Deborah Lipp

Today I love being a New Yorker:

Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.

In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.

In a videotaped message given to gay community leaders at a dinner on May 17, Mr. Paterson described the move as “a strong step toward marriage equality.” And people on both sides of the issue said it moved the state closer to fully legalizing same-sex unions in this state.

“Very shortly, there will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and probably thousands and thousands and thousands of gay people who have their marriages recognized by the state,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and has pushed for legalization of gay unions.

I got nothing to say except YAAAAAY!

In an article about gay marriage that refutes a new Republic article by Ben Wittes, Glenn Greenwald reminds me that I find smart people really, really hot:

That a law invalidated by a court is supported by a large majority is not an argument supporting the conclusion that the court’s decision was wrong. Central to our system of government is the premise that there are laws which even the largest majorities are prohibited from enacting because such laws violate the constitutional rights of minorities. Thus, the percentage of people who support the law in question, and how lengthy and painstaking the process was that led to the law’s enactment, is totally irrelevant in assessing the propriety of a court decision striking down that law on constitutional grounds.

Contrary to Wittes’ extremely confused argument, a court striking down a law supported by large majorities is not antithetical to our system of government. Such a judicial act is central to our system of government. That’s because, strictly speaking, the U.S. is not a “democracy” as much as it a “constitutional republic,” precisely because constitutional guarantees trump democratic majorities. This is all just seventh-grade civics, something that the Brookings scholar and those condemning the California court’s decision on similar grounds seem to have forgotten.

(Emphasis in the original.)

The problem, of course, is that we don’t really teach “seventh grade civics” anymore. I kind of wonder if that’s a coincidence. I kind of wonder if destroying our educational system (most recently with No Child Left Behind) is, in fact, part of a Republican strategy to take over America by making Americans too ignorant to know the difference.

But I digress.

Here’s the thing. Minorities have rights. Even unpopular minorities. Even Jews and gays and Witches and blacks and Mormons. Even, y’know, Puritans, who came here because (wait for it) MINORITIES HAVE RIGHTS. And this, this is AGONY for conservatives. Unless, of course, they’re in the minority.

You see, the entire argument is disingenuous. Conservatives wish to argue that “judicial activism” is Bad Bad Baddy Bad when it does terrible things like prevent discrimination against gays, but when judges, I dunno, enforce discrimination against gays they aren’t in any kind of agony about judges overruling legislative action.

But Greenwald says it better. And smarter. And with restraint. Which is what gets me hot.

I went to eat, and CNN was on in the lunch room. Obama was in the middle of atown hall meeting in South Dakota, which I found fascinating. He was asking ranchers and farmers what their issues were, and discussing fuel costs and health insurance with fourth- and fifth-generation family farmers.

When the anchorwoman cut away to discuss what Obama had said earlier at that event about Bush’s foul Knesset remarks, she (I think it was Naamua Delaney, but I’m not sure), described the conversations as “Oprahesque.”

That’s right, talking to people makes Obama a big ol’ woman.

While I was out getting a sandwich, I heard the best news I’ve heard in ages. The California Supreme Court has overturned the ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional. I’m choking up just typing this.

Look, this is a turned tide. Just is. The bans on same sex marriage in other states are the thrashings of a dying dinosaur. This is how it is going to go. There will be setbacks. There will even be violence (like there hasn’t already?), but this is a done deal. In my lifetime, marriage equality will be the law of the land.

Okay, now I am choking up.

I listen to CBS all-news radio when I wake up. Weather every ten minutes and annoying voices is exactly what I need before coffee. And it also ends up being my toe-dip into the mainstream media (which I otherwise avoid).

So Hillary Clinton was apparently interviewed by Katie Couric last night, and they talk about Clinton maybe dropping out of the race, and said she said absolutely not. They then play a clip of Clinton saying, “Well, I’m not entertaining it. It’s just not even anything I’m entertaining right now.”

I get in the shower. I do my hair. I come out of the bathroom, and now the radio is talking about Edwards’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Someone asks Obama if he would consider Edwards as a running mate, and they quote his answer (something like “He’d be on anyone’s short list”). Then they get back to the Couric/Clinton interview, and say they asked Clinton if she was considering running mates, and they say it’s not on the table yet, and play a clip of her saying, “Well, I’m not entertaining it. It’s just not even anything I’m entertaining right now.”

The same clip.

The same clip in response to two different questions. Which is…now we know for a fact they’re just making shit up. It was the most trust-destroying thing I’ve ever heard on the news, worse than an outright lie, it was so transparently, lazily deceptive. I nearly choked.

And it turns out that the quote was in response to neither question. What Clinton was actually responding to was whether she would consider being Obama’s running mate should he win the nomination.

There’s really…there’s no excuse of any kind for that kind of crap.