This is from the San Francisco Chronicle January 23, 2006:

“Several gay rights organizations, including Lambda Legal, joined Equality California in taking the unusual step of asking the Ninth Circuit to throw out Gilbert’s case.” (Richard Gilbert was the attorney in the Hammer and Smelt lawsuit.)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/23/MNGBNGRIFE1.DTL

I appreciate your asking for documentation, which is completely fair. I have made mistakes before, and when I do, I correct them. But I hope you’re coming to realize I don’t just make stuff up.

The Alliance Defense Fund have the filings on their web site. There’s no amicus brief from Lambda, which seems strange, since if my typical adversary were agreeing with me, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops.

Can you please indicate a source, beyond your assertion, that would show that Lambda tried to get the case thrown out?

I promise I’m not deliberately missing your points. I’m responding to what you write. I apologize if I’m not reading carefully enough; I’ll try harder in the future. But I cannot read your mind, and can only respond to what you actually write.

Of course it isn’t illegal for Lambda Legal to try to stop the lawsuits of gay couples who sue for marriage. I just think it’s reprehensible. Nobody elected them representatives of the gay movement, and they have every right to push their own strategies for achieving marriage rights. When they go a step further and try to quash same-sex couples who have a different strategy, I think it’s perfectly legitimate for them to be criticized.

I didn’t miss what you were driving at with FMLA. I just think it’s off-point. Couples in Massachusetts and California can get legally married or not – it won’t matter in terms of the FMLA, because DOMA prevents it from applying to them.

What I am saying is I don’t know how common that is, for an “unrelated” party to try to intervene. It is obviously not illegal or they couldn’t do it. And conservative groups do it all the time. I read about them almost monthly or a bit more – some traditional marriage group in Arizona filed something in response to the California ruling. Don’t they have enough to do in Arizona?

And even if I’m a bit off target – you may be completely right, the individuals should be able to file their suits independently. But like I implied in other examples, the law is very complex and is for lawyers. I would bet my next paycheck the HRC is not the only group to intervene (and I’m referring to everything and anything not just SSM).

On my child support job, I was trying to find out about an out of state company’s ownership and employment records. The City told me to call the County who told me to call the state tax number registration office. They were prohibited by law to tell me who owned the company. Can you believe it? They pointed me to a website where I saw a photo page of the name & signature but trying to proceed from there I just went in circles. the point? The law is very complicated and often not what it appears to be.

And how could you miss what I was driving at with FMLA? FMLA is not a marriage laws. I said as plainly as I could to the Gay men on this site who think they don’t need marriage and are treated oh so well by everyone – FMLA does not apply to them because they don’t have a legal spouse.

So, the signifcant other gets sick – he can’t use FMLA to take care of him because they are not family members as defined by FMLA. (Family Medical Leave Act).

Federal marriage law doesn’t apply to any same-sex couples, whether they are married or not. That’s one of the things the Defense of Marriage Act does.

The point is that these same-sex couples spent their own money to hire a lawyer to sue for what they believe is their federal right to marry. Then a bunch of unelected gay big shots swooped in and told these couples that they don’t know what’s good for them, and the groups are going to argue to the court that their cases should be dismissed and all their time, money, and effort will be a waste. That’s wrong.

Or they may be some facts in the case we are unaware of. I’m sure the majority of court cases are dozens of pages each, the California Ruling on marriage was 85 pages no?

Finally, when all is boiled down, the law is for lawyers not for the common person, the majority of the time. FMLA is a great example of the monkey business that goes on with law. You have the right to take unpaid leave from work to care for a family member but if your employer rules you can’t, there is no remedy written into the law for a monetary fine against them for DELIBERATELY breaking the law. So what seems very clear and reasonable on its face in fact isn’t.

Thanks for your apology but my feelings weren’t hurt. I’ve been called much worse. The problem was you didn’t believe me when I said gay groups really tried to quash marriage-equality lawsuits.

You complain that I “don’t consider [SSM] real marriage. Legal marriages certified by the state. You don’t get any realer than that. You don’t have to like it, just don’t pretend it’s somehow phony. That is harmful to the dignity of real live people. Not abstractions.”

One state (soon two) claim that a man can marry a man. They did so because of four judges in each state. That doesn’t make it real. If four judges said a 10-year-old was bar mitzvah, they’d be wrong. If four judges declared Nevada to be on the West Coast, they’d be wrong. When the Supreme Court declared that Dred Scott was someone else’s property, would I have the right to say, “No, he’s not. A human being cannot be someone’s property”?

You should know by now that whatever you think of my arguments, I don’t present facts that I cannot substantiate. According to the Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco’s gay newseeekly), “Lambda Legal tried to talk the city of San Francisco from pressing its gay marriage lawsuit (and) it filed a brief in his case asking the court not to hear it.” You claim that gay groups “took no action to stop” the Smelt case, but the BAR says (unelected) lesbian attorney Jennifer “Pizer acknowledged that Lambda Legal has filed some briefs suggesting the federal court abstain from ruling on Smelt v. Orange County.”

Then there’s the Florida lawsuit for a federal right to gay marriage that gay groups filed a rival lawsuit in an attempt to quash the one they didn’t like:

“‘It’s very concerning that he’s acting completely on his own without any cognizance or sensitivity to the bigger picture in Florida and other states,’ said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), a California-based organization that has filed a rival lawsuit in Florida in response to Rubin’s.” (stateline.org)

It is evil (again, your word) for unelected LGBT “leaders” to try to quash a marriage lawsuit brought at their own expense by same-sex couples. Do you think it is good?

Your statement that “The Conservative movement now allows for the ordination of gay rabbis and rabbis may join same-sex couples” is technically true. So is “The Conservative movement opposes same-sex commitment ceremonies and the ordination of gay rabbis” and “The Conservative movement urges people with same-sex attractions to explore ways of resisting those urges, including reorientation therapy.” All three positions were passed by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), and it is misleading for you to cite the most liberal opinion while not even mentioning the other two. In addition, same-sex civil and religious marriage both violate Conservative halacha (Jewish law). Every opinion presented to the CJLS that approved of same-sex marriage was rejected. So in actuality two out of the three big American Jewish movements are against same-sex marriage.

And everyone agrees (including the Reform) that when Reform rabbis perform same-sex marriages, they are doing so in violation of halacha. It’s just that the Reform movement thinks some things – like gay equality – are more important than halacha. So in fact all three American Jewish movements agree that same-sex marriage is against Jewish law.

Why should I “help [you] see that no one raises an objection to [your] rabbi performing, as he is willing, legal marriages for same-sex couples, under both Jewish law and civil law?” As I mentioned above, nobody believes that Jewish law allows for same-sex marriages, so the first criterion you mention is impossible. And as for civil law, the Talmud specifies that same-sex civil marriages for Jews and gentiles are forbidden. Why would you ask me to violate Jewish law? Would you ask me to spend money on Shabbat and eat shrimp, too? If not, why would you ask me to violate Jewish law with same-sex marriage?

I absolutely support your UCC minister friend’s right to have whatever religious ceremonies he wants in the confines of his church. Exorcisms, ritual slaughter of chickens, cultic orgies, same-sex marriage – whatever he wants to do. Just don’t ask for me to approve it.

As for “And don’t tell me that it tramples the rights of the Orthodox if the Reconstructionists can provide legal marriages” I have never said that. It tramples the rights of the Orthodox when I’m told I cannot vote, blog, write op-eds, and lobby Congress for laws supporting man-woman marriage if one of my motivations is my religious belief that same-sex civil marriage is wrong. As long as you allow me to push for what I believe in, whatever my motivation, I will not complain that my rights are trampled if I lose fairly.