Ted Olson, one of the couples' lawyers, said he is unaware of any other cases in which a ruling was challenged because of the issuing judge's sexual orientation.
How many cases have there been in which a federal judge has struck down a state constitutional amendment with a bride+groom requirement in a way that could personally benefit him, without stating before the trial that he could personally gain from the outcome?
Leff gives the judge this around an easy out:
Many legal scholars have said they do not expect Ware to overturn Walker.
And here's something I don’t think I saw before:
Ware also is scheduled to hear arguments on whether he should unseal videotaped recordings of the trial. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, after Walker proposed having the proceedings uploaded on a YouTube channel, that the trial could not be broadcast beyond the federal courthouse in San Francisco. Lawyers for the gay couples that sued to overturn [the state constitutional amendment] and for the news media are asking Ware to now make those recordings public.
Why not just do a Broadway musical instead? That way, we can know what will win big at the Tonys next year.
Here's Maura Dolan's take at LATimes.com, which also uses the "ban" language. She also gives Ware an out.
Legal scholars interviewed by the Los Angeles Times last month predict that the effort by Proposition 8 sponsor ProtectMarriage will fail.
And Dolan provided this update.
A federal judge questioned Monday whether the judge who presided over the Proposition 8 trial had a duty to disclose his same-sex relationship if he did not intend to marry his long-term partner.
U.S. District Chief Judge James Ware said during a court hearing that there was no evidence that retired Judge Vaughn R. Walker ever wished to marry his partner, a physician.
I wonder exactly what would be discoverable?
Charles Cooper, who is representing the Proposition 8 campaign, maintained that Walker should have stepped down because he was “similarly situated” to the gay and lesbian couples who brought the suit in that he too was in a serious, committed relationship with a same-sex partner.
Over at my namesake blog, you may be interested in:
A Los Angeles Times editorial on "gay rights"
AIDS Wasn't Reagan's Fault
Really, Tina Fey?
The first sentence uses the bogus "ban" language, as does the next sentence, and elsewhere in the article. This is a deliberate, calculated move on the part of journalists who are letting their biases overtake them.
ReplyDeleteIs it your contention that virtually every major newspaper in the country, whether liberal and conservative, is also engaged in a deliberate, calculated move to let biases overtake journalism, by using the term "ban" with regard to same-sex marriage?
Okay Phil,
ReplyDeleteGo ahead and defend the use of the term. Why do they use the term "ban" to mean something that is not at all banned, and in fact recognized as Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships -- with privileges and benefits of marriage?
If their usage is at all sane, then it should be easy for you to justify it.
If not then we must apply Sherlock Holmes advice, once we've eliminated the impossible, whatever is left no matter how improbable must be true.
Is it your contention that virtually every major newspaper in the country, whether liberal and conservative, is also engaged in a deliberate, calculated move to let biases overtake journalism...
ReplyDeleteOh, not just journalism, but the law as well, which is why they've been so unsubtle about trying to influence judges like Ware into deciding not on the basis of a weighing of the legal arguments but on being seen well by the press and by "the tide of history". In this they'll probably be successful, at least with the California judges.
Go ahead and defend the use of the term.
ReplyDeleteAt issue is whether it is appropriate to use the term "ban" when discussing a law which prohibits something that citizens are free to simulate.
The meaning of words is established through common usage. I'm not personally claiming to be the authority on word usage for this particular term.
I am, however, suggesting that the way that Playful Walrus (and you, and R.K.) use the word ban is inconsistent with the way the word is used by ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, MSNBC, CNN and FOX News.
Your usage of ban is also inconsistent with the way that the term is used by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sacramento Bee.
Other national newspapers that use the word "ban" to refer to same-sex marriage bans include USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Wall Street Journal.
Conservative sources that use "ban" in the way that Opine Editorials finds objectionable include BeliefNet, World Net Daily, the Washington Times, the National Review, the Christian Post, America Magazine, the Catholic News Agency, and the American Spectator.
International English-language sources that have no problem using the word ban in the way y'all disapprove include the BBC, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, Melbourne's Herald Sun, the Financial Times, and the Jerusalem Post.
This list just touches the surface. My point isn't that you're right or wrong. I'm just pointing out that you're using a word in a highly specific way, and then claiming that every major newspaper in the country--virtually every major English-language newspaper in the world--is engaged in a deliberate, calculated move to bias the public and/or the law.
I don't care who uses the term. It isn't accurate. If there was a rogue county issuing neutered marriage licenses, then an order telling them to stop would be a "ban on issuing marriage licenses to same-sex applicants". But neither "gay marriage" nor "same-sex marriage" has been banned. It isn't illegal to have a religious (or not) ceremony, party, vacation, exchange rings, open gifts, change names, share a life and bed, and ask other people to consider you married. No law enforcement personnel are going to come in and prevent any of this.
ReplyDeleteI'll add that I personally know same-sex couples who have long said they married each other and are married, with no state-issued marriage licenses involved. Were they lying? Would you have told them they're not married? Clearly, it hasn't been banned ever since same-sex partners have been free to live with each other.
ReplyDeleteOh, and another thing. Why doesn't anyone ever call these marriage amendments "bans on group marriage"?
ReplyDeletePhil: > At issue is whether it is appropriate to use the term "ban" when discussing a law which prohibits something that citizens are free to simulate.
ReplyDeleteOkay Phil, if that is your chosen playground, go ahead. Tell us how that is appropriate.
I noticed you didn't defend it in your remarks. You simply described it as a neologism, a new word that they understand a particular way contrary to how everyone else uses it. Because where else does a ban mean "citizens are free to" do.
So based on your premise that this is a neologism that is justified by its use in journalism we can deduce the following...
1) If the journalists understood that as the neologism meaning of ban for just this instance, they would be committing the exact bias that Playful Walrus notes. They are committing newspeak, using a word they understand differently then the American public they are writing to.
2) If the journalists don't understand their new use of the term, if it isn't their own calculated construction, then it is simply bad journalism so poorly.
Either way, Phil, the fact that you can quote people doing it doesn't change the fact that the word doesn't mean what they keep using it to mean. Its either on purpose (as Playful points out) or an accident (meaning journalists these days have english skills of a fourth grader).
But neither "gay marriage" nor "same-sex marriage" has been banned.
ReplyDeleteSo the question is whether two people who call themselves married are married.
Do you believe that two people who call themselves married are, in fact, married?
If the answer is "yes," then it is accurate for you to say that laws prohibiting the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples are not bans.
If the answer is no, then a law prohibiting same-sex marriage is a ban, because a same-sex couple in which the participants call themselves married are not actually married.
Were they lying?
ReplyDeleteNo, in the same way that you wouldn't be lying if you said someone was legally "fishing" for compliments in a state park where fishing is banned.
Either way, Phil, the fact that you can quote people doing it doesn't change the fact that the word doesn't mean what they keep using it to mean.
ReplyDeleteWho determines what a word means? The meaning of words is determined through common usage. Common usage in this country overwhelmingly favors the terms "same-sex marriage ban" or "gay marriage ban."
Its either on purpose (as Playful points out) or an accident (meaning journalists these days have english skills of a fourth grader).
So, in your view, the most reasonable conclusion is that every journalist in every major city in the country, at every major newspaper, whether liberal or conservative, is either conspiring against your political position, or simply uneducated?
The most reasonable conclusion is that every English-language news organization in the world is biased against you?
Phil: > So the question is whether two people who call themselves married are married.
ReplyDeleteActually, the question is even simpler then that.
If we are saying we are banning a behavior, which behavior are we banning?
1) Calling your relationship a marriage.
2) Having a wedding, living together for the rest of your lives in domestic mutual benefit.
When the government only recognizes a man-woman relationship as a marriage it does not stop, impede, prohibit, or ban the citizens from either behavior.
So either way you want people to answer that question, both behaviors are not banned.
Phil: > Do you believe that two people who call themselves married are, in fact, married?
Are you going to tell them they aren't?
This carries again the same fallacy that you were called on before, marriage isn't trying to prove the negative. It isn't trying to prove that everyone who thinks they are married are not married, or even a specific subset of them. The private interpretation is very much allowed, it is not banned.
However the government recognizes marriage for itself, it is only its own interpretation for its own purposes without impeding at all the ability for people to have their own interpretation.
Phil: > you wouldn't be lying if you said someone was legally "fishing" for compliments in a state park where fishing is banned.
Your analogy is flawed. To say that
"fishing" is banned is a gross simplification. It is highly unlikely that fishing of anything is banned, but only specific behaviors of fishing specific types of fish.
So, I could be fishing for carp in a place where "fishing is banned" for salmon. I could be fishing with a rod and reel where "fishing is banned" with a net.
Using an example of an overstatement or oversimplification of a ban is not analogous to an issue of where you think that ban means "citizens are free to simulate".
Phil: > Who determines what a word means?
Your appeal to a neologism has already been discussed and is fallacious. The fact it is a neologism promoted by the media justifies Playful's judgement of it.
Phil: > So, in your view, the most reasonable conclusion is [...]
And your continued defense of it as a neologism only justifies it.
Phil: > every journalist in every major city in the country, at every major newspaper
Refer to my point about over-stating above. It isn't every journalist, and it isn't even every major newspaper. But it is every journalist that is hankering to report this issue because it forwards a personal bias of theres.
If there is a more rational explanation, please provide it. But any one (even if that someone is Phil) that tries to say they are using the term in a way outside of how it is commonly used -- but congruently -- is exactly what you would see if you wanted to show evidence for what Playful has judged.
But either way, you need to get out more if you think it is every newspaper.
Marriage existed long before the California state government was issuing licenses.
ReplyDeleteI'll add that I personally know same-sex couples who have long said they married each other and are married, with no state-issued marriage licenses involved.
ReplyDeleteSo, in your view, are they married?
Marriage existed long before the California state government was issuing licenses.
Yes, and armies existed before the United States formed a standing army. The same word can have multiple meanings. A "No Fishing" sign represents a ban on fishing. But a person is still free to fish for compliments.
A large group of overweight, color-blind fifty-year-olds with back problems can get together and call themselves an "army." And they're not lying, any more than your friends who call themselves married without getting legally married.
But they also haven't joined the army, because the word in a legal sense has a different meaning than it does in a colloquial sense.
Overweight, color-blind fifty-year-olds with back problems and no prior service are prohibited from joining the United States Army, even though they can use the word "army" as they wish.
You can't have it both ways in this argument. You're trying to say that a same-sex couple is free to get married. And you're also saying that if they do get married, they're not really married.
Phil: > So, in your view, are they married?
ReplyDeletePhil, you haven't answered the question...
Who's to say they are not married?
Allow me to repeat...
Are you going to tell them they aren't?
This carries again the same fallacy that you were called on before, marriage isn't trying to prove the negative. It isn't trying to prove that everyone who thinks they are married are not married, or even a specific subset of them. The private interpretation is very much allowed, it is not banned.
However the government recognizes marriage for itself, it is only its own interpretation for its own purposes without impeding at all the ability for people to have their own interpretation.
Restating your same fallacy doesn't resurrect it from the dead, Phil.
Phil: > A large group of overweight, color-blind fifty-year-olds with back problems can get together and call themselves an "army."
And they can, they are called "irregulars" or "partisans". The US Army hasn't had any use for irregulars since the Civil War. But even during that time there were organized militias running around at the local municipality level. There are militias that run around today even.
If I see one marching up to my house with guns ready, I'm not going to run out and order publisher's clearing house from them, aren't I?
In any case, what was your point with the Armies anyway? I failed to see you come to a point about it.
Phil: > And you're also saying that if they do get married, they're not really married.
Ah, the matter of private interpretation again.
Funny enough I already touched on that topic.
This carries again the same fallacy that you were called on before, marriage isn't trying to prove the negative. It isn't trying to prove that everyone who thinks they are married are not married, or even a specific subset of them. The private interpretation is very much allowed, it is not banned.
However the government recognizes marriage for itself, it is only its own interpretation for its own purposes without impeding at all the ability for people to have their own interpretation.
So even if Playful disagrees that they are a marriage, that only re-enforces that it is not a matter of a ban. Because the state leaves that part up to private interpretation. You are free to agree they are married, and even give them benefits if you want, Phil.
As far as benefits go, you've still not answered the question I asked you.
How can you call something a ban that is recognized with benefits and privileges of the state, like their marriages are recognized with Domestic Partnerships and Civil Unions?
Phil: > A "No Fishing" sign represents a ban on fishing. But a person is still free to fish for compliments.
ReplyDeleteYour analogy is flawed. To say that
"fishing" is banned is a gross simplification. It is highly unlikely that fishing of anything is banned, but only specific behaviors of fishing specific types of fish.
So, I could be fishing for carp in a place where "fishing is banned" for salmon. I could be fishing with a rod and reel where "fishing is banned" with a net.
Using an example of an overstatement or oversimplification of a ban is not analogous to an issue of where you think that ban means "citizens are free to simulate".
Phil: So, in your view, are they married?
ReplyDeleteThe mask slips. Phil isn't interested in neutering marriage but imposing government thought control.
Overweight, color-blind fifty-year-olds with back problems and no prior service are prohibited from joining the United States Army, even though they can use the word "army" as they wish.
Note the slight of hand. Unless Phil is complaining that same-sex couples can't "join the marriage" his analogy fails.
If Phil could support the use of the word ban he'd be talking about ban, not fishing, not army.
On Lawn,
ReplyDeleteYour last two comments don't make sense.
No Phil, your last comment just means you have poor reading comprehension.
ReplyDeleteBut no fear, I am here to help you. Please tell me what words you don't understand and I can explain them better for you. Perhaps a phrase needs a bit of unraveling so as to condescend to your intellect?
On Lawn,
ReplyDeleteYour last comment was disrespectful.
The two before that didn't make sense.
No Phil, they didn't make sense to you.
ReplyDeleteAnything I can do to bring them down to your level of comprehension, just let me know :)