“I don’t have any doubt that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ will be a memory by the end of this year,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told Roll Call yesterday, before suggesting that she will have enough votes to pass the repeal and the more controversial Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). “I’m not going to bring up anything that’s not going to win,” Pelosi said. “And we feel that we’re in a pretty good, strong position on both bills”:

On Wednesday, Pelosi alluded to the thinking of many Democrats, which is to insert language repealing the policy into the defense authorization bill.

“‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ if it were to be part of a defense authorization bill, it would have to be something that we would have to make a decision about sooner than [ENDA],” Pelosi said. “And we’re having our conversations. “I support ENDA. I have for decades and it’s very important to me,” said Pelosi.

“When the opportunity is there, we want to bring that up, and I hope that will be soon,” she said. “We’ll see what people want to do. It’s not my own personal decision. We’ll just see where we go from here.”

Repeal of DADT is certainly morel likely in the House than the Senate. Yesterday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) officially announced that he would not attach provision repealing DADT to his committee’s defense authorization measure, but leading sponsors of the measure, like Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) have pledged to move ahead on repeal — despite Robert Gates’ insistence that Congress hold off on legislation until the Pentagon completes its year-long review of the policy. Depending on what happens in the Senate next week — Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) is still struggling to convince 15 of 28 committee members to support the amendment in committee — Pelosi may either allow the measure to come to the floor for a vote or (should the Senate successfully attaches the measure) agree to it in conference.

Advocates are also eager to move ENDA, but worry that Republicans could include a ‘poison pill” motion to recommit that would strip the protections for transgendered individuals. The Hill reports, however, quotes “a leading House liberal” as saying that” House leaders had this week told similarly minded members of the caucus that ENDA was going to be taken up before the elections, regardless of what happens with “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” “It’ll be right before we leave,” this Democrat said, “to energize the base.” That vote may occur as early as the second week in June.

On Tuesday, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported that “out-of-staters made up 60 percent of same-sex couples married in Iowa since the state began allowing such unions in April 2009.” Of the 2,020 same-sex marriages that were recorded in Iowa from April 27, 2009 through March 31, “only 815 of the couples were from Iowa,” 199 were from Illinois, 158 from Missouri and 111 from Nebraska.

Business owners are noticing a corresponding uptick in spending and tourism and hotel owners seem particularly grateful for the Supreme Court decision. And while economic data is still unavailable, in April 2008 the Williams Institute published a study estimating that the state could see a “a $5.3 million per year net benefit of same-sex marriage.”

But at least one Iowa lawmaker isn’t happy about the increase in economic activity. Today, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — who warned that same-sex marriage would lead to socialism — issued a statement lamenting that the 2009 Supreme Court decision has turned Iowa “into the gay marriage Mecca” and called on the legislature to institute residency requirements or a constitutional amendment to repeal it:

KING: Just over one year ago, when the Iowa Supreme Court decided to ignore Iowa law and grant same sex couples the ability to get married in our state, I predicted that the decision, absent action by the state legislature to enact a marriage license residency requirement, would turn Iowa into the gay marriage Mecca…This new report from the Department of Public Health reemphasizes the short-sightedness of the court’s decision to enact a same-sex marriage law from the bench, and it provides even more evidence of the need for a residency requirement and a constitutional amendment to repeal it.

Could it be that King doesn’t want the state profiting from same-sex marriage because it would allow gays and lesbians to wear their sexuality on their sleeves?

The Washington Post’s Ed O’keefe reports that aides to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are suggesting that the senator may introduce legislation extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees “‘within weeks’ and well before July 4th.” The legislation was voted out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last year on a bipartisan basis (Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) co-sponsored the measure), but Lieberman had promised not to move this on the floor of the Senate “until we get the explicit offsets” from the Office of Personnel Management. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the legislation would cost approximately $310 million through 2020, leading some to speculate that the larger-than-anticipated price tag “could jeopardize efforts to pass the bill this year.” Lieberman dismissed these concerns:

“This legislation would cost about two-hundredths of a percent of the federal government’s overall costs for the civilian workforce,” Lieberman said Tuesday. “That is a very small price to pay for the improvements we would see in recruitment, retention, and morale. OPM has committed to provide an offset for the legislation before it is enacted, making it that much more reasonable.”

Indeed those offsets — first requested by Lieberman and Senate Republicans in December — aren’t ready yet and won’t be until Lieberman is ready to introduce the bill to the full Senate, according to an OPM spokesman.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved a similar domestic partner benefits bill in November of 2009, but it also still has to pass the full chamber. “In June, President Obama endorsed the bill when he extended some benefits to the same-sex partners of federal workers, including coverage by the long-term-care insurance program for federal employees and permission for staffers to use their sick leave to take care of their partners.”

During today’s mark-up of the defense authorization bill, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) officially announced that he would not attach provision repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy (DADT), despite the President’s commitment to ending the ban against openly gay and lesbian service members:

SKELTON: You won’t find any mention of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Mr. [Howard] McKeon and I have spoken about this; we agree to support Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates’ request for time to study this issue, and we do not support this issue being raised in this markup.

Skelton’s announcement is hardly surprising. The Congressman has repeatedly said that he supports the current policy and recently wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Gates inviting him to express his “thoughts on potential Congressional action.” Gates’ insistence that Congress shouldn’t act on DADT before the Pentagon completed its review of the policy drastically chilled any chance of repealing the measure this year.

All attention now turns to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is scheduled to begin marking up the defense bill next week. Unlike Skelton, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) has suggested that he would defy Gates’ request to delay legislative action and attach repeal legislation in committee, if he has 15 votes needed. That, however, remains unclear, particularly since the Washington Blade is now reporting that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) will “vote against an effort next week to overturn the law.”

During a conference call with LGBT activists on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she remained committed to repealing the ban, which “is likely to be proposed on the House floor as an amendment to the defense bill.”

As Congressional Democrats try to determine whether they have enough votes to attach legislation repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) to this year’s defense authorization bill, a new poll conducted by the Human Rights Campaign finds that Floridians support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. The strong public support could prove crucial to winning over the vote of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), a moderate member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has not yet committed to supporting repeal.

According to the new survey, 69% of Florida voters support allowing gay men and lesbians to serve in the military, while just 21% oppose allowing gays to serve:

Human Rights Campaign says it is focusing on Florida because Nelson is one of six uncommitted U.S. senators being targeted for support.

“Sen. Nelson sits on the Armed Services Committee. That is going to be the first line of defense for action in the fight to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell,” said Allison Herwitt, HRC’s legislative director. “The Department of Defense authorization bill will be moving May 27. We’re expecting Sens. [Joe] Lieberman and [Carl] Levin to offer an amendment to repeal the discriminatory ban and Sen. Nelson’s vote is key.” [...]

Nelson would support repeal subject to a study by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates of “how it will impact the military,” a spokesman said last month.

Nationwide, a majority of Americans support ending DADT. A recent Gallup Poll found that “70% continue to favor allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military, with continued majority support from every key demographic subgroup,” including Republicans. The administration has refused to call for Congressional action until the Pentagon concludes its year-long review of the policy and has excluded repeal legislation from its defense budget. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI), however, has promised to attach repeal to this year’s defense authorization bill if he has enough votes.

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) signature issue is opposition to campaign finance regulation.  McConnell was the plaintiff in a landmark Supreme Court case challenging such regulation (he lost), and he has spent his legislative career opposing laws intended to prevent rich people and corporations have controlling elections.  A US News & World Report profile labeling McConnell the “Darth Vader of reform” sums up his views in three words:  “spending is speech.”

So it’s not suprising that McConnell took to the Senate floor yesterday to attack Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a supporter of campaign finance reform.  Even though 80% of the American people disagree with McConnell on this issue, he has certainly been consistent in advancing his own fringe views.  But McConnell overreaches even further in his attack on General Kagan, claiming that she intends to ban books:

The argument Ms. Kagan and her office chose is that the federal government has the power to ban books and pamphlets.  That is the position of the Solicitor General and her office. . . .  Shortly after she and I met the press reported that she had co-written a memo on campaign finance restrictions when she was in the Clinton Administration.  In it, she says that . . . “unfortunately, the Constitution stands in the way of many restrictions on spending on political speech.”  And she believes that the Supreme Court’s precedents are quote “mistaken” in many cases.  And just last Thursday she told one of our colleagues that the Court was wrong in the Citizens United case because it should have deferred more to Congress.

Watch:

There are too many things wrong with McConnell’s statement to list here, but one glaring problem McConnell’s apparent inability to read a calendar.  Kagan became Solicitor General on March 19, 2009, but the brief in the case where “Ms. Kagan and her office” allegedly supported book banning was filed in February 2009 — a month before Kagan was confirmed.  At oral argument in that Citizens United case, which took place just five days after Kagan became Solicitor General, one of Kagan’s deputies briefly argued that a law applying certain campaign finance regulations to books would not violate the “freedom of speech,” but that it may violate the “freedom of…the press.”

Several months later, when the case was re-argued in September 2009, Kagan became involved in the case for the first time.  When confronted — again, for the first time — with question about whether campaign finance law could limit the publication of books, Kagan expressly distanced herself from her deputy’s more nuanced position.  General Kagan explained that “[t]he government’s answer has changed” since she took over the case, and that “there would be quite good as-applied challenge” to any attempt to any attempt to any attempt to limit the publication of books.  An as-applied challenge is a lawsuit claiming that the Constitution forbids a law to be used in a certain way.

So Kagan never claimed that government has the power to ban books, as McConnell suggests — indeed, she said the exact opposite.

Later in the same speech, McConnell accuses Kagan of believing that public officials can prevent people from expressing certain political views “just because they don’t like…the speech.”  This claim, however, would come as quite a surprise to Elena Kagan, whose seminal article on the First Amendment expressly states that “the government may not restrict expressive activities because it disagrees with or disapproves of the ideas espoused by the speaker.”

There is barely a sentence in McConnell’s entire floor speech that does not misrepresent General Kagan’s views, but McConnell is right about one thing.  He and Kagan do disagree sharply about whether wealthy corporations should be able to buy elections.  If McConnell really thinks that this is a winning line of attack against Kagan’s nomination, however, he is in for a rude awakening.

Former First Lady Laura Bush has made waves with recent revelations that she encouraged her husband not to campaign on outlawing gay marriage in the 2004 presidential campaign and expressing support for same-sex marriages. During promotional appearances for her new book, Spoken from the Heart, Bush has suggested that same-sex marriage was inevitable and expressed concern that political debates have “end[ed] up denigrating a certain group of people.”

Well now, a gay rights group in Texas has launched a Facebook campaign taking Bush at her word, and urging her to attend Dallas’ gay pride parade on September 19, 2010. “While some have criticized Mrs. Bush for not speaking up sooner, if she is serious about standing up for what is right, we welcome her to the cause,” the group says. “Let’s draft her as a guest of honor for the 2010 Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sunday, September 19, 2010 in Lee Park!”

While the group recognizes that it’s unlikely that Bush would attend the parade, many believe “it would be a great thing for our community if she would,” possibly changing the opinions of prominent conservative politicians. The group was created several days ago and has just over 200 followers.

State-funded lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have always been a waste of taxpayer money.  Even if the states are allowed to bring these lawsuits in the first place–itself a dubious proposition–the law’s opponents will have a tough time assembling the five Supreme Court votes necessary to strike down health care reform when even ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledges that Congress has the power to enact laws such as the ACA.

Today, the law’s opponents lost Roberts.

In a case called United States v. Comstock, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law allowing mentally ill sex offenders to be civilly detained after they have served their sentences if they “would have serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.”  Chief Justice Roberts joined the Court’s four moderates to form a majority, with Justices Kennedy and Alito each filing concurring opinions and Justices Scalia and Thomas dissenting.

So what does this have to do with health reform?  In upholding the civil detention law, the Court effectively rejected right-wing claims that Congress’ powers are too small to allow it to pass the ACA. The Constitution contains an enumerated list of Congressional powers which, although quite broad, are not limitless; and the right’s principal attack on the ACA claims that the power to enact a provision requiring all Americans to carry health insurance did not make the list of Congress’ enumerated powers.

One of Congress’ enumerated powers is the power to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states,” and even Justice Scalia concedes that this power to regulate interstate commerce includes sweeping authority to enact economic regulation.  Faced with such precedent,  the ACA’s opponents have not made the implausible claim that health care reform does not regulate economic activity–indeed, they would have a tough time doing so, after whining for months that the ACA would regulate “1/6 of the economy.”  Instead, they argue that Congress is not allowed to require Americans to purchase insurance because doing so would be an “unprecedented” means of regulating the national economy.  (Their claim that such laws are unprecedented, by the way, is false.)

As today’s Comstock opinion makes clear, however, when Congress exercises one of its enumerated powers, it is free to determine how it wants to do so–even adopting an uncommon or unprecedented means of achieving a legitimate end.  After Comstock, there is simply no force to the right’s claim that certain methods of regulating the insurance market beyond Congress’ enumerated powers:

We have also recognized that the Constitution “addresse[s]” the “choice of means” [] “primarily . . . to the judgment of Congress. If it can be seen that the means adopted are really calculated to attain the end, the degree of their necessity, the extent to which they conduce to the end, the closeness of the relationship between the means adopted and the end to be attained, are matters for congressional determination alone.”

In other words, so long as Congress has chosen an end that is within its power to regulate the national economy, it is allowed to choose what means it wishes to employ in advancing that end.  Congress unquestionably has the power the national health insurance market, so it is allowed to choose a method of doing so that conservatives don’t particularly like.

Since joining the Supreme Court in 2005, Chief Justice Roberts has bent over backwards to advance right-wing causes.  He voted to give banks and drug companies sweeping immunity from state law.  He opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in federal elections; and he even claimed that there should be no consequence when a wealth coal baron buys a judge in order to overturn an unwanted court decision.  So the fact that even Roberts rejects conservative arguments against health reform should tell the state officials pushing these lawsuits to stop wasting taxpayer money on frivilous litigation.

If you’re straight and your husband or wife dies, you have the power to decide what to do with your loved one’s body and how to carry out their wishes. However, if you are a gay man or woman in Minnesota — a state that doesn’t recognize marriage equality — you won’t have that option, thanks to Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R). Explaining his veto of the bill, Pawlenty simply said there “is no actual need” to give same-sex couples equal end-of-life rights. From his official statement on Saturday:

The bill addresses the categories of individuals who under the law shall be given priority for purposes of determining the disposition of the remains of a deceased person. Currently a person can, by executing a will, designate who shall be empowered to control final disposition of his or her remains. The bill therefore addresses a nonexistent problem.

Marriage — defined as between a man and a woman — should remain elevated in our society a special level, as it traditionally has been. I oppose efforts to treat domestic relationships as the equivalent of traditional marriage. Accordingly, I am opposed to this bill.

Ann Kaner-Roth, executive director of LGBT advocacy group Project 515, responded that Pawlenty’s “comment that the proposed legislation is unnecessary shows he is out of step with the experiences of real Minnesotans. … The language in this bill reflects closely language already used by Minnesota’s leading businesses.” Additionally, a person in a heterosexual marriage is not required to have a living will in order for his or her spouse to carry out end-of-life wishes, so it’s unclear why one should be necessary for same-sex partners. The bill would also have given “surviving partners the right to sue those responsible should their partner be killed.”

As a new Center for American Progress report on the needs of LGBT elders finds, Minnesota is considered a “legal stranger” state, where “same-sex partners (or members of families of choice) in these states effectively have no chance to be designated as surrogate medical decision makers for their incapacitated partners/loved ones.” LGBT elders therefore generally need an advanced health care directive (AHD), which includes a living will and a health care power of attorney:

In practice, to protect themselves, LGBT elders must remember to carry their AHDs with them at all times — if an individual is rushed to the hospital without these documents, a loved one can still legally be denied access (see sidebar on page 40). Finally, problems may arise when an elder travels out of state, as one state may not always recognize the health care directive of another state.

Additionally, obtaining an AHD can be difficult, since many elders are unaware or do not have the means to secure one, and “medical providers and long-term care facilities often ignore or challenge the AHDs of LGBT people.” (HT: Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog)

Cross-posted on ThinkProgress.

Our guest blogger is Akil Vohra, Counsel at Muslim Advocates, who is leading the Muslim Charities Works Program aimed to strengthen the Muslim nonprofit sector and reform hurdles to charitable giving.

President Obama is trying to bridge the divide that persists between the United States and Muslim communities here and abroad. During his groundbreaking speech in Cairo last June, Obama made an important commitment to American Muslims: reform charitable giving:

OBAMA: “Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That’s why I’m committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.“

American Muslims have applauded the President’s Cairo commitment and are eager to see results. Easing burdens on charitable giving protects religious freedom and builds bridges of goodwill between the United States and Muslims around the world. Extensive polling of those in Muslim-majority nations shows that charity not only creates goodwill between nations but also improves Muslim perceptions of America abroad.

For example, when a massive tsunami struck Muslim-majority Indonesia in 2004, those in the U.S. gave generously to help victims. This fact was widely reported in local media. Public opinion among Indonesians then dramatically swung in favor of the United States, with 65 percent of Indonesians expressing a favorable opinion as a direct result of American aid. At the same time, the number of Indonesians who held what might be perceived as anti-American views declined.

Indeed, humanitarian aid increasingly serves a critical national security objective. As the New York Times recently reported, the Obama administration is eager to move development assistance to the tribal areas and other regions of Pakistan where religious schools currently proliferate.

Yet, under current U.S. laws, charities that are America’s de facto goodwill ambassadors are hamstrung. If a teenage Al-Qaida recruit, or a child of an adult member, attends a newly constructed school built with U.S. aid, the charity and its donors would be in violation of the law and potentially subject to criminal prosecution. Clearly, that’s not what Congress and government regulators intended when they sought to stem the flow of money to Al-Qaida.

Specific laws, policies and practices adopted by previous administrations, bolstered by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, stymie both security efforts and religious freedom. Adopted to fight terrorism financing, the Anti-terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), Executive Order 13324 and International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), have had the unintended consequence of erecting legal hurdles to well-intentioned charitable giving. These laws allow investigations, freezing of assets, and designations of charities without a full and fair opportunity to challenge the government’s allegations.

International donors face obstacles similar to those confronting charities working overseas. Current law prohibits any assistance—except religious materials and medicine—to a party on the government’s prohibited lists. Such laws discourage international charity by allowing donors, regardless of intent, to be prosecuted if their donation eventually ends up in a bad actor’s hands. These punitive laws dissuade donors from giving generously and charities from operating freely. Lastly, the numerous, disconnected government lists of prohibited groups, individuals and governments (at least five lists), make it impossible for individual donors and smaller nonprofits to provide charity, especially in times of humanitarian crises like earthquakes or tsunamis.

These restrictive giving laws, combined with continuing government scrutiny of the American-Muslim community, creates a climate in which donors are afraid to give and charities are afraid to operate. This phenomenon is well-documented in a recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union. Federal scrutiny of American Muslim travelers who donate to lawful U.S. mosques and charities is chronicled in a report by Muslim Advocates.

President Obama can take three discrete, concrete steps to begin the process of reforming charitable giving laws:

1) Direct the Treasury and State Departments to create a user-friendly, accessible database that would combine all the prohibited lists in one central location. Currently, these prohibited lists appear on two separate agency websites in a format that is difficult to navigate. Establishing a publicly accessible database would be a useful tool for nonprofits and donors when determining where they are sending their aid.

2) Provide protection for well-intentioned charitable giving. If a donor checks the proposed, above database and confirms that the entity to which they are giving is not on a prohibited list, the donor should not be subject to investigation or prosecution. The government can rebut the presumption by showing that the donor knew beyond a reasonable doubt that the organization was on a prohibited list.

3) Establish a presidential advisory commission on easing hurdles to charitable giving that would involve the American-Muslim community, the greater nonprofit sector, and government agencies to address other issues to charitable giving.

If President Obama wants to make strides in building bridges to Muslim communities abroad, he needs to build stronger bridges with Muslims at home. Reforming charitable giving is an excellent place to start.

Fresh off his sexist claim that  Solicitor General Elena Kagan lacks decisiveness because “she’s a woman,” Rush Limbaugh spent yesterday’s edition of his radio show touting paranoid claims that General Kagan is a threat to free speech:

This is a woman who believes that we ought to have somebody in charge of who can say what. This is a woman who believes that free speech needs to be regulated by an independent body that will decide whether or not what you say is harmful to somebody else, then you can’t say it. Kagan says a government motive is proper focus in a First Amendment case. She backs limits on speech that can do harm.

Listen here:

As Media Matters documents, Limbaugh’s unhinged fantasies about Kagan and the speech police are widely contracted by people who actually know something about the First Amendment.  Even Eugene Volokh, a noted right-wing First Amendment scholar, wrote that Kagan displays a “general acceptance of current free speech law…a general comfort with the current precedents, and a lack of desire to shift them much.”

Limbaugh’s right-wing allies point to a brief Kagan wrote as Solicitor General, in which she states that certain speech may not be protected by the First Amendment because of its “societal costs,” as proof that she is eager to “grant[] government the authority to decide what speech should be permitted.” Had these scaremongers actually bothered to read General Kagan’s brief, however, they would have learned that her views are entirely benign.

Under existing law, the Supreme Court recognizes a handful of extraordinarily harmful forms of communication — obscenity, incitements to immediate violence and child pornography, to name a few — which are not protected by the First Amendment. The brief Kagan’s opponents cite concerns a law intended to ban so-called “crush videos,” fetish videos which depict women slowly crushing animals to death for the sexual gratification of the viewer. (The Supreme Court eventually struck down the law at issue in this case for being too loosely drafted, but left open the possibility that a law tailored specifically toward banning crush videos would be upheld).

If Limbaugh and his ilk want to argue that child porn and crush videos should be legal, that is their right under the First Amendment, but bans on such exploitation hardly place America on a slippery slope to “speech panels.”  Limbaugh is simply wrong to claim that Kagan would support such a thing.

In her seminal article on the First Amendment, “Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Government Motive in First Amendment Doctrine,” Kagan does list several rules which, as she understands First Amendment law, guide courts in weighing free speech cases.  Among them:

• “[T]he government may not restrict expressive activities because it disagrees with or disapproves of the ideas espoused by the speaker.”
• “[T]he government may not restrict speech because the ideas espoused threaten officials own self-interest–more particularly, their tenure in office.”
• “[T]he government may not privilege either ideas it favors or ideas advancing its self-interest.”
• “[T]he government may not limit speech because other citizens deem the ideas offered to be wrong or offensive–or for that matter, because they see the ideas as threatening to incumbent officials.”

So public officials cannot ban speech because they disagree with it. They cannot ban speech that makes voters less likely to support them,  and they cannot ban speech simply because it offends someone.  In other words, Kagan’s view of the First Amendment is actually the opposite of what Limbaugh says it is.

Last night, former First Lady Laura Bush appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live to promote her new book, From The Heart. In the book, Bush reveals that she had talked to her husband “about not making gay marriage a significant issue,” reminding him that they shared “a number of close friends who are gay or whose children are gay.” “But at that moment I could never have imagined what path this issue would take and where it would lead,” Bush writes, referring to the administration’s effort to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage ahead of the 2004 re-election campaign.

During her interview with King, Bush said that that she supports gay marriage and believes that it is inevitable:

KING: Gay marriage, you tell us in the book that during the 2004 campaign you talked to George about not making it a significant issue. Do you think we should have it?

BUSH: Well, I think we ought to definitely look at it and debate it. I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have I think the same sort of rights that everyone has.

KING: So would that be an area where you disagreed?

BUSH: I guess that would be an area that we disagree. I mean, I understand totally what George thinks and what other people think about marriage being between a man and a woman. And it’s a real, you know, reversal really for that to accept gay marriage.

KING: But you do?

BUSH: But I think we could, yeah. I think it’s also a generational thing.

KING: You think it’s coming?

BUSH: Yeah, that will come, I think.

Watch it:

Bush also reiterated that she disagreed with her husband’s pro-life stance on abortion, but said that she could understand her husband’s views. “Yeah, and I understand his viewpoint. I really do. I understand his viewpoint. And he understands mine,” she insisted.

Throughout his presidency, Bush was a strong opponent of LGBT equality. The administration opposed equal benefits for same-sex couples, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to prohibit workplace discrimination against gay Americans, the hate crimes act to include sexual orientation and gender identity, and supported the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.

Roll Call is reporting that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) will defy Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ request to delay legislative action on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell until the Pentagon Study Group complete its year-long review of the policy and could possibly attach repeal to this year’s defense authorization bill. Levin’s statement comes just days after he asked Gates to clarify that the intent of the Pentagon study was to determine how, rather than whether to repeal the ban:

“What we ought to do is repeal it but make the effective date after the report,” Levin said. The Michigan Democrat said he’s not sure yet if he has the votes to repeal the law, however. He said he will move forward “if we can.” Levin said he hopes to add the repeal to the Defense authorization bill but will delay the implementation of the repeal until 90 days after the review is completed, which is expected by the end of the year.

Levin pointed to Gates’ letter to him last week saying the review was on how to implement the repeal, not whether to do so. “He’s reached a conclusion on whether it ought to be repealed; he’s already judged this issue,” Levin said. “He favors the repeal. So have I.”

While it’s unclear if Levin will have enough votes on the committee to attach the repeal, the Chairman’s support for a delayed implementation strategy could be a significant victory for LGBT groups who have been struggling to win support for the measure. Levin’s decision also comes on the day that gay veterans, organized by the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers United, lobbied Congress to repeal the ban. The veterans met “with Gen. Carter Ham and Jeh Johnson – the co-chairs of the working group – to discuss the implementation of a repeal of the policy” and key Congressional leaders like Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Mark Warner (D-VA).

It’s still unclear if House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), who does not support repeal, will follow the delay-implementation approach. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would not commit to “allowing a vote on the amendment,” saying that “We’ll be talking to the chairman of the committee about how he wants to proceed with his bill, but we are committed to repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.” “We are counting on that happening at the end of this year when we see the report on how they intend to repeal it, but not a question of whether they will.”

Americans support ending Dont’ Ask, Don’t Tell by overwhelming majorities, however. Yesterday, Gallup released a poll showing that “a large majority of Americans (70%) continue to favor allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military, with continued majority support from every key demographic subgroup.”

Over at Good As You, Jeremy Hooper catches Rep. Steve King (R-IA) saying that employers only discriminate against gay and lesbian people because “they wear their sexuality on their sleeve.”

During a conversation with Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), King re-called a story of how his colleague State Senator Jerry Behn would tempt gay activists to guess his sexual orientation to prove that one can’t easily identify orientation, all the while cracking a joke that Behn was obviously straight:

KING: And he said, ‘let me ask you a question.’ ‘Am I heterosexual or am I homosexual?’ And they looked him up and down, actually they should have know, but they said, ‘we don’t know.’ And he said, ‘exactly, my point. If you don’t project it, if you don’t advertise it, how would anyone know to discriminate against you?’ And that’s at the basis of this. So if people wear their sexuality on their sleeve and then they want to bring litigation against someone that they would point their finger at and say ‘ you discriminate.‘ …This is the homosexual lobby taking it out on the rest of society and they are demanding affirmation for their lifestyle, that’s at the bottom of this.

Listen:

Of course, far from affirming “their lifestyle,” as King calls it, ENDA would simply prohibit public and private employers from using an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity “as the basis for employment decisions, such as hiring, firing, promotion or compensation.” As Hooper put it, “What the far-right refuses to admit is that ENDA protects everyone, not just LGBT people! Everyone has a sexual orientation. Everyone has a gender identity. Every employer, including LGBT ones, have the capacity to unfairly discriminate on the basis of gender/sexuality. So therefore, everyone benefits from a world where education and training and experience and viewpoints (which very well might include contrasting ideas about work related to causes, even LGBT/anti-LGBT ones) and merit are the qualities of job consideration.”

Iowa is one of 12 states that already protects its citizens from “discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education” on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, physical disability, mental disability, retaliation, age , familial status, or marital status.

Transcript: Read more

Moments after President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Republicans lashed out against the nominee, claiming that she blocked military recruitment during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School. Last night, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that Kagan “block[ed] these wonderful men and women from being on the campus,” and this morning the Washington Times wrote, “as dean of the Harvard Law School, Ms. Kagan banned military judge advocate general recruiters from campus in protest of the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ rules on open homosexuality.” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was so sure that the military was kicked off campus, he seemed genuinely shocked when White House adviser Valarie Jarrett set the record straight.

Watch the exchange:

Indeed, military recruiters operated on campus throughout Kagan’s tenure, despite the University’s long-standing policy requiring “any employer using the Office of Career Services for recruiting to sign a statement indicating that it did not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or certain other criteria.” Since the mid 1980s, the military had been able to recruit on campus through the HLS Veterans Association and the University allowed the military into the Office of Career Services in 2002, after the Department of Defense “stiffened the Solomon Amendment, threatening to cut off funding if any part of a school barred military recruiters.”

Robert Clark, a former Harvard Law School dean explains in today’s Wall Street Journal, “When Ms. Kagan became dean in July of 2003, she upheld this newer policy. Military recruiters used OCS services, but at the beginning of each interviewing season she wrote a public memorandum explaining the exception to the school’s nondiscrimination policy, stating her objection to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ and expressing her strong view that military service is a noble and socially valuable career path that should be encouraged and open to all of our graduates.”

Kagan only prevented the military from recruiting through the career office after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Solomon amendment. Even then, she supported their right to access to students via the veterans association. Once the Supreme Court overruled the Third Circuit and upheld and Solomon Amendment, however, Kagan regrettably reinstated the exemption for military recruiters, letting them back into the career office.

As Clark writes, “Outside observers may disagree with the moral and policy judgments made by those at Harvard Law School. But it would be very wrong to portray Elena Kagan as hostile to the U.S. military. Quite the opposite is true.”

CNN is reporting that tonight, during an interview on John King USA, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will reiterate his support for repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy (DADT) and argue that lawmakers should wait for the Pentagon to complete its review before rescinding the policy. Gates has expressed a similar sentiment in a letter to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), and his tone has drastically chilled any chance of ending the policy before the end of the year. But during tonight’s interview, he will go one step further, suggesting that a quick repeal would be “a stupid way to do change”:

“I know there’s some that are suspicious out there that this is some kind of effort to slow roll this process,” Gates says in an interview set to air Monday on CNN’s John King, USA. “But as I said in that testimony, I’ve led several huge public institutions and I’ve led change in every one of them and there’s a smart way to do change, and there’s a stupid way to do change. This one has to be done smartly.

“And I think it’s only fair as we get ready to make this change that we give our force the opportunity to tell us how they feel about it, for us to find out their concerns, for us to identify the challenges we’re going to face if Congress does change the law, and how we will go about doing that, and how we will mitigate negative consequences by what we hear from the force. And so I’ve said this is not about whether, but about how, and that continues to be our position.”

Legislating a change to the policy before the military’s review was done “would send a very negative signal to men and women in uniform that their views on this and how it should be done, don’t matter,” Gates added.

Of course the real world experiences of our allies — all whom have acted swiftly to allow gay and lesbian service members to serve openly — suggests that the opposite is true; acting quickly is “a smart way to do change.” As Larry Korb details in a new memo, “Our allies’ experiences repealing similar bans, as well as our own experience in implementing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” suggest that a drawn-out process is unnecessary and that the military’s recommendations do not need to be completed before Congress exercises its legal authority to overturn the law”:

Three of the United States’ closest allies—Israel, Canada, and the United Kingdom—have successfully removed all restrictions on gays and lesbians in their armed forces since the early 1990s. All three countries made quick, successful transitions to policies of open service…Contrary to what Gates and Mullen set forth in their letter, our allies’ experiences suggest that repeal will be a straightforward process and that a swift policy reversal sends the appropriate signal that both uniformed and civilian military leaders are on board with the decision.

Moreover, Gates’ frame for repeal presents a false choice. He’s suggesting that Congress can either repeal the policy recklessly, without consulting the military, or wait until the Pentagon reviews how best to implement a new nondiscrimination policy before proceeding. But there is a third option: delayed implementation. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has already proposed legislation that lays out a timeline for repeal and sets benchmarks for the Pentagon’s ongoing review. This kind of model places Congress and the Pentagon on two separate tracks — Congress passes legislation to repeal the policy, but the repeal isn’t fully carried out until the military is ready to act.

In fact, when “the United States adopted ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in October of 1993, the Pentagon had not yet issued “final rules on how to implement the policy until December. And DOD was still making adjustments to the implementation policy in early 1994.” In that instance, the Department of Defense had ample opportunity to issue new guidelines even after Congress acted, but by Gates’ standard, the government acted in “a stupid way.”

Republicans have responded to Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court with a mix of caution and concern. While pledging to conduct a fair and honest hearing, the party has said that the nominee will need to “demonstrate that she is committed to upholding the vision of our Founding Fathers, who wrote a Constitution meant to limit the power of government, not expand it.” To ensure that Kagan is “dedicated to applying the law equally and impartially to all, not promoting a particular ideological agenda or legislating from the bench,” the GOP has promised to “thoughtfully examine Kagan’s qualifications and legal philosophy before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment.” Kagan’s views on health care reform and federal mandates are of particular interest to the GOP:

- SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): “The other issue is the health care bill that’s come out — there’s a mandate everybody in the country has to buy a product. That’s a 10th amendment issue… she is going to have to make a decision if she’s on the court about how that goes forward with these 20 states suing.” [TP, 5/10/2010]

- REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): “On this, and other issues – including the Constitutional questions arising from Washington Democrats’ new health care law – Solicitor General Kagan deserves a fair hearing on her qualifications, and her commitment to fairness, the rule of law, and interpreting the Constitution as written.” [GOPLeader, 5/10/2010]

- GOP.COM: A research document published by the GOP asks, “Where Does Kagan Stand As Health Care Overhaul Faces Variety Of Legal Challenges?” [GOP, 5/10/2010]

But the GOP can’t ask Kagan to be both a constitutional originalist and an opponent of the new health care law. In fact, given the long-standing Supreme Court precedent surrounding the federal government’s ability to regulate interstate commerce, should Kagan agree with Republicans’ claims that the lawsuits violate the 10th amendment, she would be seen as a judicial activist.

The Supreme Court affirmed this precedent as recently as 2005. In Gonzales v. Raich, Justice Anthony Scalia “joined a 6-3 ruling that said Congress could regulate marijuana that was neither bought nor sold on the market but rather grown at home legally for sick patients.” “The regulation of an intrastate activity may be essential to a comprehensive regulation of interstate commerce even though the intrastate activity does not itself ‘substantially affect interstate commerce,” Scalia wrote. “Moreover, as the passage from Lopez quoted above suggests, Congress may regulate even noneconomic local activity if that regulation is a necessary part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce.”

Therefore, if Kagan were to support the frivolous health care lawsuits, she wouldn’t just be breaking years of Supreme Court precedent. She would also be committing the conservative’s cardinal sin of disagreeing with Scalia.

Moments ago, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, appeared on CNN to express his doubts about the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. Pressed by the anchor to explain what he finds so “troubling” in her record, Sessions misrepresented her opposition to the Solomon amendment — the measure which cuts off federal funding to colleges that don’t allow the military to recruit on their campuses — to portray her as an activist justice. Sessions presented Kagan as unilaterally opponent of the DADT policy and suggested that Kagan personally barred military recruiters from campus:

SESSIONS: The thing I was personally involved with was the Solomon Amendment. What happened was a number of law schools, Harvard being, I think, a leader when she was there, would not allow the military recruiters to come on to the law school to recruit jag officers for the military because she didn’t agree with the ‘Don’t ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that president Clinton had adopted. They just wouldn’t let them come on campus. We had 1,000 soldiers killed defending free speech and the right of Harvard to exist in freedom during that period of time. So I think that would be something that would be asked [...] she felt this was discriminatory, but it was the established policy of the United States, President Clinton’s policy and she could work to change that, but I don’t think it was acceptable. I do not believe it was acceptable for her to say you can’t even come on our campus because I disagree with your policy.

Watch it:

In reality, when Kagan became Dean of Harvard Law School in 2003, she maintained existing Harvard policy, which had already carved out a special exception for the military from the University’s 1979 nondiscrimination policy. That policy required “any employer using the Office of Career Services for recruiting to sign a statement indicating that it did not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or certain other criteria,” but Harvard made an exception for military recruiters in 2002 (it allowed recruiters to operate from an alumni operation before then) to protect its stream of federal funding. Kagan, along with half of Harvard’s legal faculty, signed an amicus brief in support of overturning the amendment and “in November 2004, a divided panel of the Third Circuit” ruled in their favor. Kagan “reinstated Harvard Law School’s original nondiscrimination policy,” only to rescind the prohibition after the Supreme Court upheld the Solomon amendment.

Far from leading the charge against Solomon in the courts, moreover, Kagan argued that “the case should be resolved on statutory grounds,” rather than through a constitutional challenge. Her attempts to overturn the policy may have been driven by her opposition to DADT, but they were also supported by the University’s long-standing nondiscrimination policy.

This morning, President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the position of Associate Justice on the Supreme Court, the fifth woman to ever be officially nominated for the position. If confirmed, Kagan — a former legal adviser on domestic policy in the Clinton Administration and former Dean of Harvard Law School — will be the youngest Supreme Court Justice replacing its oldest member, Justice John Paul Stevens.

While the administration anticipates a relatively smooth confirmation process — after all, Kagan was recently confirmed for Solicitor General by a vote of 61-31, attracting the support of seven Republicans — conservative critics will focus on her strong opposition to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy during her tenure as dean. The American Family Association and Focus on the Family have criticized “Ms. Kagan’s extreme rhetoric,” warning conservative Senators that it’s “highly likely that she also favors same-sex marriage, both as a matter of policy and as a supposed federal constitutional right.” Immediately following the White House’s announcement of Kegan’s nomination, the RNC issued a statement, questioning her “opposition to allowing military recruiters access to her law school’s campus” and signaling that conservatives will interpret Kagan’s view of the policy as constitutionality unsound and an affront to military values. “Her support for the homosexual agenda is so strong that it clouds her ability to think impartially on the subject,” one conservative blogger wrote.

The genesis of these attacks rests in Harvard’s nondiscrimination policy — first adopted in 1979 — which requires “any employer using the Office of Career Services for recruiting to sign a statement indicating that it did not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or certain other criteria; pursuant to that policy, the law school banned military recruiters from using the Office of Career Services” but allowed the military to recruit from the HLS Veterans Association.

In 1996, however, Congress passed what is known as the Solomon Amendment, denying “federal funding to any university that did not allow military recruiters access to its campus.” The issue came to a head in 2002, when the Defense Department “stiffened the Solomon Amendment, threatening to cut off funding if any part of a school barred military recruiters.” Harvard responded by making an exception for the military and when Kagan became dean in 2003, she “joined fifty-three other faculty members in signing an amicus brief” in support of overturning the amendment. “In November 2004, a divided panel of the Third Circuit” ruled in their favor and Kagan “reinstated Harvard Law School’s original nondiscrimination policy. The Supreme Court disagreed however and upheld the Solomon amendment. When the federal government threatened “to withhold all federal aid from Harvard,” Kagan rescinded the prohibition.

Here is how she explained the predicament during her confirmation hearings for Solicitor General:

KAGAN: As dean of Harvard Law School, I felt a responsibility to apply and defend the School’s longstanding nondiscrimination policy, which prohibits our Office of Career Services from assisting any organization (not just the military) that discriminates in employment. At the same time, I worked to ensure that military recruiters in fact had available an alternative and effective method of access to our students. My statements and actions defending the Law School’s general nondiscrimination policy did not sweep more broadly. The position I took does not entail a view on the exclusion of ROTC from college campuses, and I never expressed a position on the exclusion of ROTC from Harvard.

Indeed, Kagan expressed her strong opposition to the policy — “I believe the military’s discriminatory employment policy is deeply wrong – both unwise and unjust,” she wrote in an email to students — but eventually deferred to the Supreme Court.

Significantly, Kagan’s opposition to the DADT policy echoes the words Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, who also sees the policy as incongruous with the military’s mission and values. “We have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen told Congress earlier this year. “For me, personally, it comes down to integrity: Theirs as an individual, ours as an institution.”

Kagan seems to agree. “The importance of the military to our society – and the great service that members of the military provide to all the rest of us – heightens, rather than excuses, this inequity,” Kagan wrote. “The Law School remains firmly committed to the principle of equal opportunity for all persons, without regard to sexual orientation. And I look forward to the time when all our students can pursue any career path they desire, including the path of devoting their professional lives to the defense of their country.” As a justice on the court, Kagan can help ensure that this happens sooner rather than later.