“What do we want?  Equality!  When do we want it? Now!”

This morning PFAW staff and members joined a crowd of thousands gathered in front of the Supreme Court to chant, march, and speak out in support of marriage equality.  As Supreme Court Justices heard the first round of oral arguments on the marriage cases before them this term, multitudes of supporters gathered on the Court steps to share a simple message: our country is ready for marriage equality.

Today, the Court heard arguments on California’s anti-gay Proposition 8. Tomorrow, it will be considering the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In the weeks leading up to today, we have been asking friends of PFAW to share why dumping DOMA is important to them.  As I stood out at the rally this morning, I thought about all of the people who had been brave enough to share their story with us – and what this day meant to each of them.

For Bishop Allyson Abrams, a member of PFAW’s African American Ministers in Action, it’s time to dump DOMA “because it hurts and humiliates those who know love and who practice showing it each and every day.”  For Sam Paltrow, member of affiliate PFAW Foundation’s Young People For Program, DOMA has to go because it “teaches that gay families do not matter,” and for Young People For member Erik Lampmann, it’s an “issue of economic justice.”  Missoula City Councilmember Cailtin Copple, member of affiliate PFAW Foundation’s Young Elected Officials Network, “would like the chance to marry the person [she] loves someday.” 

While each person at the Supreme Court rally today – and those at the marriage rallies in all 50 states across the country – had a different reason for being there, we had a common goal:  Equality.  Now.

This piece is the eighth in a series of guest blog posts on “Why It’s Time to Dump DOMA.” In the weeks leading up to the Supreme Court arguments on the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, we’re asking friends of PFAW to share why dumping DOMA matters to them. Be sure to check back soon for the latest post in the series.

At the end of 2008, my husband and I were married in the same synagogue where I’d had my bar-mitzvah more than three decades earlier.  As a 13 year-old in the 1970s, I read from the Torah and spoke to the congregation about letting the people we love know how much we love them. But as a closeted 13 year-old, I never dreamed that 30 years later, I’d be standing in the same chapel, with all the same people who are dearest to me, publicly professing my love for another man. Rick and I were surrounded by family and married in the traditions of our faith. And as we drank from the Kiddush cup, we adapted a practice from the Passover Seder; since Prop 8 had just passed, we removed eight drops of wine as a symbol that our joy was diminished by the suffering caused by marriage discrimination.

Passover is my favorite holiday because it is about living in a just society.  It teaches us to welcome the stranger, because “we were strangers in the land of Egypt.” It is a lesson that, unfortunately, must be learned and relearned, as every society has those whom it unjustly treats as outcasts.

It’s appropriate that the Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in both the Prop 8 and Defense of Marriage Act cases during the week of Passover. Although the Constitution uses the language of “equal protection” instead “strangers in the land of Egypt,” the underlying values are the same. It is wrong – and unconstitutional – for states to prohibit us from marrying and for the federal government to refuse to recognize our marriages. What better time than Passover to dump DOMA and strike down Prop 8?

Paul Gordon, Senior Legislative Counsel
People For the American Way

Yesterday, Republican and Democratic state representatives in New Hampshire came together to pass a bill calling for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of our elections and overturn Citizens United. Since the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that corporations have a First Amendment right to unlimited political spending, states all across the country have begun the process to put democracy back in the hands of the people.

During the first post-Citizens United presidential election, the American people were able to see just how distorted and outsized corporate and plutocratic influence has become in our democracy. Citizens United and related cases led to the rise of super PACs, limitless election spending, and “dark money” groups that are not required to disclose their donors. In the 2012 federal election cycle, super PACs received over $100 million from corporations. The top 32 super PAC donors, contributing an average of nearly $10 million each, matched the amount of the money that President Obama and Mitt Romney raised from small donors combined.

The bipartisan passage of HCR 2 in New Hampshire shows that ensuring our elections remain free from outside and outsized influence is not a Democratic value or a Republican value; it’s an American value. This is an issue that cuts across party lines and speaks to the core of our democratic principles. Fully 83% of Americans (85% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans and 78% of independents) support limits on how much money corporations can spend in elections.

Unprecedented public support for meaningful reform has already led to substantial progress in states all across the country, and a mounting public movement demanding a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and restore our democracy has emerged. Over 400 cities and towns, as well as 11 states, have called on Congress to send the states an amendment proposal that would overturn the disastrous decision. Last month, PFAW and ally organizations re-launched the “Declaration For Democracy” campaign, which helps identify and amplify the voices of public officials who support amending the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and related cases. Already, over 100 members of Congress have joined the cause in support of a constitutional amendment.

The New Hampshire bill now moves to the Senate side of General Court, where legislators will decide whether democracy is still for the people. Let’s make sure they again put democratic principles above party politics.

The ongoing campaign by the Religious Right and its conservative Catholic allies to redefine religious liberty in America – which has been covered extensively by PFAW and Right Wing Watch – is the focus of a new report released on Monday by Political Research Associates, a think tank that also monitors right-wing organizations. “Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights,” was written by Jay Michaelson, who published a condensed version in the Daily Beast.

Michaelson’s report reviews the organizational players and the strategies they employ, among them: mixing fact and fiction; claiming that there is a war on religious liberty; and reversing the roles of victim and oppressor to portray as religious liberty “victims” people who claim a right to discriminate against others. He notes that Religious Right disinformation has had some success in shaping public opinion: in Minnesota last year a large plurality of marriage equality opponents believed that if marriage equality became the law, churches would be forced to solemnize same-sex marriages, even though there is universal agreement that the First Amendment guarantees that churches are and will always be free to choose which relationships to bless or not to bless.

The PRA report includes the following recommendations for social justice advocates:

1. Define and publicize the campaign to redefine religious liberty

2. Organize a unified response

3. Counter misinformation

4. Reclaim the religious liberty frame

5. Develop academic responses

6. Leverage religious communities

7. Ongoing research and monitoring

Religious liberty was also the topic of a forum at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., cosponsored by the Newseum’s Religious Freedom Education Project, Moment Magazine, and the Committee on Religious Liberty of the National Council of Churches. Moment, an independent Jewish Magazine, has also published a special Religious Freedom issue for March/April 2013.  At the conference, two large panels brought together a range of religious and secular voices to discuss and debate the meaning of religious liberty and the claims that liberty is under attack in the U.S. today. It's impossible to give complete coverage in a blog post but here are some highlights.

Charles Haynes, the First Amendment expert who heads Newseum’s religious liberty committee, noted that the broad coalition that came together to back the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the 1990s is no longer.  Michael Lieberman, director of the Civil Rights Policy Planning Center for the Anti-Defamation League, suggested a reason: that the coalition had intended RFRA to be a shield against government restrictions on the free exercise of religion, but that conservative groups had turned RFRA into a spear used to attack anti-discrimination laws.

One central principle of PFAW’s Twelve Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics became clear: while people can agree on the broad principle that religious liberty protects the freedom to live in accord with one’s religious beliefs, that consensus breaks down quickly when deciding how law and policy should react when religious liberty comes into tension with other constitutional principles like equality under the law. Indeed, panelists strongly (but civilly) disagreed on to what extent organizations – whether religiously affiliated institutions or business corporations – should be able to claim exemption from anti-discrimination laws or the HHS requirement for insurance coverage of contraception. 

Richard Foltin of the American Jewish Committee argued for a shades-of-gray, rather than a black-and-white approach, saying organizations should be viewed on a spectrum, with churches and sectarian institutions on one end and corporations at the other. Foltin said the AJC has submitted amicus briefs in favor of marriage equality at the Supreme Court, but also believes that there are significant religious liberty questions that courts will have to deal with as marriage equality is implemented.  (As noted at another point during the day, the states that now recognize marriage equality all have somewhat different religious exemptions.)

Michaelson proposes five tiers of organizations with differing levels of claims to religious liberty: churches/denominations; religious organizations; religiously affiliated organizations; religiously owned business, and religious individuals. The right-wing, he says, keeps trying to “move the sticks” from the first three groups to the latter two.  He notes that the Mormon Church owns extensive business interests, including shopping malls, and says that if business owners are allowed to claim exemption from anti-discrimination laws and other regulations based on religious belief, many employees will have their rights and interests restricted. 

Author Wendy Kaminer argued that the religious liberty of institutions is over-protected rather than threatened, saying that she believes some claims for religious liberty are actually demands for religious power to impose their beliefs on others.  If business owners are allowed to claim a religious exemption from generally applicable civil rights laws, she asked, what would be the limiting principle to such claims? Could business owners cite religious beliefs to ignore child labor laws, or to refuse to hire married women?  Kaminer challenged what she called an emerging legal double standard: when it comes to taking government funds, advocates say religious organizations need a level playing field and should be treated like every other organization. But when it comes to free exercise claims, and groups like Catholic Charities say they shouldn’t be subject to generally applicable laws, they don’t want a level playing field but special privileges.

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said that overblown rhetoric about threats to religious freedom is damaging to public understanding of religious liberty. She suggests that the first response to someone who talks about threats to religious liberty should be to ask them what specifically they are talking about.  For example, while people may be concerned when they hear about “an assault on religious liberty,” most Americans do not see a problem with requiring religiously affiliated institutions to abide by anti-discrimination laws or meet contraception requirements.

Legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen suggested that on church-state issues, the Supreme Court justices could be divided into three camps: religious supremacists, advocates of “religious neutrality,” and strict church-state separationists.  The separationists, he said, had their heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s, but that the courts have been moving more toward a “religious neutrality” approach, which he said in some cases is really a cover for the religious supremacists yearning for an openly religious state.  He said a landmark of the triumph of “neutrality” over separation was the 1995 Rosenberger case, in which the court said a public university could not deny funding from a religious publication because of its religious nature.  In the future, he said, Justices Breyer and Kagan may be willing to embrace a “religious neutrality” approach in hopes of winning votes to try to keep Robert and Kennedy from joining the Scalia-Thomas religious supremacists.

Mark Rienzi of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has filed lawsuits challenging the HHS mandate and which has urged the Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8 and DOMA, portrayed religious liberty issues not as part of a culture war but as the necessity in a pluralistic society of recognizing that differences exist and allowing everyone the maximum ability to live according to their beliefs. He suggested that most church-state conflicts are blown out of proportion and can be resolved relatively easy with a willingness to work around individual religious liberty claims. Kim Colby of the Christian Legal Society endorsed that view, and noted that the Supreme Court will likely be deciding cases in the near future about what constitutes a “substantial burden” on a person’s religious beliefs and what might qualify as a “compelling state interest” that would justify that burden.

Michaelson challenged Rienzi’s portrayal, saying that “religious liberty” itself has become a code word for a new tactic in the culture war against LGBT equality and reproductive rights, and that it was wrong to pretend there would be no victim if a business owner were granted the right, for example, to ignore laws against anti-gay discrimination.  Pharmacies, he said, used to have lunch counters that were segregated. Would it have been OK to justify that discrimination by saying there was another lunch counter down the street, the argument used by advocates for allowing pharmacists to refuse to provide some drugs based on their religious beliefs?

The ADL’s Lieberman said that from his perspective as an advocate for minority religions these do not seem like small or easily resolved issues, and said there was a clear prospect that individual rights would not be safeguarded if, for example, majoritarian school prayer were permitted.  Hoda Elshishtawy, legislative and policy analyst at the Muslim Public Affairs Council also noted the reality of a major power differential between members of majority and minority religions.  Dan Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, noted that there are widespread abuses in public schools, citing an example of a South Carolina public school that set aside a day explicitly intended to try to convert as many students as possible to Christianity.

Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, who moderated the first panel, noted that even on the day the First Amendment was passed, not everyone agreed with it or agreed with what it meant. We’ve been working it out ever since then and can’t quit, he said.  Charles Haynes made a similar point in his closing remarks, noting that in spite of all the differences evident in how we apply First Amendment principles, the ability to continue having the conversation is a reminder of how well those principles have worked to protect religious liberty in an increasingly diverse nation.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz - who notoriously attempted to lecture Sen. Dianne Feinstein yesterday about the Constitution and the Second Amendment, asserting his deep knowledge of the subject as the submitter of an amicus brief representing 31 states in the Supreme Court's Heller case - seems to be caught in a huge contradiction that begs for clarification.

Yesterday, during the Senate Judiciary Committee's consideration of the assault weapons ban bill, Cruz flatly asserted that the Supreme Court's District of Columbia v. Heller decision absolutely prohibits the proposed federal ban on assault weapons. Yet, in the brief he proudly pointed to submitting he claimed that a favorable ruling in the case would not undermine the constitutionality of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which had expired in 2004 and which included many of the weapons inthe current bill. His brief said that "none of the federal firearms regulations discussed in the United States's brief is jeopardized by the Court of Appeals's decision." The federal assault weapons ban was one of those regulations discussed in brief submitted by the United States.

In addition, as the Yelling at the TV blog has pointed out, Cruz's brief also specifically called state assault weapons bans reasonable:

Indeed, it bears emphasis that amici States likewise have a strong interest in maintaining the many state laws prohibiting felons in possession, restricting machine guns and sawed-off shotguns, and the like. See Appendix.

But all 31 amici States agree that striking down the District of Columbia's categorical ban on all operative firearms would pose no threat to these reasonable regulations. (emphasis added)

Cruz pointed the Justices to his appendix, where he listed those state laws he regarded as "reasonable" and which would not be threatened by the ruling they ultimately made. Among them are bans on assault weapons in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.

If Cruz meant what he said to the Supreme Court, then did the Justices say something in Heller that differed from what Cruz was urging them to say?

Or perhaps the difference is that Senator Cruz is now speaking on his own behalf, while as Texas Solicitor General he was advocating a legal position on behalf of his client (the state of Texas). Such a claim would come just a week after Cruz joined other Republicans last week in filibustering Caitlin Halligan's nomination to the DC Circuit on the basis of arguments she made on behalf of her clients, assuming that what an attorney argues in court on behalf of their client reflects their personal beliefs.

It's also one thing to advocate the legal position of a client that you may or may not personally believe (e.g., arguing that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms and makes the District of Columbia law unconstitutional). It's another thing to make a factual statement in support of that argument ("this legal interpretation won't affect x, y, and z laws, which are not part of this case") that, it turns out, you believe is false.

Whatever the explanation is, it is something he should explain.

This piece is the seventh in a series of guest blog posts on “Why It’s Time to Dump DOMA.” In the weeks leading up to the Supreme Court arguments on the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, we’re asking friends of PFAW to share why dumping DOMA matters to them. Be sure to check back soon for the latest post in the series.

Nine years ago, as I was preparing to leave Ohio University, I said goodbye to Adam, one of my best friends. I remember writing to him in a card that I hoped our husbands would someday get to meet. That November – November 3, 2004 to be precise – I was on the phone with him, and he was heartbroken at what for many was a difficult election (including Ohio passing a state constitutional amendment limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman).

Fast forward to 2011, and a visit with Adam and his partner of several years, Michael. Marriage equality came up in conversation. It seemed to us to be possible but still five or ten years away.

Then came 2012. In May, President Obama affirmed his support for the freedom to marry of same-sex couples. In December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear cases challenging California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

With oral arguments looming at the end of the month, Adam’s reaction to the President’s announcement rings ever more true:

THANK YOU President Obama! Those of you who know Michael and I: we have such an incredibly strong, stable, loving relationship. Opening our relationship up to marriage does nothing but STRENGTHEN the institution!

That’s exactly why we should dump DOMA.

Yes, dumping DOMA is just one step on the long road to marriage equality. But it’s an important step, and one that’s many years overdue. DOMA unconstitutionally defines marriage for all federal purpose as the union of one man and one woman. That means that legally married couples in nine states and the District of Columbia are denied the more than one thousand rights and benefits that the federal government ties to marriage. That means that these couples and families aren’t afforded the safety and security that comes along with many of those rights. That means that they are discriminated against based solely on their sexual orientation.

That means that if Adam and Michael were to legally marry, despite progress made under the Obama administration, the federal government – bound by the discrimination enshrined in law – would have no choice but to turn its back on them in most cases.

That is not right. Dump DOMA.

Jen Herrick, Senior Policy Analyst
People For the American Way

Today, on the three month anniversary of the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would ban certain assault weapons and place limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines. Earlier this week, the committee also approved a universal background check bill for gun purchases that seeks to prevent sales to people with criminal records or a history of mental illness.

Sadly, the gun lobby’s oversized influence on legislators continues to be an unfortunate reality: not a single Republican voted for either bill in committee. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) who has been the main sponsor of the background check legislation, had this to say about the vote and of Republicans touting NRA-approved conspiracy theories:

It’s sad. Right after Newtown, there was a view that maybe the right place that we could all come together on was background checks because background checks, unlike some of the other proposals here, which I support, do not interfere with the law-abiding citizens’ right to bear arms,” Schumer said. “I would hope and pray we would debate the rational parts of this bill and not say this bill will lead to confiscation or registration. Nothing in this bill…indicates a scintilla of truth to that argument

Newtown, for its part, is not backing away from the struggle to prevent another tragedy like Sandy Hook. Last Saturday, more than two dozen Newtown bicyclists left on a 400-mile ride to Washington to honor the Sandy Hook victims and “raise awareness for common-sense gun legislation.” Event organizer Monte Frank spoke to USA TODAY about the growing grass-roots movement pushing for meaningful action:

We have gotten to the point where we recognize we have an epidemic of gun violence,” Frank said. “The current situation is not tolerable for a sophisticated and developed nation. We want to be remembered as a town that went to work to change the gun culture in our society and put stronger laws in place to reduce gun violence.

Additionally, a petition initiated by Newtown clergy has already gathered more than 4,000 signatures from religious leaders across the nation calling on Congress to pass meaningful gun violence prevention legislation.

NRA officials, meanwhile, are still relying on incendiary rhetoric and fear mongering. Earlier this month, NRA President David Keene defended protestors who compared New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Hitler after the state reinforced its gun violence prevention law:

Folks that are cognizant of the history-not just in Germany but elsewhere- look back to the history and say we can’t let that sort of thing happen here.

The NRA leadership loves labeling the organization as a mainstream defender of individual liberty. Yet time and time again NRA officials have demonstrated that their views and tactics are rarely in sync with American public opinion or with reality. They continue to peddle the talking point that gun violence prevention measures are ineffective, despite a study by Boston Children’s Hospital last week that tougher laws on guns can have an effect on homicide and suicide rates. And they continue to see the background check issue as a “wrongheaded approach,” despite new polls in more than 40 congressional districts and 20 states showing voters overwhelmingly support background checks for all gun sales. The NRA leadership’s absurdity on the issue has reached a point now where gun advocates have even begun splitting with the organization over their stubborn opposition to common sense.

However, the NRA is not alone in attempting to prevent effective regulation of guns and promoting reckless policies that leave Americans vulnerable. Groups such as American Family Association and Tea Party Nation have blamed everything from “anti-religious secular bureaucracy” to “teachers’ unions” for the cause of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Others, such as Gun Owners of America have even gone so far as to criticize the NRA for being too soft on gun rights and too willing to compromise. Recently, PFAW released a report chronicling the history and strategies of the radical groups and individuals who are working to prevent meaningful gun violence reform. The report, “The Lobby Against Common Sense: The Right’s Campaign Against Gun Violence Reform and How We Can Defeat It,” is aimed at helping to move the debate in a positive direction by focusing on the radical extremism of opponents of common sense reform.