But we reserve the rights of others to believe and act as they wish. … We want our friends who are gay to know that we respect them.''

Well if that's respect, giving $100k to stop gay marriage, I would love to see his idea of disrespect or honor.

For more about the boycott, go here.

Mormon church almost spent $200K on Prop 8

So Godlike...The Mormons spent more than they reported for Prop 8. At first, they claimed that they spent less than $2,500 on the campaign.

Well, they lied. They were exposed by Fred Karger, from of Californians Against Hate. He filed his complaint with the FPPC claiming the Mormon church created commercials, Web sites, conducted simulcasts and meetings to California supporters without filing any more financial reports.

The Mormon church said they didn't go over the 'legal' amount. But once the truth was released, we learned they spent close to 200K.

The report, filed with the secretary of state's office, listed a variety of California travel expenses for high-ranking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and included $20,575 for use of facilities and equipment at the church's Salt Lake City headquarters and a $96,849 charge for "compensated staff time" for church employees who worked on matters pertaining to Prop. 8.

Up until Friday, the Mormon church had denied any direct financial support for the campaign beyond a reported $2,078 spent for bringing church Elder L. Whitney Clayton to California.

Church officials complained that Karger's complaint was full of errors and that the church had "fully complied" with California law.

The report filed Friday contained few details about how the money was spent. It did list $26,000 for audio-visual production and travel expenses for a number of Mormon leaders other than Clayton.

I guess, they did what they had to do to protect marriage...including sinning. Got to love those religious types.

I See London, I See France, I Will See Who Voted for Prop 8

Poor 'Yes on Prop 8' supporters. They just lost the ability to hide their names from the donors' list. After complaining they were being harassed for donating towards oppression, they wanted to basically change the law.

But the courts wasn't hearing it, saying that we have the right to see who donates to what cause.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld campaign disclosure laws in 1976 but ruled in 1982 that the Socialist Workers Party in Ohio could shield its donors' names because of a history of attacks and reprisals.

Protect Marriage argued that it was entitled to the same exemption because of retaliation against some of its contributors, but lawyers for the state said the two cases weren't comparable. They noted that the Prop. 8 campaign raised nearly $30 million from 36,000 donors.

If the Prop. 8 campaign was exempted from disclosure because of reports of harassments of individual donors, said Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini, the same case could be made for any controversial initiative. Courts would have to "keep the entire California electorate in the dark as to who was funding these ballot measures," he said.

So folks, the moral or the story is: you can oppress, but you can't hide.

Prop 8 Supporters are Crybabies!

Last month, I talked about the Prop 8 supporters feeling the heat from us. And they didn't want their business (voting info) put out in public, although they want to vote on our private business...okay back to my point...as expected, these folks have filed a suit to keep their campaign finance records from public view, claiming the records have led to the harassment of donors and others.

Really? Please...You dished it, you should be able to take it.

James Bopp Jr., the attorney representing Protect Marriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage California and other Cobra organizations said, "No one should have to worry about getting a death threat because of the way he or she votes. This lawsuit will protect the right of all people to help support causes they agree with, without having to worry about harassment or threats."

Well, maybe they should have thought about that when they voted. Ain't nobody sending death threats and nobody's bombing churches. As I said before, you were strong in your vote, stand up for your beliefs. Don't go running to the courts, because your "morals" are challenged.

And isn't it a bit hypocritical...you want to overturn the law to protect you, but hate on us when we want to do the same thing. Then used the same tactic by accessing campaign finance records to threaten and attack gay rights supporters. Hell, the similar(but not direct) thing is happening with Pepsi by the AFA. I can't believe the irony.

This lawsuit should fail. However, if they want to stop the drama they can join us in ending Prop 8 altogether. Solves a lot problems.

New Prop 8 Info!

A new study from National Gay and Lesbian Task Force reveals that the whole 70% Black vote for Prop 8 wasn't that high.

An deeper look into the exit polls from 5 key California counties found that between 57% and 59% of Black people voted for Prop 8, which is a huge difference from the numbers reported days after the ballot passed. Religion, age, political party, and ideology played a much bigger role in the Prop. 8 vote.

In fact, this piece here gets into the ideology part a little bit more:

About two-thirds of the state’s self-identified conservatives knew someone who was gay and about 4 out of five of them voted for the measure – the same exact ratio of conservatives who voted for Prop. 8 but didn’t know an openly LGBT person. Republicans demonstrated a similar pattern, with about four out of five of them voting to pass the ban regardless of whether they knew anyone who was out or not.

Interesting...very interesting.

More info in here

They Won't Let Up

They are full of God's love. Our Prop H8 friends wants to end gay marriage now, nullifying all 18,000 gay marriages in the state.

The Yes on 8 campaign filed a brief 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. The document reveals for the first time that opponents of same-sex marriage will fight in court to undo those unions that already exist.

And they even have the help of the witch hunter himself, Ken Starr to argue their cause. But that was yesterday, before Jerry Brown urged the court to repeal the Prop H8. However, I'm a little shocked at their actions. It's almost...no, it is heartless. They don't want our folks to enjoy the limited time they have left. Have they no shame?

No, especially with this statement from the supporters:

"For this court to rule otherwise would be to tear asunder a lavish body of jurisprudence," the court papers state. "That body of decisional law commands judges _ as servants of the people _ to bow to the will of those whom they serve _ even if the substantive result of what people have wrought in constitution-amending is deemed unenlightened."

Got to love these people