In Respect to Defense

With the passage and signing into law of the Respect for Marriage Act, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act outlawing same-sex marriage has been overturned. I would like to have looked back at the passage of that earlier antigay legislation, but I didn't start drawing for the LGBTQ+ press until shortly after it was passed.

in InStep Magazine, Milwaukee Wis. Dec. 11, 1996

DOMA was passed in anticipation of a gay-friendly ruling by the Hawai'ian Supreme Court. Three same-sex couples had sued the state of Hawai'i in 1990 to respect their weddings in a case that became Baehr v. Miike. The court sent the case back to trial court with the state bearing the burden of proof that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying "furthers compelling state interests and is narrowly drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgments of constitutional rights." In December of 1996, Hawai'ian Judge Kevin S.C. Chang ruled in favor of plaintiffs, but stayed his ruling in case it were reversed on appeal.

in InStep Magazine, Milwaukee, Wis., Sept. 18, 1996. My first cartoon for the LGBTQ press before I started drawing for them on a regular basis.

The U.S. Congress had already passed, and President Bill Clinton had signed, DOMA in September, guaranteeing that if same-sex marriage were legal in Hawai'i, it would not be recognized by the federal government or any state on the mainland. Then, in 1998, Hawai'i voters approved a constitutional amendment barring same-sex couples from marrying.

in InStep Magazine, Milwaukee Wis., January 8, 1998

The religious right pushed similar "Definition/Defense of Marriage Amendments" in state after state, a crusade supported enthusiastically by Republicans and acquiesced to by not a few Democrats.

A flyer I put together as Wisconsin legislature passed its DOMA in 1997

As a consolation prize, some people suggested that same-sex couples settle for "domestic partnerships." 

for Q Syndicate, April/August, 1998

But even that was anathema to the religious right. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, state legislatures passed laws to prevent municipalities (and in some cases, even private corporations) from offering domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

for Q Syndicate, April/December, 1998

These last three cartoons are examples of ideas I originally drew for InStep Magazine of Milwaukee, but redrew when brought on to Q Syndicate for national distribution. The then-owner of the syndicate, David (Bianco) Benkof, wanted a portfolio of six cartoons he could show to potential customers; most of them were released for publication later on.

"And They Say We Threaten Their Families" above is my original version for InStep; the other two are the retreads. The "Special Rights" cartoon recast a local TV newsman and a fictional politician as ABC "Nightline" host Ted Koppel and Family Research Council head Gary Bauer.

for Q Syndicate, August, 1999

At weeks such as this one, when there doesn't seem to be enough time to handle all the tasks that pile up on top of each other, it would be nice to have a half dozen cartoons in reserve. But now more than ever before, it's hard to imagine what I could possibly draw in April that would still be fresh and relevant in August, let alone December.

Q Toon: John Lewis

So many cartoons eulogizing Congressman John Lewis have focused on his work to advance the cause of civil rights for Black Americans. He was also in the vanguard of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, so I hope you will excuse yet one more drawing of him and that bridge.

Today's cartoon quotes from a column Congressman Lewis wrote in the October 25, 2003 edition of  the Boston Globe, "At a Crossroads on Gay Unions."

The column itself cribs extensively from a floor speech Lewis gave in the House of Representatives against the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, way back in 1996:

"Marriage is a basic human right. You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to say, of people talking about interracial marriages, I quote: 'Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married.' Why don't you want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans, to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts? Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their loves, their aspirations? ...
I fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color [not] to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I've known racism. I've known bigotry. This bill stinks to the same fear, hatred and intolerance."

This is the kind of thing that earned him the sobriquet "The Conscience of the House." LGBTQ+ rights have come a long way since 1996: in spite of Lewis's speech, 118 Democrats joined 224 Republicans in voting for that odious bill. Only 65 Democrats and one Republican voted against it. (Two Democrats voted "present"; 22 Democrats and nine Republicans missed the vote.)

Many state legislators showed the same willingness to knuckle under to antigay bigotry as one state after another passed its own version of DOMA. And that included many legislators who claimed to be straight allies of the LGBTQ+ community.

Lewis ended his column in the Boston Globe on much the same note as his 1996 floor speech:

"Rather than divide and discriminate, let us come together and create one nation. We are all one people. We all live in the American house. We are all the American family."  

Q Toon: Almost There

This week's cartoon was sparked by a recent Washington Post story by Robert Samuels focusing on Hillary Clinton's efforts over the years to finesse LGBT rights issues without upsetting religious conservatives.

While most national politicians have been slow to evolve on gay marriage, Clinton’s handling of it was particularly saddening to some activists because they had expected more. Clinton and her husband, Bill, had stood out as being among the first to actively court the gay community as an interest group and donor base — and yet they were unwilling to stand with the community on one of its biggest civil rights issues.

Framing the issue as I have in this cartoon, I realize that it may appear that I am buying into the right-wing talking point of "Lying Hillary" (which conveniently ignores Donald Trump's fact-free campaigning) just as her poll numbers are coming back to Earth. I can't help but notice how those fund-raising emails in my inbox are getting increasingly desperate.

So I'm sorry to disappoint Ms. Clinton, but she should have known that we liberals do not move in lockstep, unlike certain vast conspiracies one could name. You don't think so?

Having now drawn a cartoon pointing out a weakness of the Democratic nominee for President, I hereby dare A.F. Branco to draw one pointing out any weakness of the Republican nominee.

Hillary Clinton: HRC in NYC

For today's episode of Statenback Saturday, I dredge up some more of my old cartoons about Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Last week, I posted some cartoons dating from her First Ladyship, and the Sandersnistas among my readers might be forgiven if they criticized me for a pro-Hillary bias. Today's cartoons date from her tenure as the U.S. Senator from the state of New York and were drawn for an LGBT audience -- and posting them again is probably not doing her any favors. (Especially since they criticize her for stuff which somehow failed to make this comprehensive list of all the terrible things she has done.)

Hillary Clinton chose to run for New York's open Senate seat because New York, having many citizens who are from somewhere else, have a history of electing public officials who are from somewhere else, too. Those citizens can be mighty proud of being from somewhere else, or at least that their great-grandparents were from somewhere else. There are also those who are from somewhere else because they aren't accepted for who they are somewhere else, and by golly, now they are proud of how far they've come.

Senator Clinton probably wished she had stayed somewhere else during the collision of ethnic pride and gay pride that New York enjoys every St. Patrick's Day. Running for the senate seat in 2000, she had marched in both the New York City Ancient Order of Hibernians parade, which banned LGBT participation, and also in an earlier "St. Pat's For All" parade in Queens, created as a gay-friendly alternative. Her attempt to please everybody placated nobody.

She skirted the controversy in 2001 by marching in Syracuse's parade upstate instead.

The St. Patrick's Day Parade issue had still not gone away when she was preparing to launch her 2008 presidential campaign.

But there were more substantive LGBT issues on her plate, too, such as Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and marriage equality. My only cartoon depicting her efforts to distance herself from DADT  was when she was running for the Senate in 2000. As for marriage equality, a window of opportunity opened in California in 2008, but neither she nor her rival for the Democratic nomination were inclined to lead on the issue.

I'm skipping right past her tenure at the State Department now, but both Mrs. Clinton and President Obama did come around, eventually.

The Long Road to Overnight Victory, Part I

My cartoon for this week is included in an LGBT cartoonist round-up over at Fusion -- you can check it and seven others out now, or wait for me to post it tomorrow.

Looking at the other cartoonists' submissions, I wish that I had found something more personal to say. I can blame a combination of a hectic schedule and some unpleasant prepping for a medical procedure (it turns out I'm healthy); but the fact is, I've been drawing about marriage equality for so long, I don't know how much more I could possibly find to say about it.

I've drawn so many cartoons about it, in fact, that I wasn't able to winnow them down to fit in a single blog entry.

I wasn't drawing cartoons in 1972 when Baker v. Nelson came before the Minnesota Supreme Court; but in 1996, I was drawing cartoons for InStep, one of  two LGBT newspapers in Milwaukee, when a circuit court judge in Hawai'i ruled that state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

Judge Kevin S.C. Chang's ruling in Baehr. v. Miike would be overturned by Hawai'i voters, but not before giving LGBT marriage advocates hope, and antigay activists a fund-raising and vote-getting bonanza. Legislators in Hawai'i and just about every other state, as well as the U.S. Congress, rushed to define "marriage" as a special rite that could only be entered into by one man and one woman.

Very well, replied some LGBT activists and liberal allies. If we can't get "married," how about if we call it something else?

Fine. We're in a "committed relationship." We've even had a "commitment ceremony." But what do I call you? My "committee"?

Another term to come down the pike was "domestic partnership"; one could at least refer to the other as "partner." Like dancers, law firms, and bridge players have.

As if there weren't already enough euphemisms for "marriage lite," I had to offer one of my own:

We'll continue this retrospective on marriage equality on Stepback Saturday, starting with "Evolution of the Democrats."

Q Toon: Remember Me?

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was indicted last Thursday, accused of  paying someone known as "Individual A" $3.5 million in hush money over a case of sexual misconduct with a male student when he was a high school wrestling coach in Yorkville, Illinois.

Hastert is not accused of the actual sexual misconduct, the statute of limitations having expired long ago. Instead, he is accused of lying to the FBI about why the former congressman began making large cash withdrawals from his financial accounts in 2010; he had claimed it was due to a lack of confidence in the banking system and that he was keeping the cash.

Making huge cash withdrawals isn't illegal, but banks are required to file a "currency transaction report" on all cash transactions exceeding $10,000 thanks to the Patriot Act, which Hastert had taken credit for crafting and passing in a 2011 interview.

My cartoon, riffing on a 2014 appearance by Hastert on C-SPAN currently gone viral, deals less with the idea of the Patriot Act coming around to bite Hastert in the butt than his voting record on LGBT issues. In addition to Hastert's antigay votes on marriage equality and employment non-discrimination, I could also have included his stance on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.

In case you are too young to remember, the Republicans in Congress had forced the appointment of a special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, to look into Whitewater, an Arkansas property scheme in which the Clintons had lost money. Finding nothing impeachment-worthy there, Mr. Starr moved on to investigate charges by Paula Jones that Mr. Clinton had sexually assaulted her while Governor of Arkansas. Finding insufficient evidence of wrong-doing there, too, Mr. Starr proceeded to investigate an apparently consensual extra-marital affair between the President and Monica Lewinsky, a 20-something intern at the White House.

Mr. Starr subpoenaed the President to testify under oath, wherein President Clinton flatly denied the affair. Physical evidence contradicted the President's testimony, so the House voted to impeach. Not over the sex stuff, Republicans protested, but over the perjury.

"Mr. President, I am saddened that there is clear and convincing evidence that the President lied under oath, obstructed justice, and abused the powers of his office in an attempt to cover up his wrong-doing. I regret that the President's behavior puts me in the position of having to vote for these Articles of Impeachment and to pass this matter on to the U.S. Senate for final judgment. ... In this nation, all men are created equal. Simply put, the President in our representative democracy is not a sovereign who is above the law. Tomorrow, we shall pass a difficult vote. The President's inability to abide by the law, the Constitution, and my conscience have all led me to the sound conclusion that impeachment articles must be passed." — Rep. Dennis Hastert, in the Well of the House, December 18, 1998

It is ironic, then, that Hastert, is now charged not with whatever sexual shenanigans he engaged in at Yorkville High, but with lying under oath and paying Individual A off in an effort to evade justice.

✒

A propos of our discussion the other day of racial and gender diversity in cartoon characters, I blew an opportunity to be ethnically inclusive when I changed the C-SPAN interviewer from Pedro Echevarria to Steve Scully. Mea culpa.

Q Toon: Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors?

Last year, the Supreme Court surprised everyone by declining to hear a marriage equality case. Without explanation, the court decided to ignore appeals from Republican state Attorneys General who were trying to overturn marriage equality rulings in Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia.

Suddenly, marriage equality was the law of the land!

Well, no, not quite.

The court's non-ruling came about because after it had found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional (U.S. v. Windsor, 2013), all lower courts had consistently ruled in favor of marriage equality. Then, the contrarian Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the same-sex-marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Q Syndicate✒Jan 22, 2015

And the issue came right back to the highest court in the nation. The Supremes now have a chance to decide this issue once and for all!

Again, no, not quite.

If they rule to uphold the Sixth Circuit decision, it could throw the marriages of those of us who got married in Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia into legal limbo. At the very least, marriages from any of the 36 states where they are now legal would be nullified any time we'd move to or even travel through marriage discrimination states.

And if they overturn the Sixth Circuit decision, several Republican state legislatures have proposed or passed "religious liberty" laws creating a "right" for employers, insurers, municipal clerks, hospital employees and whoever else feels like it to treat married couples as unrelated strangers.

Texas is even considering a law, House Bill 623, that says, "State or local taxpayer funds or governmental salaries may not be used for an activity that includes the licensing or support of same-sex marriage" -- meaning that even a gay-friendly clerk who issues a marriage license to a same-sex couple is in danger of losing her job.

So sit back and wait to see how this issue eventually turns out. The Supremes have plenty of time to learn how to play the piano, carve ice, and recite French poetry.

Q Toon: To Have and to Holder

When I pitched this cartoon to my editors, it was because U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would give same-sex married couples "full and equal recognition, to the greatest extent under the law" relative to mixed-sex married couples. The policy shift has ramifications in cases of bankruptcy, alimony, whether one spouse can be forced to testify against the other, bereavement leave, prison visitation, and myriad other situations.

The cartoon can also apply to various states' attorneys general as well. I drew just a couple weeks ago about Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring's decision not to defend his state's marriage inequality amendment. Just this week, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto decided that current case law renders moot any defense of her state's marriage equality ban (a decision backed by the state's Republican governor, incidentally).

In my home state of Wisconsin, on the other hand, Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and the Republican running to replace him this year plan to defend mixed-sex marriage supremacy with vigor. The Democratic candidates for the office have announced that neither would defend that amendment to the state constitution.

Q Toon: Card Game

We'll get back to the royal baby in a moment, after this message from Geeks Out. Geeks Out wants everyone to boycott Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card on the grounds that he's antigay.

Unless you're deep into science fiction, you've probably never heard of the Ender's Game series or Orson Scott Card, but the 1985 book has been made into a movie set for release this November. Here's the plot: a remnant of humanity has been fighting an insectoid race of "buggers" (wait, wait, that's not what Geeks Out is upset about yet); the hero is one of the youth who have been trained during an uneasy truce to fight the next stage of the war. Fiery explosions, decapitations, impalings, and spattered ichor and guts festoon the screen.

Of more relevance to the current controversy is that Card is a board member of the National Organization for Marriage. The anger with Card stems from a article he wrote back in February, 1990, before most of Geeks Out were born:

“Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.”
— Orson Scott Card, “The Hypocrites of Homosexuality,” Sunstone Magazine

Sunstone Magazine, by the way, is a Mormon educational publication, so we do have a religious aspect to this story. And if you think that there's something incongruous about portraying the religious right gambling at cards, I would lay you odds that even One Million M*ms will be willing to overlook all the gratuitous violence in Mr. Card's film in order to burnish their antigay bona fides.

Card currently claims that his 1990 article is rendered moot by last month's Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, so everybody should cut him some slack. His own 2008 article for the Mormon Times argues otherwise:

"Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down …"

Q Toon: Scalia on the Rocks

Here at long last is my cartoon about last week's Supreme Court ruling against California's Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Justice Antonin Scalia's sclerotic dissent in United States v. Windsor is less about finding strict constitutional arguments in favor of Prop 8 and DOMA than bitching about the damn kids today:

"In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to ‘disparage,’ ‘injure,’ ‘degrade,’ ‘demean,’ and ‘humiliate’ our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change, it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race."

Enemies of the human race, no less! In his prior arguments that it is gays and lesbians who justly deserve odium humani generis, Justice Scalia has proven no stranger to wild overstatement. In Romer v. Evans (1996), Scalia dissented from the majority opinion affirming a Colorado law forbidding localities from discriminating against LGBT citizens. Scalia could see no difference between homosexuality and homicide:

" I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible—murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals—and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct[.]" 

As Adam Serwer observed in Mother Jones, "It's true that people generally disapprove of murder, but there's more going on in laws banning murder than mere disfavor—the rights of the person being murdered, for example."

Scalia probably doesn't read Mother Jones, but he at least restrained himself from of likening gays and lesbians to Charles Manson in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas (2003):

"The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are 'immoral and unacceptable,' Bowers, supra, at 196–the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity.  ...  State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision.”

The Republic may survive the nullification of state laws against masturbation, but Scalia had surely hoped that his parade of horribles would bring a Christian nation to its senses. For a time, as Republicans raced a series of antigay constitutional amendments through the the states, he probably did feel vindicated.

But as young people continue to come of age in a world where gays and lesbians are openly joining into committed relationships and raising families of their own without any demonstrable deterioration of heterosexual marriage, Scalia is left to fume:

Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?

Q Toon: Just Like Obama

This week's cartoon was drawn a couple weeks ago in anticipation of my not being able to draw a cartoon this week. The inspiration comes from a talking point being repeated within the right-wing echo chamber, asking us gays and lesbians to respect their opposition to marriage equality because it took a while for President Obama to evolve to our point of view.

I can respect their opposition to marriage equality -- at least as far as I can respect the right of Catholic churches to refuse to marry divorcees or people who can't come up with a baptismal certificate. As far as I know, those policies have yet to affect any faith-based community assistance program's state or federal aid. I never fully supported the rights of 14-year-old first cousins to marry, but I never went so far as to devote millions of dollars to pass constitutional amendments around the country to make sure they all had to go to Alabama to get hitched.

As it happens, Delaware became the eleventh state to pass marriage equality into law this week, and similar laws are moving forward in Minnesota and Illinois. So hooray for evolution!

Q Toon: Can't Figure Out the Cable Remote, Either

“Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new. I think it was first adopted in The Netherlands in 2000. So there isn't a lot of data about its effect. And it may turn out to be a — a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing, as the supporters of Proposition 8 apparently believe. But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the internet? I mean we— we are not —we do not have the ability to see the future.” — Justice Samuel Alito. (Link.)

Why, for its first forty years or so, the U.S. Supreme Court sat around without taking any cases at all, reasoning that the whole damn country was an institution newer than the the lightning conductor or the steam engine.

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that same-sex marriage is older than the Constitution.

"In the period up to roughly the thirteenth century, male bonding ceremonies were performed in churches all over the Mediterranean. These unions were sanctified by priests with many of the same prayers and rituals used to join men and women in marriage. The ceremonies stressed love and personal commitment over procreation, but surely not everyone was fooled. Couples who joined themselves in such rituals most likely had sex as much (or as little) as their heterosexual counterparts."

Q Toon: Same Sex, Mixed Politics

As I told my editors over the weekend, I was trying to come up with an idea for this week which didn't involve drawing a whole lot of empty chairs for the second week in a row.

Last week, there were only 20 chairs showing in the cartoon (more before I decided to display the dialogue along the bottom of the cartoon instead of in a balloon). I'm not counting them this week.

The roster of Democrats coming out in favor of bona fide marriage equality seems to be growing daily -- including such "red state" politicians as Senators Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester. It must be keeping the contributors to Wikipedia's list of supporters of marriage equality on their toes.

Hillary Clinton and the Old Ball and Chain

This week, Hillary Clinton came out in favor of marriage equality. As President, her husband had signed the "Defense of Marriage Act" which made marriage inequality a matter of federal law.

It's not the first time that Hillary has needed to distance herself from antigay legislation enacted during the Bill Clinton administration.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" was billed as a means of allowing gay and lesbian service members to continue their military service, but it did not have that effect. As Bill learned only too well, keeping one's sexual activity a secret ain't as easily done as said.

(Cartoon drawn in December, 1999, but copyrighted in 2000 according to Q Syndicate dating conventions.)

Q Toon: GOPFLAG

Last weekend, Ohio Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) publicly reversed his position on the "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA), a bill he co-sponsored when he was a House member in the 1990's. His reasons, as he explained in an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch, were close and personal:

“As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way.

"Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and I were proud of him for his honesty and courage. We were surprised to learn he is gay but knew he was still the same person he’d always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love.”

Over the course of two years, the Senator figured out how to resolve his love and hopes for his son with his Christian faith. After all, these things take on a different light when we're talking about one's own children.

Portman also revealed that when the Mitt Romney campaign had been considering him as a possible running mate last year, he had told them about Will. We are told that Will's sexual orientation had nothing with Romney's decision not to pass over Portman Pater, a senator from a crucial swing state with 18 electoral votes, in favor of Paul Ryan, a congressman from a swing state with only 10.

But you have to know that there was someone in the Romney campaign afraid that somewhere between the convention and November, news that Portman's son was gay would break and eclipse whatever message the Republicans were hoping to talk about that week. Worse still, it could be the big media/SNL obsession arising from the Vice Presidential debate.

No, just kidding. The big obsession was going to be Biden's smirking, laughing and finger-wagging, no matter what.

Q Toon: Condemned to Repeat It

Senator Lindsey Graham appeared with Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman on CNN earlier this month, and program host Piers Morgan brought up the topic of marriage equality. After Graham had stated that South Carolina would never vote for marriage equality, the other two senators couched the issue in the question of states' rights to define marriage for themselves.

Morgan then suggested that it wasn't fair that a couple could be legally married in New York but not in South Carolina. I've twisted Senator Graham's words in the cartoon, so here's his original reply:

"Can — can I suggest this? Slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. Go watch 'Lincoln,' a great movie. The people decided. The question for us is who should decide these things? Should it be a handful of judges or should it be the people themselves? And I come out on the side of the people themselves. Different people will look at it differently. But slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. If you want to propose a Constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage and it passes, that’s the law of the land."

Q Toon: The Christmas Court

It's customary among editorial cartoonists when stealing borrowing other cartoonists' creations to credit the other cartoonists with "apologies to..." or a similar note. We're not usually so assiduous about apologizing to film makers or 19th Century authors -- think of any of the myriad cartoons that use whatever current movie is out to draw some parallel to political or social events (my own from last week, for example). But it would have seemed discriminatory to have left Charles Dickens and Frank Capra out of this week's credits, so in they go.

Besides, I wasn't confident that everyone would recognize Mr. Potter.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just for the holiday, here's an old Thanksgiving-themed cartoon from 2003:

Have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving!

Q Toon: Marriage Equality on Balance

With election day 13 days away, it's time for this cartoonist to stop frittering his time away on cartoons about National Coming Out Day, evangelicals slumming in the gayborhood, and TV sitcoms.

The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last week that the federal "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) is unconstitutional.

[Judge Dennis Jacobs] said the law was written so broadly that it touches more than a thousand federal laws. "Homosexuals are not in a position to adequately protect themselves from the discriminatory wishes of the majoritarian public," Jacobs wrote.
He rejected arguments by supporters of the law that it was intended to limit new categories of eligibility for federal funds, promote uniform administration of federal law, protect traditional marriage and encourage responsible procreation.
"Even if preserving tradition were in itself an important goal, DOMA is not a means to achieve it," he said.

That DOMA was headed for the Supreme Court was a virtual certainty, so the question is how the ruling will affect ballot initiatives in Minnesota, Maryland, Maine and Washington state on November 6. The legislatures of Maine, Maryland and Washington have voted for, and their governors have signed into law, marriage equality. Opposite-sex marriage exclusivity, on the other hand, is the law in Minnesota, where the Catholic Church is dropping everything else to enshrine it in the state constitution.

The Washington, opponents of marriage equality succeeded in putting Measure 74 on the ballot, possibly confusing voters because passage would actually affirm what the legislature and governor have already done.


In Maine, this marks the first time that gay-rights supporters -- rather than opponents -- have chosen to put same-sex marriage before voters. A gay-marriage law passed by the legislature in 2009 was overturned in a referendum that fall. Marriage equality supporters in the state decided to put a measure in support of marriage equality on the ballot this year, when the presidential election would draw out more voters.

The polls have the Minnesota amendment on the razor's edge, while there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about one of the other three states becoming the first in the nation to support marriage equality by popular referendum.

In Maryland, as in Maine and Washington, the most recent polls show a lead for the supporters of same-sex marriage. But comparable leads in other states -- notably in California in 2008 -- evaporated by Election Day, and Josh Levin, manager of the Marylanders for Marriage Equality campaign, expects the final result to be extremely close.

With races this close, anything, from a judge's ruling exciting one side, to the Obama and Romney campaigns' decision to focus their efforts elsewhere, could have an effect on the outcome.

Q Toon: RBG on DOMA

Last week, as a way of declining to answer a question from a Colorado law student on the subject, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicted that DOMA (the so-called Defense of Marriage Act) was likely to come before the court in the upcoming term.

Somehow, I think this is Justice Ginsburg's first appearance in my cartoons. I don't recall drawing any cartoons about her when President Clinton nominated her to the bench in 1993, or when the Supreme Court decided the 2000 presidential election, or when she pointedly cited Romneycare in her opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act last year.