Citizens of Hootersville, that fancy-pants Fifth Avenue newspaper that Oliver reads has taken notice of Sam Drucker's weekly farm report, checkers tips, and wry, homespun judicial opinions:
A state appeals court in Florida toppled a monument to bigotry last week, declaring unconstitutional a 33-year-old state law that prohibited gay people from adopting children. The animus behind the ban is unmistakable. Its sponsor in the Florida State Senate, Curtis Peterson, declared in 1977 that its purpose was to send a message to the gay community that “we’re really tired of you” and “we wish you’d go back into the closet.”
See, nothing discriminatory there!
They even take notice of "Rentboy Rekers":
The state had nothing credible to offer to justify the adoption ban. It presented only two expert witnesses, noted Judge Gerald Cope Jr., who wrote the main opinion. One witness undercut the state’s case by saying adoption decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. Opposing experts quickly discredited the state’s second witness, Dr. George Rekers, a Baptist minister and clinical psychologist (subsequently caught up in a sex scandal) whose pseudo-scientific research was laughable.
Listen, this is South Florida.
If you don't laugh at this stuff, what's the alternative?
I'm proud of the 3d DCA for ruling correctly and quite reasonably yesterday.
In a well-written decision, the boys in the bunker have dramatically improved the lives of Florida children and future parents for generations to come -- in innumerable, unknowable ways.
Appellate guru Barbara Green put it best, as she often does, in the Herald this morning (article apparently not online):
"It's really judges doing what judges are supposed to do. They're not ruling from any agenda."
And what a great way for Judge Cope to end a superlative judicial career!
But what is the mystery over whether or not the opinion will be appealed?
Governor Crist, last I checked, is the head of our state government and he said"his administration will immediately cease enforcing the statute."
That seems pretty clear.
The DCF, under Crist's control, has said "the department will no longer enforce the ban."
That also seems pretty clear.
Bill McCollum, who had taxpayers fork over $120k to rentboy Doc Revers, is only counsel to DCF and accordingly has to follow the department's wishes, even if that will result in Big Bill finally doing something good for the state (albeit inadvertently).
So who else would have standing to appeal -- Anita Bryant?
When you think of it, we're in an interesting place regarding gay equality.
This has led courts to take up the slack, much as they did decades ago when there was little political will to desegregate schools or repeal anti-miscegenation laws:
The district court judges are reflecting an increasingly obvious shift in public opinion, said Andrew Koppelman, a professor of law at Northwestern University. “The gay rights movement has been a spectacularly successful movement for cultural change,” he said. “A few decades ago these people were cultural pariahs. It was taken for granted that gay people are mentally ill, contaminated and unclean. Now the cultural valence has flipped — it is that view of gay people which is itself stigmatized.”
As life-tenured appointees, judges can look beyond politics to posterity, Professor Koppelman said. “Right now it seems like a good bet that if you are friendly to gay rights claims,” he said, “future generations will honor you for that.”
Regardless of where you stand on this issue, given the history of civil rights movements generally, I would have to say that's a fair bet.
Thought you all would like to see this asap, since we've been waiting about 30 or so years for it.
The Court found no rational basis to deprive homosexuals -- categorically -- of the right to adopt, and found the good Doctor Rekers to be the outlier goofball everyone already assumes him to be.
Politics aside, Ferrer has a rare skill that is much needed in a U.S. attorney: He knows h ow to bridge the gap between two opposing sides, Hogan said. “Willy has an amazing ability to walk into the room where everyone is diametrically opposed and, more times than not, get everyone on the same page,” Hogan said. “He understands people and their motivation, and he is very good at finding common ground.”
BTW, I didn't know Ricky Arriola raised over $200k for Obama -- nice!
Who knew the company hired to handle Florida FCATs was so screwed up:
Memos obtained by The Miami Herald from the state department of education and South Florida school districts showed that Pearson had problems throughout the testing season, including:
- A subcontractor failed to deliver testing materials to some schools.
- Some of the company's student databases weren't compatible with state databases, delaying the bulk of student scores.
- Tenth-graders had to be given the exams again on paper after a computerized version had systemwide glitches.
- Technical problems plagued testing of the state's new computerized end-of-course exams.
Pearson officials did not respond to requests for comment from the Herald on Friday or The Associated Press on Sunday.
Additionally, to save money, the state opted to have the writing tests this year graded by one person instead of two. The state delayed releasing those results to make sure they were valid.
The state's chancellor for kindergarten through 12th grade, Frances Haithcock, sent a memo late Friday to superintendents apologizing for the scoring delays. She said the test results will be reliable.
"I fully intend to take action that will ensure the contractor-related problems experienced this year are not repeated in the future," she wrote.
School administrators say the delays make it difficult to make staffing decisions for the next academic year. For students, the scores determine which classes they can take, what extra help they need and whether they can change schools.
Pearson has had problems with exams in other states, too.
The company and the College Board settled a class action lawsuit for nearly $3 million after 4,400 students were underscored on the SAT in 2006.
Pearson was blamed for delays related to test-scoring problems in Arkansas last year and South Carolina in 2008. This year, Wyoming claimed $9.5 million in damages after an online test administered statewide by Pearson was plagued with glitches.
Mr. Campbell and his colleagues, each working from a home office, are frantically trying to set up a program that will let them share images with executives at their prospective partner.
But at the moment when Mr. Campbell most needs to focus on that urgent task, something else competes for his attention: “Man Found Dead Inside His Business.”
That is the tweet that appears on the left-most of Mr. Campbell’s array of monitors, which he has expanded to three screens, at times adding a laptop and an iPad.
On the left screen, Mr. Campbell follows the tweets of 1,100 people, along with instant messages and group chats. The middle monitor displays a dark field filled with computer code, along with Skype, a service that allows Mr. Campbell to talk to his colleagues, sometimes using video. The monitor on the right keeps e-mail, a calendar, a Web browser and a music player.
Even with the meeting fast approaching, Mr. Campbell cannot resist the tweet about the corpse. He clicks on the link in it, glances at the article and dismisses it. “It’s some article about something somewhere,” he says, annoyed by the ads for jeans popping up.
I love how this guy could not resist some stupid headline about a corpse when he needed to focus on his upcoming business meeting.
I've seen lawyers check emails, Facebook, sports scores, celebrity updates, full-on porn, all while in depositions, courtrooms, on conference calls, in meetings, at lunch tables, and yes -- while driving their fancy cars.
In fact, I've long claimed there is a class component to calls for bans on cell phone use or texting while driving -- I'm pretty sure most lawyers do this regularly and also think they are pretty talented at it -- in other words, the law really should apply to others (poor people, young, uneducated) who can't seem to multitask so well:
Preliminary research shows some people can more easily juggle multiple information streams. These “supertaskers” represent less than 3 percent of the population, according to scientists at the University of Utah.
The problem is we all think we're in that three percent.
In the spirit of goodwill and universal peace and understanding, I offer this polite correspondence to our Attorney General -- with a related note to our beloved 3d DCA entirely in Esperanto, the language of love (and Star Trek):
To Professor Gillers, Mr. McCollum is now obligated both as a lawyer and as a public official to alert the appellate court. “It is not enough for the attorney general simply to refrain from relying on the testimony in his brief and argument,” he said. “He has an affirmative duty to speak up.”
Ms. Wiggins, the spokeswoman for Mr. McCollum, said she could not comment further on pending litigation.
Could not comment -- that's it? Could you imagine a private litigant getting away with that?
Ok, here's the part in Esperanto to the 3d DCA:
Ĉu kosta *bunkeriza kaf-*swil vestitoj de la pompaj vestaĵoj vi estas aŭskultanta?
Attorney General Bill McCollum Tuesday defended his personal intervention into the selection of an antigay expert witness in the case defending the state's gay adoption ban, saying his office "searched a long time" for someone and that George Rekers was the only one of two they could find.
Records show that McCollum personally requested that the state's Department of Children & Families hire Rekers at $300 an hour to help the state defend the case. When the agency balked at the price tag, McCollum's office persisted, ultimately leading to DCF paying pay him $120,000 over two years.
McCollum said that while he would not hire Rekers again knowing what he knows now -- that Rekers vacationed for two weeks in Europe with a gay male escort from Miami and received sexual massages from him -- he suggested that without Rekers the agency would not have been successful.
Note to Big Bill: the agency was not successful, and Judge Lederman found your $120k man to be thoroughly not credible (incredible?) as an "expert."
Also, if you can only find two "experts" -- total -- in the whole country willing to defend your position, maybe your position is insupportable?
Because of this, the Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus calls on McCollum to immediately refund the state of Florida $120,000 whether it’s from his campaign account or his own pocket.“Bill McCollum showed incredibly poor judgment when he hired Dr. George Rekers to spew hate-filled propaganda on the stand,” said Phillip Perry, spokesman for the Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus. “The only way that McCollum can make this right is if he immediately apologizes and pays back taxpayers for this egregious mistake. Floridians expect their leaders to spend taxpayer dollars wisely during these tough times, not waste it on hiring quacks posing as scientists to pursue a narrow, hate-inspired political agenda.”
You know what I always say: any stroke worth doing is worth doing slow, long, and well.
But three years before Florida hired Rekers, an Arkansas judge in 2004 denounced him during a similar state adoption case.
"The Arkansas judge, Timothy Fox, said Rekers’ testimony was worthless as evidence because it was only his personal view," according to an editorial this week in The Arkansas Leader.
The Arkansas Supreme Court also concluded Rekers’ testimony "was pointless'' and declared the state’s antigay adoption rule unconstitutional, the editorial continued.
Sheesh, how do you prep an expert for a cross on something like?
"If today’s news story in the Miami New Times is accurate," said Rekers in an e-mail to me, "I have been advised to retain the services of a defamation attorney in this matter, because the fact is that I am not gay and never have been."
Chuck, call me.
I consider myself a pretty good attorney, but even a bad one can go for hours with stuff like this:
Here are the four questions that I sent my travel assistant at his request two days ago, together with the answers we agreed on in our phone conversation this afternoon:
1. Did Dr. Rekers in fact hire you to lift my luggage when necessary as a travel assistant during the trip, because I cannot do so myself since I had surgery? Together we agreed that I in fact hired him to lift luggage when necessary as a travel assistant during the trip, because I cannot do so himself since having surgery. We agreed that this is what my travel assistant agreed to do for pay prior to taking the trip.
2. Did you in fact lift my luggage during the trip each time it was necessary, or did Dr Rekers lift his own luggage during the trip? We agreed that my travel assistant did in fact lift my luggage each time it was necessary, that I did not lift my luggage, and my travel assistant did all the lifting.
3. Did Dr. Rekers hire you as a prostitute for the trip? We agreed that I hired him as a companion and to help with luggage, and that I did not hire him as a prostitute for any sexual purpose.
4. Did Dr. Rekers spend time explaining how the Christian faith is based in love to you during the trip? We agreed that I explained the Christian faith to my travel assistant in conversations on several days during the trip.
Remember what I said about litigation sometimes having unintended consequences?
"Dr. Rekers' testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers' beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.''
The Florida Attorney General's Office has appealed Lederman's ruling, and a decision is expected anytime.
Not bad, Judge, but I would have added:
"Further, based on his preposterous mustache and absurd comb-over, this man is either a buffoon or a closeted self-hating homosexual, or possibly both."
Wait a second, who is our dummkopf attorney general again?
