Doug Kmiec
Doug Kmiec now:
March 2, 2009 – On Thursday, our law dean, Kenneth Starr, will defend Proposition 8 in the California Supreme Court. Knowing the dean to value open and civil debate, we write – respectfully – to dissent. One of us (Saxer)opposed Prop. 8 for civil rights reasons; Kmiec supported it for reasons of religious liberty. Today, both of us believe the arguments in support of Prop. 8 fail each of these interests.We leave to others the intramural sparring over whether Prop. 8 was a constitutional revision or amendment. We think the precedent on this mixed, but in any event, we find it an insufficient basis upon which to rule.
The argument for Prop. 8 must be resisted for two reasons: First, because it gives the proposition a far broader discriminatory effect than its language warrants, and second, the proposition is oblivious to the differing faith practices of our citizens. Marriage is of religious origin; it should remain there. Indeed, neither the original court decision nor Prop. 8 showed adequate recognition of the religious nature of marriage, so Thursday’s case can be a do-over.
Doug Kmiec then:
June 13, 2008 – The California ballot initiative intended to set aside the state supreme court’s judicial invention of same-sex marriage deserves public support. Maybe it is enough to say, as many do in conversation, that it merely re-secures a millennia of tradition and common sense.
Doug Kmiec before then:
March 23, 2008 – Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence, and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and that he wants to return the United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend.
Last September Doug Kmiec was a member of Obama’s “Faith, Family, and Values Tour” designed to woo the votes of left-leaning Catholics, progressive Evangelicals, and some conservative mainline Protestants.
(The above image of Doug Kmiec is from the website Pro-life Obama)
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
A university at Malibu (Pepperdine) strikes me as so Fast Times at Ridgemont High-ish. Is the school worth a damn?
Another strike against it, imho, is having Ken Starr as the dean of the law school.
Isn’t Pepperdine an expensive fundy school? That’s what I remember. Lots of scrubbed faces.
Another strike against it, imho, is having Ken Starr as the dean of the law school.
That was the pay-off for the Lewinsky impeachment
It will be interesting to hear how the obots rationalize the messiah’s behavior when he nominated Dougie for the SCOTUS.
Pro-life Obama? *Sigh* Next we’ll see anti-gay/ pro-Obama groups. Why not? They already got away with passing Prop 8. Obama will stay silent on this as long as it is his supporters doing the dirty work. He needs their votes in 2012 after all. These people are no better than the religious right that the fauxgressives have complained about for the last 8 years. At least the religious right don’t hide under the guise of being progressive Democrats during an election then afterwards stabbing other liberals in the back by defending Prop 8.
I don’t understand Kmiec’s change of heart on prop 8 or whether in fact he has had a change of heart. He wants marriage to be a religious institution only?
It’s supposedly a legal opinion – but so was the first one.
I’m guessing he wants to be appointed to SCOTUS or the CCA and he’s afraid of LGBT opposition.
But once he has a lifetime appointment he can go back to showing his true colors.
Kmiec is not saying he now supports gay marriage. His newfound opposition is on purely technical/legal grounds. This suggests, as myiq says, that he’s carefully positioning himself for something…like SCOTUS.
NO, NO, NO!!! No more Catholic men on SCOTUS. Five is more than enough.
Off topic, thanks RD for adding Liberal Raputre to your blog roll. It’s a good read everyday.
I’m glad the blogroll got cleaned up. There were a few dogs on there!
Off topic: I wonder when Rahm is going to chide Toyota for its irresponsible behavior towards its finances being the reason they need to seek assistance out from Japan……I’ll not hold my breath that Rahm will admit that the problem with GM, Ford and Chevy have alot to do with the poor economy, not with their wage and benefit package.
Rahm seems to think that the problem with the American car companies is that they offered health insurance to their employees. Of course Toyota doesn’t have to do that, because every other industrial nation besides the US has universal health care, overseen by their governments.
Rahm is a putz. I blame the present predicament on the fact that most companies decided that American workers could take gains in productivity in the form of credit(put the fact that you worked a60 hour week and deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labor on your card). In Rahm’s world productivity should be rewarded with real dollar value wage decreases AND no benefits just like they do in third world countries..
Actually, Rahm favors involuntary servitude, i.e., forced volunteering, through the Civilian National Security Force, which was originally his idea.
Ok the world is going crazy and Retirees are flying north for the winter!
dinner with the obots tonight…
Obama must have given another speech the dow is down it must have been on something non economic because it went down less than 100 pts!
Nope, Obama gave a press availability with Gordon Brown and Geithner appeared before the Ways and Means Committee and refused to give a straight answer to any question.
BB I watched the energy commodities markest…those traders dont know its time to take their heads out of their A$$!
I am beginning to think oil could really go back down to a $ 25-$30 barrel trading range….
things must be real bad…Oh and tomorrow the energy inventory report goes out big builds or even small builds in inventories of Oil Gas and HHO(home heating oil) as well as gasoline could be another blow to the energy market.
So I guess if tomorrow is the energy sector’s turn I guess we will have another crappy day in paradise.
He did offer the age-old advice that stocks will be good in the long run. That, of course, doesn’t help people who are close to retirement age.
Heh all we need to do is wait another 12-13 years for the stock to regain its value. There seems to be some disconnect that stock prices and confidence go hand in hand. If he doesn’t outline detailed plans on how he is ensuring a reason to be confident in these companies people are going to continue to decide against investing.
yes while Obama may feel that this is a republican mess the fact that the market has dropped another 25% since his election is proof positive that the public has no absolutely none zip-pelicans nill zilch confidence that Team Pampers can cure what ails the country!
that is why his negatives are on the way up….and his pop-pop-popularity is on the way down!
fuzzy: read this at the wsj:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604419092515347.html
from that link:
As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.
Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
Obama to give major policy speach!
the Topic:
“American Workers Lazy or just incompetent?”
to be followed by a speach titled:
“American Workers 100% responsible for this Economic Mess!”
Final Obama speach tonight:
“Dont blame me I have never held a full time job in my Life!”
I bet you cant wait to tune in to these gems!
how did I get the smiley face
should read:
“Dont blame me I have never held a full time job in my Life!”
I do not know about you all but this kind of crap above makes my eyes and ears bleed!
crap I think I am developing stigmata over this Obama love the right wing nuts but not Rush crap!
I could end up the first PUMA Martyr-Saint?
Saint Fuzzy. I love it. Makes me want to try my hand at painting icons.
Dak
His hands off the market approach is scaring the crap out of folks. Most people want things to be regulated at this point. They want some sort of sign the people at the top are doing something to prevent this kind of stuff from happening again. Meanwhile Geither lets the banks who screwed up perform their own stress tests and promises to sore them up on the taxpayers dime(because nationalization would just be wrong). Obama’s answer to our present perdicament is to fund ACORN give everyone $13 every two weeks and continue to handout big bucks to everybody and his brother in the financial sector without a plan(only the evil auto industry who had the audacity of actually presenting the awful idea that 30 years of labor at a company should mean something and shouldn'[t mean you are disposable actually has to present a plan)no questions asked.
it’s that any one that knows about the economy can tell he doesn’t know SH$T about it … he seems hands off because he doesn’t want to answer any questions that make him look even more ignorant
The part that drove me insane during the primaries is it was apparent that Obama hung with a free market crowd. I cringed everytime Hill was compared to this guy because their economic viewpoints appeared so different. I am not the least bit surprised that these folks have no idea what to do. They are the same batch who laughed when Hillary and Edwards suggested the stimulus needed to be more geared towards governmental spending. Freemarketers are not geared to regulate- if they were they wouldn’t be freemarketers. Evidently though they are bright and sparkly personalities though- and that is what Congress decided our country and economy needed(yeah I’m blaming you superdelegates). oh and all our candidates are basically the same(I’m blaming you kos and Armando). Banging my head against the desk because the one thing Cramer and I do agree on is thazt Hillary had a much better grasp of the economy and where we needed to go.
Head over to the NYTimes caucus blog (have courage) and read the comments in the thread re Obama’s disdain for daily stock market “gyrations”. Apparently, there’s not enough Kool Aid in the universe to convince those who’ve lost huge chunks of their retirement investments that Obama is some sort of economic messiah. The dimmest financial bulb out there knows damn well that the stock market has been on a straight downhill slalom, not traversing up- and downhill. Obama made a big, stupid mistake with that boneheaded remark. Which means the MSM will disappear it posthaste.
kat5: I’m sure that’s part of an Axelrove blogzkrieg … they’ve been on that topic other places. Real obvious similar talking points we were hit here earlier on my thread and i saw them on Cramer links at UTube when Cramer was talking about how to Obama proof your portfolio … i’m sure it’s their paid blog Tr0llz
The surprising thing is the number of commenters who are unhappy with O’s blindness to the stock market’s disastrous effect on (relative) household wealth and retirement savings. The unsurprising thing is the Axelrove blogskrieg you correctly diagnose, replete with airhead comments.
re Obama’s disdain for daily stock market “gyrations
That’s his ” let them eat cake ” mode….which Barry is always in. He CANNOT be bothered to notice stuff and gets very snippy when he’s made to .
I understand that the market is forward-looking most of the time. If that’s the case this time, we are not looking forward to much of anything.
Kmiec has Obama syndrome. He’s going for the idea that he can be for and against simultaneously. Smell the nuance.
What he really should be doing to prepare for an appointment is screwing up his taxes.
LOL! CWaltz, you’re on a roll tonight!
I wish I could sue Obama for breach of his fiduciary duty to the people of the USA., or maybe for Presidential malpractice.
He actually didn’t misrepresent himself. I still remeber Goolsbee laughing at the idea of spending money on oil for seniors. The folks to blame are the superdelegates and the media(Iincluding bloggers) who sold the idea that any democrat would be able to resolve the problems set in motion by the fiscal irresponsibility set in motion during the Bush years.
I blame Obama because he could have tried to prove us all wrong. He could have actually governed like a Dem (or even just followed through on some logical solutions) to help “we the people.” I would have loved to say that I was wrong about him. I am tired about hearing how Obama inherited this mess. He wanted to inherit this mess, he and the DNC cheated so that he could inherit this mess, so the buck stops with Obama. He has the power to fix this country or let it go to waste and at this time, he is too busy having parties and attending sporting events to do anything constructive. The economy has gotten worse in a very short period of time since his coronation.
My point is that he is just governing exactly like he and his posse believe. Why should he govern like a Dem when he made it clear during the primaries his admiration is for the GOP? He isn’t chagning anything because he doesn’t believe anything needs to be changed. He thinks this is a normal part of the economic cycle and that what goes down will eventually go back up. He believes the fluctuations are a normal part of a market just like many of the free marketeers. The irony is that his beliefs are more in line with the GOP school of thought then the Des but it will be the Dems who get the blame for his mess.
Obama did inherit the mess. That said, just as I stated to those who said that W inherited the tech bubble. It isn’t like he went in with blind eyes and wasn’t aware he would have 4 years to turn it around. Inheriting a mess, doesn’t excuse ignoring it or making it worse.
To me Obama is either part of the problem or part of the solution. He is definitely part of the problem and his continual refusal to take responsibility for his actions has made things worse. I don’t give a damn if he inherited this mess, because that does not help to solve it.
I’m not sure I want anyone governing like either a Dem or a Republican. Governing like a reasonably intelligent, clear thinking human being would do it for me.
Amen to that, Jangles.
Amen — he wanted this mess so bad he lied, cheated & stole to get it. Fuck every single last one of those morons who keep repeating that he “inherited” this mess — Hillary (and us) shouted until she (we) was (were) hoarse all those long months about needing someone with experience to clean up this mess. Now Teleprompter Jesus wants to pretend it was all a surprise — as if he was on Mars the last 3 years (instead of in the US Senate voting for & helping to create this mess).
I blame Obama because he could have tried to prove us all wrong.
I wish like hell he would prove me wrong.
Yes, I heard the inept mouth of obama, Robert Gibbs, say today that we can’t repeat the fact that this mess was inherited enough. What a juvenile attitude. It’s equivalent to saying “Mommy, Georgie did it, he hit me first”. No wonder the markets “gyrate” in a negative spiral. The country is being led by a bunch of children.
They may have inherited the mess, but this administration is responsible for the pork laden legislation, which is sending shudders through the market and economy.
Meh
I’m more inclined to believe they are responding to the fact that the writedowns appear to have no end in sight and that there doesn’t seem to be any effort to address what brought us to this point. Does anyone really think irresponsible banks should be allowed to self test and then “tell us how much money they need”? Meanwhile Joe and Jane lose their job and their home(because after all they were “irresponsible”). Pork has been around forever. I think it would be forgiven in a heartbeat if people felt these companies had learned from their mistakes(how can you learn though if we insist that there aren’t consequences and we bail you out no questions asked).
If I were Obama I’d bite the bullet and nationalize and declare they will be nationalized until common sense regulation is passed to ensure that risk is assessed appropriately. I’d push heavily for the cramdown provision and a moratorium on foreclosures. I’d stress that a bankruptcy judge could look at the full picture and determine what is the overall best choice for people who are in financial stress. A judge would be able to look at whether or not a person is a casualty of a bad housing market and economy and fix it so they can remain where they are or decide that a person bit off more than they could chew and needs to cut their losses and move on. It could do so while carefully weighing what is in the best interest to the individual, community, and the banks. Furthermore the idea that this could occur might push more banks to look at relook at renegotiating before a judge did so on their behalf.
Tell Obama to quit complaining. He KNEW what he was getting into and wanted the Presidency more. So stop the finger pointing and get to work instead of going to basketball games and drinking beer in front of children.
Damn right, Bonita. He chose to run. He should have kept his bony, incompetent butt in the Senate.
I’ve found wishing for things is overrated and often ends in disappointment. It’s why I didn’t buy the hopey changey rhethoric to begin with. As long as we’re engaging in wishes though, I wish that the people who propped him up would acknowledge the fact that they should have looked harder at his stances and solutions instead of calling them all the same. See? wishing isn’t working.
Marriage is of religious origin.
This is a HUGE FUCKING LIE. On the first day of the “Persons” course my first day of law school we learned that marriage is a CIVIL CONTRACT. And that is what it is: a CIVIL contract. It has always been a civil contract because civil effects flow from the union (i.e., property rights, inheritance rights, etc). Yes, in most countries (including the USA) a “ceremony” is also required (as well as free consent). Further, many times the ceremony is religious BUT it does NOT have to be religious. Hasn’t the Dean of a law school ever heard of getting married at city hall? by a judge? How can people continue to spread this lie? Marriage is a civil contract. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sleep on it if you have to. But fucking learn it.
You’d figure the states and localities would be itching to collect the fee you pay to record the civil contract and make it official.
I got married by a reverend but if I hadn’t paid the State of California to record that contract my union wouldn’t be legal anywhere but the state of California. It said as much at the bottom of our marriage certificate from the good reverend.
Exactly — and I bet you had to go down to city hall to get the marriage license in the first place. You could have been married by a judge, a justice of the peace or some guy who got his “officiating license” on the internet. A religious ceremony wasn’t required — just a ceremony of some kind (civil or religious).
Yup, angie, after getting our license at City Hall, my husband and I were married in his back yard on Marengo Street by “marrying judge” Dom Grieshaber. Not a priest/rabbi/minister anywhere in sight.
But weren’t religious “marriages” the first unions of a man and wife where there was an exchange of vows and a contract of sorts? Weren’t these religous events the basis of civil unions? So now marriage is a civil contract but I do not think this was happening in the 14th or 15th centuries.
Actually, it is the other way around — the first marriages were civil contracts — the main effect and purpose of the marriage was (to be blunt) a publication to the rest of society that this woman “belonged” to this man & that her children were his legitimate heirs. Religious aspects to the ceremony were purely secondary & were not needed — in many ancient countries, for example, the “ceremony” was simply the man saying: this woman is my wife — you other men stay away.
Marriages were also a way of building empires – think Henrvy VIII and Catherine of Aragon for one. The families arranged the marriages at at early age.
Exactly — God was NOT in the mix.
Supposed to be Henry.
Don’t worry — we all know who you meant! 🙂
Yep. A property exchange.
The legitimacy of children is a major issues for inheritance rights. Each state has different rules as to whether a child is “legitimate” at birth and what action is required by a biological parent to “legitimate” a child.
I don’t know that appealing to the religious angle really serves the cause of one man, one woman advocates. If it does, maybe they should re-read Genesis.
Great f*cking point — lets get really biblical and start giving handmaidens to men whose wives are barren too! LOL
If use something along this angle to decimate the marriage is for procreation crowd. I tell them that evidently then we need to start instituting sperm counts and verifying fertility. Goodbye -infertility treatments. I also guess by their logic women past the age of menopause should be unallowed to marry. It usually shuts them up post haste.
Myself, I’m all for granny being able to find happiness late in life and could care less if she procreates.
Heh
The religious nuts would blow a gasket if you pointed out that marriage was actually between one man and many women for quite a while(and with God’s blessing no less). Its one of those parts of the Bible they’d rather ignore.
I find that “religious nuts” like to skip over inconvenient parts of the Bible. They have to, otherwise they’d have to justify their continued intolerance. Too bad that the parts they have to skip over tend to be the bulk of the text.
Nah… religious nuts (I am one) are well aware that polygamy was practiced in the Bible. It is however not prescribed nor ever described as favorable. In fact, polygamous marriages are usually described as engendering a lot of strife, abuse, and very un-holy behavior. Much of the Bible is descriptive not prescriptive.
Interestingly Jesus’ prohibitions on divorce and St. Paul’s commands about family relations were revolutionary. Up till then men were divorcing their wives (and cutting them off financially) for any cause, and the idea that a husband should actually love his wife was unheard of.
elderj!!!! XOXO!! I’ve missed you!!! (I’ve been busy & the nesting frustrates me so I haven’t been around here too much)
God seemed pretty okay with it and carried on conversations with the men who engaged in it pretty regularly.
Personally, I don’t find prohibition on divorce overly revolutionary. Then again, I grew up in a household where my father regularly beat the crap out of my mother and she stuck around. I was pretty against the institution of marriage as a result. The only reason I’m married now is my husband caught me on an off day(He’d asked several times prior). Then again I was financially capable unlike the women of biblical times(I actually made more then my spouse at the beginning of our marriage. I outranked him in the military.)
By the way I don’t consider you a “nut” religious or otherwise. Your a pretty thoughtful poster. We may not agree on alot but I still respect the heck outta you.
What is post says to me is the people behind Ken Starr, and those behind Obama, are the same people . The top .999 percent. GOP and Dem labels are jokes to these people
New (open) thread up!
Thank you. I’m on cold meds and quite ADD today I’m sorry if I went off on a tangent in your thread.
hey all back well guess what “SUCCESS!” (in an Oprah like yell)
with out captian obot and his 1st LT at dinner me and the real capitalists had a chance to talk and I really used my skills to get them to focus on how Pampers and team Pampers are ruining the economy!
there are two fewer obots in the world tonight….
as the BP commercials say -its a start!
Yayyyyy, fuzzy! We can take back the world one Obot deprogramming at a time
Ken Starr was a major GOP player in the prolonged, determined, conscious and willful, campaign to destroy the Democratic Party of the USA, an effort which went decidedly beyond the boundaries of good citizenship.
To allow influence to Ken Starr, Ann Coulter, and a multitude of others, who are still on the scene, is to have not learned anything from the past.
We can continue to focus on Starr, and Coulter and the rest of those neandrathals, but let’s not forget that the Obots elected a homophobe for President. I do not expect that civil rights for LGBT will progress any further will he is the occupier of the Wjite House. In fact, I expect it to reverse. That is why my partner and I live in Europe and don’t expect to go back in the foreseeable future…..