April 29, 2014

Radical right, radical hypocrisy: Same-sex marriage masterstroke exposes extremist agenda

Radical right, radical hypocrisy: Same-sex marriage masterstroke exposes extremist agenda

Christian clergy who support gay marriage want their religious freedom defended. Guess who is being awfully silent!

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

Back in 2009 a group of Christian leaders from across the land banded together and issued a manifesto called the Manhattan Declaration. It was organized by former Nixon White House aide and convicted felon Charles Colson, and declared those signed to be unalterably opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion rights, along with a few ancillary issues in the same realm. There’s nothing surprising about that, of course. Social conservatism has been the organizing principle of the Christian right for many decades. But this time they had a different rationale than the stale old moral arguments: religious liberty.

That may also sound like old news. After all, religious freedom is enshrined in our Constitution, right there in the First Amendment. But now the religious right is using this concept to argue that the state cannot require people of faith to follow laws they assert are contrary to their religious beliefs. That’s not been a commonly held legal viewpoint up until now.

They did not make this goal explicit in their declaration. In fact, they framed the issue as a defensive one in which conservative Christians must take this position due to the constant encroachments on their freedoms by the secular state. They wrote:

In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/29/radical_right_radical_hypocrisy_same_sex_marriage_masterstroke_exposes_extremist_agenda/

April 29, 2014

Ted Cruz Calls On John Kerry To Resign Over Israeli 'Apartheid' Warning

Source: TPM

SAHIL KAPUR – APRIL 28, 2014, 5:52 PM EDT

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Monday called on John Kerry to resign after the U.S. secretary of state privately told important world leaders that Israel could become "an apartheid state" if it doesn't make peace with the Palestinians soon, as reported by The Daily Beast on Sunday.

In a floor speech, Cruz accused his former Senate colleague of displaying a "shocking lack of sensitivity to the incendiary and damaging nature of his rhetoric."

"Mr. President, it is my belief that Secretary Kerry has thus proven himself unsuitable for his position and that before any further harm is done to our alliance with Israel, he should offer President Obama his resignation and the President should accept it," said Cruz, who was one of just 3 senators who voted against Kerry's confirmation to his post last year.

The conservative firebrand's remarks came on the same day that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), the only Jewish Republican in Congress, called on Kerry to apologize to Israelis and their government.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-john-kerry-resign

April 28, 2014

Dem Poll: Support for Implementing Obamacare Rises in Battlegrounds

Source: TIME Magazine

Denver Nicks @DenverNicks 5:10 PM ET

The data bodes well for Democratic strategy heading into the midterms in November

Support in battleground congressional districts for implementing Obamacare has increased sharply in recent months, according to the Democratic pollsters at Democracy Corps.

In December last year, amid a contentious rollout and weeks of bad news surrounding the problem-plagued healthcare.gov website, support among likely voters in competitive congressional districts for repealing the Affordable Care Act was 45 percent, slightly behind the 49 percent support for keeping and fixing the law. As of April 2014, support for repeal is essentially unchanged at 42 percent, near the margin of error. Support for putting Obamacare into effect with some improvements is a full 10 points higher, at 52 percent.

Even districts currently controlled by the GOP, support for repeal—46 percent last December, compared to 47 percent supporting implementation—is now 42 percent, a full 11 points behind the 53 percent who support allowing the law to go into effect.

The shift seems to have come via Independents, who have seen a massive swing away from supporting repeal by a 12 percent margin in December to supporting implementation by 7 percent today.

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Read more: http://time.com/79992/dem-poll-support-for-implementing-obamacare-rises-in-battlegrounds/

April 28, 2014

N.C. Clergy Bring Legal Challenge to Amendment One, Citing Religious Freedom

Source: Equality N.C.

Religious Leaders Seek the Right to Wed Same-Sex Couples in their Congregations

Contact: Aaron Sarver, Communications Director, Campaign for Southern Equality, 773.960.2857 (c), aaron@southernequality.org

Asheville, N.C. (April 28, 2014) – This morning a federal challenge to Amendment One was filed in the Western District of North Carolina on behalf of the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a national denomination, clergy from across faith traditions and same-sex couples. The case challenges the constitutionality of marriage laws in North Carolina - including Amendment One - that ban marriage between same-sex couples and make it illegal for clergy to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples within their congregations. Clergy plaintiffs seek the religious freedom to perform these ceremonies and same-sex couples seek the freedom to marry. The plaintiffs are represented by the law firms of Tin Fulton Walker & Owen and Arnold & Porter LLP.

This case, General Synod of the United Church of Christ vs. Cooper, opens a new front in marriage equality litigation: it is the only case to bring 1st Amendment religious freedom claims among the 66 marriage equality cases pending in courts nationally. “In addition to bringing 14th Amendment claims under equal protection and due process, this lawsuit introduces a 1st Amendment claim that the marriage ban in North Carolina violates the right to the free exercise of religious beliefs by denominations, clergy, and congregants who believe that same-sex marriages are theologically valid and want to perform marriage ceremonies,” says Jake Sussman a partner at Tin Fulton Walker & Owen and lead counsel in General Synod of the United Church of Christ vs. Cooper.

“The core protection of the First Amendment is that government may not regulate religious beliefs or take sides in religious controversies,” says Jonathan Martel, a partner at Arnold & Porter LLP. “Marriage performed by clergy is a spiritual exercise and expression of faith essential to the values and continuity of the religion that government may regulate only where it has a compelling interest.”

Growing numbers of faith traditions, including those represented among the plaintiffs, bless the marriages of same-sex couples. “As senior minister, I am often asked to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples in my congregation. My denomination - the United Church of Christ - authorizes me to perform these ceremonies. But Amendment One denies my religious freedom by prohibiting me from exercising this right,” says Rev. Joe Hoffman, Senior Minister of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville and a plaintiff in the case.

The UCC is a mainline Protestant denomination with nearly 1 million members nationally. The first UCC church in North Carolina was founded in 1748 and there are now more than 150 UCC congregations across the state. President and general minister of the UCC Rev. Geoffrey A. Black says, “The United Church of Christ has a rich history of boldly joining faith and action, and we filed this landmark lawsuit against the State of North Carolina to protect the religious freedom of our ministers -- one of the essential freedoms of all Americans." A full list of plaintiffs in General Synod of the United Church of Christ vs. Cooper include the following parties:

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ;

Rev. Nancy Ellett Allison, Ph.D, Holy Covenant United Church of Christ;

Lisa Cloninger and Kathleen Smith, a couple of 12 years, who attend Holy Covenant UCC;

Rabbi Jonathan Freirich;

Joel Blady & Jeff Addy, who seek to marry;

Rev. Joe Hoffman, First Congregational United Church of Christ (Asheville);

Diane Ansley and Cathy McGaughey, a couple of 14 years who attend FCUCC;

Rev. Nathan King, Trinity United Church of Christ (Concord);

Shauna Bragan and Stacy Malone, who attend Trinity UCC;

Rev. Nancy Kraft, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (Charlotte);

Cathy Fry and Joanne Marinaro, a couple of 28 years, who attend Holy Trinity;

Rev. Nancy Petty, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church;

Rev. Robin Tanner, Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church (Charlotte); and

Rev. Mark Ward, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville;

Carol Taylor and Betty Mack, a couple of 41 years, who attend UUC of Asheville.

Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Windsor that the federal government must recognize marriages of same-sex couples. General Synod of the United Church of Christ vs. Cooper joins the ranks of two cases filed by the ACLU in North Carolina’s Middle District that ask federal courts to act quickly to overturn Amendment One. In recent months, federal courts in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Kentucky have found bans on state marriage to be unconstitutional. Public opinion in North Carolina is no less dynamic than the national legal climate. Recent polling shows that 62 percent of voters under the age of 30 in North Carolina support the freedom to marry. In addition, just 34 percent of all North Carolina voters now believe there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple's relationship.

Supporting documents and profiles of the plaintiffs can be found at http://www.amendmentonechallenge.org.

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The Campaign for Southern Equality, an Asheville, NC, based group that promotes LGBT rights in the South, is coordinating a public education campaign accompanying the case. http://www.southernequality.org

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Read more: http://equalitync.org/latest/news/nc_clergy_bring_legal_challenge_to_amendment_one/

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Religious Liberty Hypocrisy: North Carolina Forbids Churches From Performing Gay Weddings

By Mark Joseph Stern

On Monday, the United Church of Christ brought a federal lawsuit against North Carolina’s marriage laws, which were amended in 2012 to ban gay unions. What interest does the United Church of Christ have in toppling the state’s homophobic ban? Under North Carolina law, a minister who officiates a marriage ceremony between a couple with no valid marriage license is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor and can be thrown in jail for 45 days. And since gay marriage is illegal in North Carolina, that means any minister who dares celebrate a gay union in his church may face jail time.

I’m not certain why Ross Douthat, Ramesh Ponnuru, Mollie Hemingway, and other vociferous conservative defenders of religious liberty aren’t vocally outraged about this fact. Nor am I certain why, if religious freedom is truly one of the most cherished values of American conservatism, the religious right wasn’t incensed when Unitarian ministers in New York had to risk arrest while performing commitment ceremonies under a similar statute in 2004. Surely a vision of religious liberty that would allow a storeowner to turn away gays at the door would encompass the basic principle of allowing houses of worship to honor lifelong commitments they deem worthy of solemnization in the eyes of God.

Actually, there’s an obvious reasons why conservatives aren’t clamoring to endorse the UCC’s lawsuit: The battle cry of “religious liberty” is only valuable to the American right insofar as it protects their own values—like animus toward gay people or rejection of reproductive rights. Just as, for many conservatives, corporate freedom extends to bosses who deny birth control but not to companies that support progressive causes, religious freedom in the hands of the right is really a term of art, or perhaps a dog whistle. So long as a religion dictates that, say, you refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, your religious liberty gets a hearty cheer of approval from conservatives. But when your religion leads you to perform a commitment ceremony for a gay couple that is part of your congregation, the right’s howls for liberty fall deafeningly silent.

Anyone legitimately concerned about the rights of believers to practice their faith as they wish should be appalled by North Carolina’s marriage laws. The threat of a minister going to jail simply for celebrating a gay marriage is a real, and terrifying, affront to the very premise of “free exercise” of religion. Given how irrationally concerned conservatives are that ministers may soon be arrested in America for refusing to conduct gay weddings, I would hope they would be equally horrified by the specter of a minister being arrested for agreeing to perform one. But, of course, they won’t be. The right has settled on a stunningly specious new narrative of victimization and religious oppression; to observe that some Americans are facing religious oppression for their pro-gay views just doesn’t fit the storyline. Consistency and morality would command conservatives to enthusiastically join the United Church of Christ’s lawsuit. Hypocrisy will prevent them from saying a word.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/28/religious_liberty_hypocrisy_in_north_carolina_which_forbids_gay_marriage.html?

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United Church of Christ Sues North Carolina to Allow Gay Marriage

Elizabeth Dias @elizabethjdias 3:00 PM ET

It's the first time that a national Christian denomination is suing in favor of same-sex marriage, citing ministers' restricted exercise of religion

When Kathleen Smith and Lisa Cloninger got engaged last October, they hoped to get married at Holy Covenant United Church of Christ. It was after all, their religious community and the church that had been their home for their 13-year relationship. But there was a problem: Holy Covenant is in Charlotte, North Carolina, a state that does not allow ministers to perform legal same-sex marriages. Ministers who do marry a couple that has not yet obtained a marriage license can face misdemeanor charges punishable by up to 120 days in jail.

On Monday morning, Holy Covenant’s denomination, the United Church of Christ (UCC), along with ministers of other Charlotte area congregations including a rabbi, filed a lawsuit challenging state marriage laws for restricting ministers’ free exercise of religion. The UCC is also seeking preliminary injunction that would allow ministers to choose whether to perform a religious marriage. The case appears to be the first time a national Christian denomination has challenged a state’s marriage laws.

The lawsuit has been in the works since 2012, when North Carolina voters approved Amendment One, a constitutional ban on gay marriage, with 61% of the vote. State laws prevent ministers from performing weddings if the couple does not already have a marriage license, and so religious wedding ceremonies are at odds with the law even if ministers are not sanctioning civil marriages.

Earlier this spring, the UCC, the lead plaintiff, reached out to local congregations, including Holy Covenant, to ask pastors if any church members might be candidates to join the suit. Three other couples from other churches have joined the Smith-Cloningers, and the group is suing the state’s attorney general Roy Cooper as well as other county district attorneys and registers of deeds.

more
http://time.com/79734/united-church-of-christ-sues-north-carolina-to-allow-gay-marriage/

April 28, 2014

Sponsors Begin To Abandon Los Angeles Clippers Over Owner's Racist Rant

CATHERINE THOMPSON – APRIL 28, 2014, 2:20 PM EDT

Like so many dominoes, sponsors of the Los Angeles Clippers are abandoning the team in quick succession over its owner Donald Sterling's alleged racist comments.

After conflicting reports that it was ending its sponsorship of the Clippers entirely, the insurance company State Farm announced Monday that it was "taking a pause" in its relationship with the team, according to a statement obtained by the Washington Post. The company said that it would continue to support Clippers point guard Chris Paul, who heads the National Basketball Players' Association and appears in the company's ads.

CarMax

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Virgin America

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KIA

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Red Bull

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AQUAhydrate

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Corona said it was "appalled" by the alleged remarks comments, the company was just "reviewing our sponsorship agreement with the Clippers to determine appropriate next steps."

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/los-angeles-clippers-sponsorships-fall-like-dominoes-donald-sterling-racist-comments

April 28, 2014

Harry Reid To GOP: Come At Me

SAHIL KAPUR – APRIL 28, 2014, 2:32 PM EDT

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday taunted Republicans who are attacking him in their Senate races, citing a recent Wall Street Journal article documenting the ways the Nevada Democrat has become a fixture in GOP campaigns.

"In Senate races across the country, Republicans will avoid the issues that matter most to Americans. Instead trying to focus attention on a senator not even up for election. That senator is me," he said on the Senate floor on the day the chamber returned from a two-week recess.

True to form, Reid used the opportunity to -- yet again -- tie Republicans to the billionaire Koch brothers after contrasting his party's agenda with the GOP's agenda.

"Charles and David Koch and their radical henchmen -- feel free to attack me as much as you want. I can take it," he said. "But don't expect the American people to be fooled by this newest tactic."

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/harry-reid-gop-come-at-me

April 28, 2014

Limbaugh: Sterling Only 'In Trouble' Because He Didn't Donate Enough To Obama

CAITLIN MACNEAL – APRIL 28, 2014, 2:52 PM EDT

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday said that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling's racist rant is only news because he didn't contribute enough to President Barack Obama's campaign.

"This is not news to anybody who has known of this guy," Limbaugh said on his radio show. "This guy is a big Democrat. The only reason he’s in trouble is because he did not give enough money to Obama."

While some conservative commentators and outlets pegged Sterling as a Democrat based on a few donations he made to Democratic candidates in the 80s and 90s, the Clippers owner is actually registered as a Republican.

Limbaugh said on his show that he learned 10 to 15 years ago that Sterling was a racist, and that everybody in Los Angeles ignored it because the Clippers were overshadowed by the Lakers anyway.

more + audio
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/limbaugh-sterling-didnt-donate-obama

April 28, 2014

Scott Brown Supports Major Parts Of Obamacare — Just Not Obamacare

Scott Brown supports many popular parts of Obamacare. But he says Obamacare is a "disaster."

The former Massachusetts senator, who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D), discussed his position on the Affordable Care Act in an interview with the local TV news station WMUR.

"I've always felt that people should either get some type of health care options, or pay for it with a nice competitive fee. That's all great. I believe it in my heart. In terms of preexisting conditions, catastrophic coverages, covering kids, whatever we want to do – and a plan that is good for New Hampshire," Brown said.

He added that such a plan -- which he described vaguely -- "can include the Medicaid expansion [for] folks who need that care and coverage."

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/scott-brown-obamacare

April 28, 2014

Kissing Congressman McAllister Won't Seek Re-Election

Source: TPM

CAITLIN MACNEAL – APRIL 28, 2014, 1:17 PM EDT

Rep. Vance McAllister (R-LA), who was caught kissing his staffer, will not seek re-election, his office told the News-Star.

The congressman will finish his term. Multiple Louisiana Republicans previously called on McAllister to step down, but he refused.

After a video showing McAllister kissing his staffer was published earlier in April, the congressman apologized.

"There's no doubt I've fallen short and I'm asking for forgiveness," he said in a statement. "I'm asking for forgiveness from God, my wife, my kids, my staff, and my constituents who elected me to serve."

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcallister-wont-seek-re-election

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April 28, 2014

Right-wing pundit: Donald Sterling proves there’s no real anti-black racism in America

Power Line's John Hinderaker says Sterling is "a reverse image of Othello" and a victim of the left

ELIAS ISQUITH

In 2004, Time Magazine wrote a glowing profile of conservative lawyer John Hinderaker and his blog, Power Line.

In 2012, Hinderaker penned a post for Power Line that argued President Obama was injecting “national socialism” into the U.S., an argument he supported with pictures of Mussolini and Lenin.

And now, in 2014, Hinderaker has unveiled a new classic, a long defense of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, whom Hinderaker says is probably not a racist — despite being caught on tape telling his mistress not to publicly associate with black people — because he’s old and many of the people he employs are black. (He also says Sterling is a “reverse image of Othello,” whatever that means.)

“The more you learn about the story,” Hinderaker writes, “the stranger it gets.” What’s so strange about an aged white man treating people of color as if they were less-than fully human, you ask? “What makes this bizarre is that Stiviano herself if black and Mexican, a fact that she reminds Sterling of during their argument,” Hinderaker explains. “The situation is otherworldly, in that Sterling seems not to have noticed that his own girlfriend is black.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/right_wing_pundit_donald_sterling_proves_theres_no_real_anti_black_racism_in_america/