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| Sometimes a pickle is just a pickle.
--Sigmund Freud.
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Vice President Joe Biden spoke to over 1,000 LGBT rights supporters at the Human Rights Campaign Los Angeles gala on March 22, 2014. Vice President Biden's inspiring remarks in support of global LGBT equality represent the latest step from a White House that has made fairness and dignity for LGBT people one of its top priorities.
My grandkids, my children, and their kids are going to be shocked, it shocks the conscience, that this very moment in American history, in some states, an employer can fire you just because of who you are, or who you love. It’s close to barbaric. I mean think about this, no I really mean this. Imagine, imagine, twenty years from now, as Americans look back and say how in the hell could that have ever been allowed? The country’s moved on. The American people have moved on. It’s time for the Congress to move on and pass ENDA. Pass ENDA now! Not tomorrow, now!
If you think about it, it's outrageous we're even debating this subject. I really mean it. It's almost beyond belief that today, in 2014, I could say to you, you're an employee in so many states, and you're fired? Because of who you love? I mean, think about that. It is bizarre. No, no, no, it really is. I don't even think most Americans even know that employers can do that.
The single most basic of all human rights is the right to decide who you love. It's the single basic building block, it is. It's the single most important human right that exists. And hate can never be defended because it's a so-called "cultural norm." I've had it up to here with cultural norms. I really mean it.
The Court is not aware of any legal authority that entitles a ballot-approved measure to special deference in the event it raises a constitutional question. On the contrary, the Supreme Court has clearly stated that if . . . an enactment violates the U.S. Constitution - whether passed by the people or their representatives - judicial review is necessary to preserve the rule of law . . . [t]he electorate cannot order a violation of the Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses by referendum or otherwise, just as the state may not avoid their application by deferring to the wishes or objections of its citizens. . . .
In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” Tr. 2/25/14 p. 40, state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples. It is the Court’s fervent hope that these children will grow up “to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694. Today’s decision is a step in that direction, and affirms the enduring principle that regardless of whoever finds favor in the eyes of the most recent majority, the guarantee of equal protection must prevail.
The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration. . . . While Regnerus maintained that the funding source [i.e., the Republican Heritage Foundation] did not affect his impartiality as a researcher, the Court finds this testimony unbelievable. The funder clearly wanted a certain result, and Regnerus obliged.Yeow!
