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New Yorker on Marriage Equality Lawsuit

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The New Yorker has a terrific article by Margaret Talbot on the marriage equality case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, that began yesterday in San Francisco. It has pretty much everything you need to know about the case from soup to nuts.

I have to admit that while I was very leery of this lawsuit and thought it was a terrible idea, the more I read and think about it the more excited I am. It feels good to be going on the offensive. Ted Olson may be a Dark Lord, but in this case he’s our Dark Lord. By which I mean that he’s a top-notch lawyer, and it’s great that he’s finally using his powers for good. If there’s going to be a marriage equality case before the Supreme Court, we couldn’t have stronger legal representation.

And yes, it’s possible that the case will wind up in the Supreme Court and that we will lose. On our side: Ginsburg, Breyer, hopefully Sotomayor, and hopefully whoever replaces Stevens after he likely retires this summer. On the other side: Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito. In the middle: Anthony Kennedy, who wrote Romer and Lawrence and therefore would seem to be on our side, but you never know, especially since it would be a really big deal for the Court to overturn the laws of 39 states. Some say that if we lose, it will set gay rights back for years. On the other hand, what do we really have to lose? And if not now, when? Roberts, Alito and Thomas are all young, and Scalia could be on the Court for another 10-15 years. The makeup of the Court isn’t going to change in our favor anytime soon.

More importantly, this case is a great teaching moment. From the list of witnesses that Ted Olson and David Boies have put together, it looks like the case will touch on everything from marriage to discrimination to child-rearing to children’s education to so-called “conversion therapy.” Despite the ballot initiatives and the state legislatures that keep going against us, the more we discuss marriage equality, the more the public gets on our side.

On the other hand, if the Supreme Court rules in our favor, it could give fuel to the movement to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment. But you know what? I can’t see 67 U.S. senators voting to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution. And I’m tired of worrying about what our opponents are going to do if we fight for our rights. We’ve been timid for too long. What happens, happens.

Interestingly, there’s another federal marriage equality case going on right now, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, which seeks not to overturn state laws against marriage equality but rather to overturn part of the Defense of Marriage Act. Gill seeks to force the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages that were validly performed in a state that recognizes them. Normally, if, say, Massachusetts allows a marriage to take place, the federal government doesn’t second-guess Massachusetts and refuse to recognize that marriage. Why should it be any different in the case of same-sex couples? This is what the Gill plaintiffs argue, and in a sense it’s a more palatable case, because it seeks not to overturn state laws but rather to strengthen them. It’s not clear which case will get to the Supreme Court first, Gill or Perry.

In the meantime — still waiting for Obama to stop discharging U.S. soldiers for being gay, and for Congress to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Damn, I’m tired of waiting.

2009 in Books

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For the last few years I’ve been keeping a list of the books I read. (Here’s last year’s list.) What strikes me about 2009 is the number of just plain big books I’ve read. In the winter was The President’s House: A History, by William Seale. In the spring there was Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, by Rick Perlstein. In the summer, inspired by the anniversary of Apollo 11, I read This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age, by William E. Burrows. And in the fall I read Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud, by Peter Watson.

By far, my favorite book this year was The President’s House. I have rarely become so immersed in a book as I did in this one. In two volumes, it’s an incredibly leisurely stroll through 200 years of White House history, from the building of the house up through the present day. Along the way you meet all the presidential families who have lived there, and some of their long-serving aides. You live through weddings, deaths, funeral processions, wars. You experience the fire set by the British in 1814, the Lincolns’ life during the Civil War, the installation of gas lamps and then electricity, the utter reimagining of the house by Theodore Roosevelt, the creation of the West and East Wings and the Oval Office, the destruction of the Oval Office by fire in 1929 and its rebuilding, the complete gutting of the White House by Harry Truman so that a steel skeleton could replace the crumbling infrastructure and the two sub-basements could be added, and the postwar decades. The book is a presidential history, a social and cultural history, and an architectural history. It was a very special reading experience for me and I was sad when it ended. I feel like I know the White House much more intimately than I ever did. I fantasize about taking up residence in one of the several bedroom suites on the third floor (which you can’t really see from the outside, since it’s hidden by the parapets), hanging out up there in the solarium or the music room on a snowy day.

Anyway, here’s the complete list of books I’ve read this year, in chronological order:

The President’s House: A History, William Seale (2 vols.)

On Being a Therapist, Jeffrey A. Kottler

The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem (started)

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, Rick Perlstein

Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image, David Greenberg

Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future, Will Bunch

Reagan’s Disciple: George W. Bush’s Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy, Lou Cannon and Carl M. Cannon

Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice, Joan Biskupic

The American Supreme Court, Robert G. McCloskey (started)

This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age, William E. Burrows

The Fabric of the Heavens: The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics, Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud, Peter Watson

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, David D. Burns

Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi (a third of it)

The Man Who Folded Himself, David Gerrold

Here’s to more happy reading in 2010.

Justice Stevens

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So, it looks like Justice Stevens might be retiring next spring, or so say the Supreme Court kremlinologists. Justices usually hire clerks a year in advance, and Stevens has hired just one for the 2010-11 term instead of the usual four. The man’s going to be 90 years old in April, so it wouldn’t necessarily be surprising. But I thought he was going to stick around until death, and he apparently still plays tennis regularly. Anyway, retirement announcements don’t usually come until the spring, so we won’t know for a while.

If Stevens announces retirement effective at the beginning of the summer recess, like Souter did, that would peg his retirement at about 300 days from now, and he might just miss surpassing Justice Field as the second-longest-serving justice. If he announces a retirement upon the swearing-in of his successor, like O’Connor did, then that would be a couple of months longer (or even more, if we get a Roberts–>Miers–>Alito situation, like we did four years ago), and in that case he would definitely surpass Field, leaving him second only to William O. Douglas in longevity — who happens to be the man Stevens replaced on the bench in 1975.

Think about that. If Stevens retires next spring, then only two justices will have held that particular Supreme Court seat since 1939. And who held it before Douglas? Louis Brandeis! That’s how long it’s been.