SON MIS LOCURAS

Amazing what words look like when you’ve forgotten why you wrote them.  Yesterday’s example

“Jesus is at your desk.  Call him for help.”

No, wasn’t being evangelical, just trying to find someone IT help.   I’d just forgotten that when I saw the message as I looked back through my sent file later in the day.

Trial’s over for now.  It’ll resume sometime in March.  In the meantime, there’s a t-shirt you can buy.  Find it here.

The Supreme Court denied the dissemination of video from the Proposition 8 trial today.  The court order is here.  The 5-4 decision relies on the idea that giving the public five business days to comment on the changing of court rules that would have allowed the broadcast of the trial wasn’t enough.  The order says

We are asked to stay the broadcast of a federal trial. We resolve that question without expressing any view on whether such trials should be broadcast. We instead determine that the broadcast in this case should be stayed because it appears the courts below did not follow the appropriate procedures set forth in federal law before changing their rules to allow such broadcasting. Courts enforce the requirement of procedural regularity on others, and must follow those requirements themselves.

I’d like to think that this isn’t an indicator of how the Supreme Court will come out when the trial’s outcome eventually gets to it and more an indicator that the Court that has never liked the idea of being watched by cameras simply is out of step with technology.  But,  that’s probably my optimism speaking. 

Fortunately, the laptops are out and people are liveblogging the trial.  I’m following the trial and analysis here, here, and here.   This piece is an overview of today’s events, including the questioning of a Proposition 8 supporter and named defendant Hak-Shing William Tam and examination of the role of procreation in determining the meaning of marriage.

Here’s the plaintiffs’ opening statement in today’s trial. Stay up to date with trial happenings here and here.  While the Supreme Court stayed the posting to YouTube of video, both Twitter and blogs are providing a way to stay in touch with what’s happening in the courtroom.

OPENING STATEMENT
(as prepared)

This case is about marriage and equality. Plaintiffs are being denied both the right to marry, and the right to equality under the law.

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly described the right to marriage as “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men;” a “basic civil right;” a component of the constitutional rights to liberty, privacy, association, and intimate choice; an expression of emotional support and public commitment; the exercise of spiritual unity; and a fulfillment of one’s self.

In short, in the words of the highest court in the land, marriage is “the most important relation in life,” and “of fundamental importance for all individuals.”

As the witnesses in this case will elaborate, marriage is central to life in America. It promotes mental, physical and emotional health and the economic strength and stability of those who enter into a marital union. It is the building block of family, neighborhood and community. The California Supreme Court has declared that the right to marry is of “central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society.”

Proposition 8 ended the dream of marriage, the most important relation in life, for the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of Californians.

___________________________________

In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court concluded that under this State’s Constitution, the right to marry a person of one’s choice extended to all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, and was available equally to same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

In November of 2008, the voters of California responded to that decision with Proposition 8, amending the State’s Constitution and, on the basis of sexual orientation and sex, slammed the door to marriage to gay and lesbian citizens.

The plaintiffs are two loving couples, American citizens, entitled to equality and due process under our Constitution. They are in deeply committed, intimate, and longstanding relationships. They want to marry the person they love; to enter into that “most important relation in life”; to share their dreams with their partners; and to confer the many benefits of marriage on their families.

But Proposition 8 singled out gay men and lesbians as a class, swept away their right to marry, pronounced them unequal, and declared their relationships inferior and less-deserving of respect and dignity.

In the words of the California Supreme Court, eliminating the right of individuals to marry a same-sex partner relegated those individuals to “second class” citizenship, and told them, their families and their neighbors that their love and desire for a sanctioned marital partnership was not worthy of recognition.

During this trial, Plaintiffs and leading experts in the fields of history, psychology, economics and political science will prove three fundamental points:

First – Marriage is vitally important in American society.

Second – By denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry, Proposition 8 works a grievous harm on the plaintiffs and other gay men and lesbians throughout California, and adds yet another chapter to the long history of discrimination they have suffered.

Third – Proposition 8 perpetrates this irreparable, immeasurable, discriminatory harm for no good reason.

I

MARRIAGE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RELATION IN LIFE

Plaintiffs will present evidence from leading experts, representing some of the finest academic institutions in this country and the world, who will reinforce what the highest courts of California and the United States have already repeatedly said about the importance of marriage in society and the significant benefits that marriage confers on couples, their families, and the community. Proponents cannot dispute these basic facts.

While marriage has been a revered and important institution throughout the history of this country and this State, it has also evolved to shed irrational, unwarranted, and discriminatory restrictions and limitations that reflected the biases, prejudices or stereotypes of the past. Marriage laws that disadvantaged women or people of disfavored race or ethnicity have been eliminated. These changes have come from legislatures and the courts. Far from harming the institution of marriage, the elimination of discriminatory restrictions on marriage has strengthened the institution, its vitality, and its importance in American society today.

II

PROPOSITION 8 HARMS GAY AND LESBIAN INDIVIDUALS, THEIR CHILDREN AND THEIR COMMUNITIES

Proposition 8 had a simple, straightforward, and devastating purpose: to withdraw from gay and lesbian people like the Plaintiffs their previously recognized constitutional right to marry. The official title of the ballot measure said it all: “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”

Proponents of Proposition 8 have insisted that the persons they would foreclose from the institution of marriage have suffered no harm because they have been given the opportunity to form something called a “domestic partnership.” That is a cruel fiction.

Plaintiffs will describe the harm that they suffer every day because they are prevented from marrying. And they will describe how demeaning and insulting it can be to be told that they remain free to marry—as long, that is, that they marry someone of the opposite sex instead of the person they love, the companion of their choice.

And the evidence will demonstrate that relegating gay men and lesbians to “domestic partnerships” is to inflict upon them badges of inferiority that forever stigmatize their loving relationships as different, separate, unequal, and less worthy—something akin to a commercial venture, not a loving union. Indeed, the proponents of Proposition 8 acknowledge that domestic partnerships are not the same as traditional marriage. Proponents proudly proclaim that, under Proposition 8, the “unique and highly favorable imprimatur” of marriage is reserved to “opposite-sex unions.”

This government-sponsored societal stigmatization causes grave psychological and physical harms to gay men and lesbians and their families. It increases the likelihood that they will experience discrimination and harassment; it causes immeasurable harm.

Sadly, Proposition 8 is only the most recent chapter in our nation’s long and painful history of discrimination and prejudice against gay and lesbian individuals. They have been classified as degenerates, targeted by police, harassed in the workplace, censored, demonized, fired from government jobs, excluded from our armed forces, arrested for their private sexual conduct, and repeatedly stripped of their fundamental rights by popular vote. Although progress has occurred, the roots of discrimination run deep and its impacts spread wide.

III

PROPOSITION 8 HARMS GAY AND LESBIAN INDIVIDUALS FOR NO GOOD REASON

Proposition 8 singles out gay and lesbian individuals alone for exclusion from the institution of marriage. In California, even convicted murderers and child abusers enjoy the freedom to marry. As the evidence clearly establishes, this discrimination has been placed in California’s Constitution even though its victims are, and always have been, fully contributing members of our society. And it excludes gay men and lesbians from the institution of marriage even though the characteristic for which they are targeted—their sexual orientation—like race, sex, and ethnicity, is a fundamental aspect of their identity that they did not choose for themselves and, as the California Supreme Court has found, is highly resistant to change.

The State of California has offered no justification for its decision to eliminate the fundamental right to marry for a segment of its citizens. And its chief legal officer, the Attorney General, admits that none exists. And the evidence will show that each of the rationalizations for Proposition 8 invented by its Proponents is wholly without merit.

“Procreation” cannot be a justification inasmuch as Proposition 8 permits marriage by persons who are unable or have no intention of producing children. Indeed, the institution of civil marriage in this country has never been tied to the procreative capacity of those seeking to marry.

Proposition 8 has no rational relation to the parenting of children because same-sex couples and opposite sex couples are equally permitted to have and raise children in California. The evidence in this case will demonstrate that gay and lesbian individuals are every bit as capable of being loving, caring and effective parents as heterosexuals. The quality of a parent is not measured by gender but the content of the heart.

And, as for protecting “traditional marriage,” our opponents “don’t know” how permitting gay and lesbian couples to marry would harm the marriages of opposite-sex couples. Needless to say, guesswork and speculation is not an adequate justification for discrimination. In fact, the evidence will demonstrate affirmatively that permitting loving, deeply committed, couples like the plaintiffs to marry has no impact whatsoever upon the marital relationships of others.

When voters in California were urged to enact Proposition 8, they were encouraged to believe that unless Proposition 8 were enacted, anti-gay religious institutions would be closed, gay activists would overwhelm the will of the heterosexual majority, and that children would be taught that it was “acceptable” for gay men and lesbians to marry. Parents were urged to “protect our children” from that presumably pernicious viewpoint.

At the end of the day, whatever the motives of its Proponents, Proposition 8 enacted an utterly irrational regime to govern entitlement to the fundamental right to marry, consisting now of at least four separate and distinct classes of citizens: (1) heterosexuals, including convicted criminals, substance abusers and sex offenders, who are permitted to marry; (2) 18,000 same-sex couples married between June and November of 2008, who are allowed to remain married but may not remarry if they divorce or are widowed; (3) thousands of same-sex couples who were married in certain other states prior to November of 2008, whose marriages are now valid and recognized in California; and, finally (4) all other same-sex couples in California who, like the Plaintiffs, are prohibited from marrying by Proposition 8.

There is no rational justification for this unique pattern of discrimination. Proposition 8, and the irrational pattern of California’s regulation of marriage which it promulgates, advances no legitimate state interest. All it does is label gay and lesbian persons as different, inferior, unequal, and disfavored. And it brands their relationships as not the same, and less-approved than those enjoyed by opposite sex couples. It stigmatizes gays and lesbians, classifies them as outcasts, and causes needless pain, isolation and humiliation.

It is unconstitutional.

There’s history in the making this week as a federal court in California begins its trial on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, passed in 2008.  For those with time and inclination, the trial is scheduled for live broadcast to a number of federal courthouses.  In the L.A. area, it’ll be at the Richard H. Chambers United States Courthouse, 125 South Grand Avenue, Pasadena, California, Courtroom Three, First Floor. Additional locations can be found here.

In anticipation of the trial, a number of articles have addressed the case for marriage equality this weekend.  Here are links to “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage,” in Newsweek and “A Risky Proposal,” in The New Yorker.

I’ve got a personal stake in this one, so will be watching attentively, and posting as resources become available.  Cross your fingers, say a prayer, and read up on the issues so you can intelligently defend marriage equality.

It was a good year.   Photos below.

Yes, we do periodically dress up for a party. I think once a year is probably about all of the dressing up I can take. Fortunately, there are only a few more, lower key, holiday parties to go and then the season is done. Phew!

The 110 is always treacherous on a rainy day. The road curves and people drive too fast and it’s the only place you’re guaranteed to see a spin out EVERY time it rains. This sign at Via Marisol caught my eye because it sat at the on ramp, as if to say, “beware.”

My dear friend, Edith Ramirez, was nominated to the Federal Trade Commission. She’s good people, a fabulous mentor, and someone who’ll do a great job. One reason why I’m a big fan of hers is that she’s too modest to trumpet even this level of accomplishment. That’s why I’ll do it for her.

Wish her luck!

A copy of the White House press release below.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release November 17, 2009 Presidential Nominations Sent to the Senate, 11/17/09
Julie Simone Brill, of Vermont, to be a Federal Trade Commissioner for the term of seven years from September 26, 2009, vice Pamela Harbour, term expired.

Scott H. DeLisi, of Minnesota, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Nepal.

Earl F. Gohl, Jr., of the District of Columbia, to be Federal Cochairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission, vice Anne B. Pope, resigned.

Edith Ramirez, of California, to be a Federal Trade Commissioner for the term of seven years from September 26, 2008, vice Deborah P. Majoras, term expired.

Beatrice Wilkinson Welters, of Virginia, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Trinidad and Tobago.

Seemed appropriate to post this today, even though I didn’t get a chance to honor the day completely by watching Henry V.

Was looking through my photo albums today and ran across this b&w of my uncle Emilio at a late-50s/early-60s wedding in Buenaventura, Mexico.  He’s second from the right, my uncle Regino is on the left.  Emilio was my favorite uncle and he died earlier this year.  Maybe that’s why I love this picture right now.

John Hughes died today.  And, while I didn’t grow up in anything that looked like the neighborhoods depicted in his movies, they spoke to me.  In no particular order, my favorite John Hughes memories:

• Breakfast Club–my sister and I talked our way into this film because neither of us was 16 yet.  I remember the lobbying taking too much effort.  We sat in the Santa Fe Springs movie theater enthralled by the characters we met (in case you care, I identified with Ally Sheedy).
• Home Alone–again, with my sister.  This time, it was during a Thanksgiving break while we were both in college.  We took in a late show at Copley Plaza and the seven-year-old sitting behind me complained about my hair blocking his view of the screen.  We laughed, but didn’t move.  I’d grown into myself, and my hair.  It is one of my favorite memories of being in Boston (and college) with my sister.
• Weird Science–the closest I came to thinking anyone would ever put my high school in a movie.  One of this movie’s scenes was shot in our high school’s gym.  I can’t even tell which one when I watch the movie, but I do remember seeing Anthony Michael Hall crammed into the back seat of a Porsche 924 as he zoomed away from campus after the shoot.
• Some Kind of Wonderful–it’s an anthem of sorts, will explain some other day.
• Sixteen Candles–reminded me that I was getting old.  When I came back to L.A. after college and gave one of my then students a ride home, she told me her weekend plan was to “watch the old movie ‘Sixteen Candles.’”  I didn’t throw her from the moving vehicle.  I was kinder then, I told her to pay attention.
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off–every day reminds me of how great it is to enjoy being yourself.

Thanks again, Mr. Hughes.

The Fifth of July

When I was a little kid, we were too poor to afford fireworks. I suppose I can’t blame my pyrotechnic poverty just on being poor, but more on the fact that my mother didn’t think any part of the welfare check should be spent on frivolity. If we got fireworks, we didn’t get clothes, or we didn’t get food. Sure, it was a practical choice, but as a kid, you just want to rip into the hundred dollar “Independence Day” box of fireworks.

Our fireworkslessness meant that in the days leading up to the Fourth of July every year, we’d visit our more affluent friends and watch them light fireworks. Back then this annual ritual led me to conclude that socio-economic status could be identified by the characteristics of your fireworks.

If you had no color, just sound, you weren’t poor, but you weren’t living in a mansion. You lived in an apartment and shared a bedroom with a couple of siblings. The same went for fireworks with no sound, and just smoke.

If you had fireworks that were colorful, but just rolled around on the ground, you lived in one of the houses in a duplex.

If your fireworks shot color into the air, and did so while crackling, at least one of your parents had a full-time job and probably owned a house with a yard and a driveway (or at least they’d found a way to live in one).

In my family, we didn’t have any fireworks before and up to the Fourth of July. We didn’t get to light something and have sound, or color. Maybe, if we got lucky, someone handed us a sparkler. In the bad years, they handed us the punk used to light the fireworks. Yep, there’s the poor kid, the one with the smoldering ember.

Occasionally, when the sounds of Fourth of July were so muddled that you couldn’t tell the fireworks from the gunshots fired into the air, we pretended to be fireworks. I mean, if you’re a nine-year-old and you scream from a low tone to a very high one, you sound kind of like a Piccolo Pete. And besides, by nightfall, no one even knows what’s going on in neighboring yards, driveways, or streets. Everyone is just staring into the sky, looking for something to make the darkness light. That means there is no risk of being seen joining the cacophony of Independence Day sound, while in your pajamas, from just inside your apartment’s living room window.

I watched from the shadows every year until the Fifth of July. That was the day when my cousin Reggie would come over and my mom, and my sister, and my Tía Rosalba, and my other cousins, and I would go to the local park. Salt Lake Park was the one where the big neighborhood fireworks were set off, and the official, city-sanctioned Fourth of July safe zone for amateur fireworks displays.

We never went to the show on the Fourth of July. My mom was scared that going to the park after dark would make us victims of violent crime, and my Tía Rosalba was a Jehovah’s Witness. Her family didn’t celebrate the Fourth of July.

But, on the Fifth of July, Reggie, Virginia, and I made sure to take a magnifying glass to the park. Our families would stake out a spot next to a tree, drag over a picnic bench, pull out aluminum foil-wrapped burritos, and play dominoes.

Virginia, Reggie, and I headed straight for the previous night’s launching pad.

We crawled around every inch of that soccer-field sized patch of grass, looking for unused fireworks. Although not plentiful, and not colorful, little by little, we’d find some fireworks.

At first, we’d find little black charcoal disks. While we weren’t allowed to buy fireworks, and we weren’t allowed to play with matches, we did know what unused fireworks looked like, and how to start a fire without matches, so out came the magnifying glass.

We figured out the sun’s angle, and the length of time needed to create a flame, and voilà, black plumes of ash came up from the earth and “snakes” came to life.

My sister, Virginia, tore holes in the knees of her jeans and Reggie got dirt in his eyes, before we found another unused firecracker.

Lighting our fireworks became easier with each successive find. We’d get sound, and some smoke, and then we’d laugh hysterically and roll around in laughter on the charred firecracker paper and ashes left from the night before.

Although there were never more than about ten unused fireworks for us to light every year, we had gotten the chance to shoot off some fireworks after all. On the Fifth of July we had not been denied the simple pleasure of creating marvels of sound and sight.

We all knew that our scavenging hadn’t made us children of homeowners this year, but it was understood that ingenuity would get us there some year, maybe next year.

From morning to evening, today was full of randomness and oddity. It made for a slightly scary, funny, thoughtful, creepy, strangely sad 24 hours.  In order:

8 a.m.–I notice slightly homeless-looking lady looking at me and yelling while seemingly looking for local church’s food bank.  8:01.20 a.m.–Realize lady is not homeless-looking, she is homeless.  8:01.30–Realize homeless lady is not speaking into a bluetooth headset, but is instead approaching and yelling at me as I pump gas into my car, “You bitch, thinking you’re all that standing there next to your red car . . . .”  8:01.40–Position myself to spray her with gas just in case she acts on her distaste for me and my car.

9:40 a.m.–Hear Farrah Fawcett died.  Sadder than I expected to be.

3:45 p.m.–Hear Michael Jackson died. 

5:00 p.m.–Arrive at Long Beach’s International City Theater to see “Facing East” about a devout Mormon couple’s struggle to understand their gay son’s suicide.  5:10 p.m.–See “Square Dancing Straight” street sign, wonder if square dancing is straight, what is line dancing? 5:15 p.m.–Notice dozens of couples in very country looking outfits.  6:30 p.m.–Figure out that the National Square Dancing Competition is taking place next door to the play we’re seeing.

7:25 p.m.–Take Long Beach’s free shuttle from Shoreline Village to theater. Asked by woman on the bus to watch over her six-year-old son who has been separated from the family on the bus and who has been befriended by an older man who “was adamant about having the boy sit with him.” Creepy.

10:20 p.m.–On drive home from play, see 75 people with veladoras camped out outside Jack in the Box.  They are there with 11 television vans and an army of sheriffs to mourn Michael Jackson, whose body has been transferred to the coroner’s office across the street.

Days where there are too many strange goings on make me nervous.

My favorite line from Sonia Sotomayor’s speech this morning was the one where she recognized the incredible role of a mother’s devotion.  The full speech is here.

Thank you, Mr. President, for the most humbling honor of my life. You have nominated me to serve on the country’s highest court, and I am deeply moved.

Thank you again, sir.

I could not, in the few minutes I have today, mention the names of the many friends and family who have guided and supported me throughout my life, and who have been instrumental in helping me realize my dreams. (See pictures of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.)

I see many of those faces in this room. Each of you, whom I love deeply, will know that my heart today is bursting with gratitude for all you have done for me.

The President has said to you that I bring my family. In the audience is my brother Juan Sotomayor — he’s a physician in Syracuse, New York; my sister-in-law, Tracy (ph); my niece Kiley — she looks like me.

My twin nephews, Conner and Corey.

I stand on the shoulders of countless people, yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor.

My mother has devoted her life to my brother and me. And as the President mentioned, she worked often two jobs to help support us after dad died. I have often said that I am all I am because of her, and I am only half the woman she is.

Sitting next to her is Omar Lopez, my mom’s husband and a man whom I have grown to adore. I thank you for all that you have given me and continue to give me. I love you.

I chose to be a lawyer and ultimately a judge because I find endless challenge in the complexities of the law. I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights.

For as long as I can remember, I have been inspired by the achievement of our founding fathers. They set forth principles that have endured for than more two centuries. Those principles are as meaningful and relevant in each generation as the generation before.

It would be a profound privilege for me to play a role in applying those principles to the questions and controversies we face today.

Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich. I was raised in a Bronx public housing project, but studied at two of the nation’s finest universities.

I did work as an assistant district attorney, prosecuting violent crimes that devastate our communities. But then I joined a private law firm and worked with international corporations doing business in the United States.

I have had the privilege of serving as a federal District Court trial judge, and am now serving as a federal Appellate Circuit Court judge.

This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, has helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear. It has helped me to understand, respect and respond to the concerns and arguments of all litigants who appear before me as well as to the views of my colleagues on the bench.

I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.

It is a daunting feeling to be here. Eleven years ago, during my confirmation process for appointment to the Second Circuit, I was given a private tour of the White House. It was an overwhelming experience for a kid from the South Bronx.

Yet never in my wildest childhood imaginings did I ever envision that moment, let alone did I ever dream that I would live this moment.

Mr. President, I greatly appreciate the honor you are giving me, and I look forward to working with the Senate in the confirmation process. I hope that as the Senate and American people learn more about me, they will see that I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences.

I’m never going to have children, so I’m sure I’ll never do some of those weird parental things we’ve all seen. 

I do, however, have a mother, which means I am constantly subjected to odd quirks.

Today, for example, I discovered that my mom hides things around my house.  Fortunately, they’re not gross or illegal, they’re just fresh.  Air fresh, to be specific.  She hides air fresheners behind my bed, under the clean sheets stored in my closet, behind the cleaning supplies under the sink, and in my shoes. 

I hope she’s not sending me a message.

Or at least some of its hills. Fire seems to be under control now or that’s as much as I can tell by the white smoke and the fact that the helis are gone. Only question I have, why did the helicopters that practice water drops from the DWP property in Montecito Heights every weekend not actually show up when a fire broke out in the neighborhood?

Cross posted at L.A. Eastside.

Update: LAFD twitter site actually identifies the area of the fire as Lincoln Park Ave. and Pomona St., which makes it more like Lincoln Heights than El Sereno.