When David Boies debated Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Face The Nation, he pointed out that while “it’s easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions, appeal to people’s fear and prejudice, cite studies that either don’t exist or don`t say what you say they do, in a court of law, you`ve got to come in and you`ve got to support those opinions.” “And what we saw at trial is that it`s very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature, or in debates, where they can`t be cross-examined, but when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross- examination, those opinions just melt away,” he said.

Unable to substantiate their grandiose claims about how same-sex marriage would undermine the institution or hate crimes legislation would silence Christians, conservatives have recently suffered a number of court setbacks. But that hasn’t stopped Perkins from perpetuating the notion that an expansion of rights to gay couples directly corresponds with a reduction in religious freedoms. Last night, for instance, during an appearance on TBN’s Praise The Lord, Perkins made the grand claim that should Judge Walker’s ruling stand, religious belief would be “banned in America“:

PERKINS: [Walker] says religious beliefs that says that homosexual marriage or homosexual relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships, harm gays and lesbians. Now, as a finding of fact, if that stands, that means that the government will have to use its power to mitigate that harm. What does that mean? We’re not talking about religious teachings, we’re not talking about religious broadcasting, we’re going much deeper than that. We’re talking about religious beliefs. If this case stands, this opinion, we’ll have gone in one generation from 1962 when the bible was banned in public schools, to religious beliefs being banned in America.

Watch it:

Naturally, these kinds of statements simply serve as fundraising pitches to the conservative right, but as we saw during the Prop 8 trial, the actual legal arguments against expanding marriage are not any more substantive. (H/T: Good As You)

While many LGBT advocates did not support the compromise amendment to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, after the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee attached the measure to this year’s Defense Authorization Bill, most assumed that the policy was on its way out. The argument mostly centered around how long it would take. But now, several publications are reporting that Senate Democrats — in search of an election issue to distinguish themselves from the Republicans ahead of the midterm elections — may not be so keen on addressing the issue before they leave town on October 8. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) keeps assuring advocates that the authorization measure is “on the list of things we would like to do”, but some are growing weary. Here is the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld:

“I’m a little anxious,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “The reality is the number of legislative days in this Congress are rapidly dwindling, and we need to see that the defense authorization bill up on the Senate floor in September.” [...]

The source wagered that if the Senate floor vote does not take place before the midterms, the defense funding bill would have a “50-50” shot of passing before the end of this Congress. If it is not finalized by year’s end, the repeal effort will die….But it remains to be seen whether Republicans will continue to obstruct the bill and, if they do, whether Democrats have the grit to force the vote through, in which case they will have to produce 60 votes to end debate (reach “cloture”) in order to get the bill to the Senate floor, where it will require 51 votes to pass. Prior to the August recess, Manley said, the majority leader tried to reach an agreement with Republicans to move forward with a vote on the legislation, but Sen. John McCain of Arizona — who was fending off a primary challenge from hard-core conservative J.D. Hayworth — thwarted the effort.

By all accounts, the White House and Reid are still on board with bringing the measure to a vote during the latter half of September and many believe, as Eleveld reported, that these efforts may now face less opposition from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who before being challenged by Hayworth had said that he would consider repealing the ban if military commanders like Gen. David Petraeus suggested that it was no longer necessary. Groups like HRC, SLDN, and Servicemembers United are lobbying members to take up the bill, but since the military received funds through appropriations, the authorization measure may not be considered a must-pass piece of legislation. For instance, even though Congress has successfully passed a DAB in the past 45 years, it almost rarely secures the passage of the State Department’s authorization.

LGBT lobbying of Congress is not merely constrained to DADT, however. Last night, activists with the group GetEQUAL interrupted Rep. George Miller’s (D-CA) debate against his Republican opponent Rick Tubbs, to pressure the Congressman to pass the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). That measure has languished in Miller’s House Education and Labor committee. In March, Miller had promised to move ENDA “[r]ight after healthcare,” but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has since said that she wouldn’t bring the measure to the floor until DADT is repealed.