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Indiana Republicans Look For Path Forward After Mike Pence 'Religious Freedom' Mess

Indiana Republicans Look For Path Forward After Mike Pence 'Religious Freedom' Mess
WASHINGTON — In Indiana these days, no one, including the GOP, is happy with Gov. Mike Pence (R).

On April 2, Pence signed a revised version of Indiana’s widely denounced “religious freedom” law, closing the door on a controversy that had brought national scorn to his state and cost local economies valuable tourism dollars.

“It didn’t do our brand any good, for sure. One, it didn’t do the state brand any good. Two, it didn’t do the Indiana Republican Party brand any good. And three, it didn’t do Mike any good. And that’s pretty obvious,” said former Indiana GOP Chair Jim Kittle.

Since that time, Pence has kept his head down and largely stayed out of the spotlight. But behind the scenes in Indiana, many Republicans are still seething and looking for ways to retake control of the party’s direction. And the results of those discussions are likely to become more public in the coming days, now that the Indiana General Assembly has wrapped up its legislative session.

One Republican operative in the state, who declined to be named in order to speak openly, said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act controversy brought to the forefront “a simmering disconnect between the [former Gov.] Mitch Daniels-era people and the Mike Pence people.” Others took issue with that description, saying the real divide is broader: between Pence and, essentially, the rest of the state Republican Party.

Daniels, who served from 2005 to 2013 and is now the president of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, still inspires intense loyalty among many Republicans in the state. He helped bring the state party out of the wilderness after 16 years of Democratic governors. Daniels made fiscal issues his focus, declaring a “truce” on social issues (although he did sign a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in 2011).

Pence, on the other hand, was known as a strong social conservative in Congress, where he served from 2001 to 2013. When Pence ran for governor, he followed in Daniels’ footsteps and largely stayed away from social issues. But the RFRA controversy has seemingly confirmed many people’s lingering fears that Pence would revert back to his old self and steer the party, and the state, far to the right.

“There’s always been kind of, in the back of people’s heads, a concern about what Mike Pence could end up doing to hurt [the successful state GOP] brand,” the Republican operative told The Huffington Post.

RFRA was not on Pence’s agenda. Rather, it was pushed by the GOP leaders who control the state legislature. But Pence essentially became the face of the bill — and, for many in the country, the face of discrimination in Indiana.

On March 29, Pence went on ABC’s “This Week” to try and mitigate the growing controversy over the law he’d recently signed. He repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether the measure would allow businesses to deny service to same-sex couples, and his evasion turned the simmering controversy into a full-blown mess. (Pence later said he didn’t believe the measure would allow for that, although he acknowledged that the law had to be clarified to make that explicit.)

But the damage was done. Organizations pulled their conferences from the state, musicians canceled concerts and businesses said they would give Indiana a wide berth.

“We continue to be stunned by just how wide and deep the animosity is — in Republican strongholds — against Governor Mike Pence (R) and the Republican Party, in that order,” wrote Ed Feigenbaum, who covers the ins and outs of Indiana state politics, in the April 13 edition of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight. “While undoubtedly there is a different narrative in out-state rural areas that were not subject to the same intense media coverage and social network squawking as in Central Indiana, urban areas, and college towns, the big takeaway is that the Governor and his party are in deep trouble.”

That trouble shows in the polls. A recent Howey Politics Indiana (HPI) poll shows Pence’s favorable rating at just 35 percent, and his unfavorable rating at 38 percent. And in a recent poll from the Human Rights Campaign, 53 percent of Indiana voters said that Pence’s signing of RFRA made them feel unfavorably toward the governor. Only 38 percent said they felt favorably.

“I’ve been covering Indiana politics for three decades, and I don’t recall a sitting governor experiencing that kind of decline over this short period of time like we’ve seen here,” said Brian Howey, publisher of HPI.

The dissatisfaction with Pence spilled into public view on April 15, when Bill Oesterle, the CEO of Indianapolis-based Angie’s List, announced his resignation and his intention to return to politics. Oesterle ran Daniels’ 2004 gubernatorial campaign, is a major donor in the party and was a vociferous critic of RFRA.

Immediately, speculation in Indiana centered around whether Oesterle would challenge Pence in a primary, presenting a pro-LGBT candidate who would no doubt have strong appeal — and fundraising potential — in the business community.

Oesterle is still figuring out his plans, but he recently told Indianapolis Star political columnist Matthew Tully that he may instead look to shape the party from the outside, with a new political organization to counter the influence of social conservatives.

“The primary chatter underestimates the work that is needed,” he said. “It diminishes the magnitude of the work that has to [be] done. That’s the work of putting the party in a position once again in which it has the support of the majority of the voters in this state. We have, because of what has been done, the very real risk of permanently alienating a large bloc of Hoosiers. That’s going to be hard to overcome.”

Kittle called Oesterle “a fabulous guy” and “a good friend.” He said Oesterle could have an impact on the Indiana GOP by perhaps serving “as a conduit for some folks who, at this point, think this party has gone too far to the right.”

But it’s not just the moderate wing that’s mad at Pence — he has managed to anger the right as well. Many conservatives who supported RFRA were incensed when the governor agreed to the legislative “fix” that prevents businesses from denying services to same-sex couples.

Twenty religious leaders, including a pastor who had literally stood behind Pence at his private signing ceremony for RFRA, held a rally this week, where they rebuked the governor for his “betrayal” of them. And there is speculation that Pence could even face a primary challenge from the right when he’s up for re-election in 2016.

“I think it would be very hard for anyone — assuming Mike’s going to run, and I’m virtually positive he is — so assuming he runs, I think it would be very difficult to win a primary [against him],” said Kittle. “I don’t think it would be helpful, either, because it could then put the Republican Party at an even further disadvantage [in the general election]. We didn’t win by a landslide last time.”

Neither Pence’s campaign nor the Indiana GOP returned requests for comment.

On Thursday, Pence received his first Democratic challenger: former Indiana state House Speaker John Gregg, who narrowly lost to Pence in 2012. In his announcement, Gregg said that under Pence, “Indiana has been given a bad name.”

In the meantime, Pence is picking up the pieces. The state recently spent $2 million to bring in a public relations firm to help rebuild Indiana’s image in the wake of the RFRA fiasco. Feigenbaum told HuffPost it was a good sign that Pence recently hired Matt Lloyd, his communications director from his time in Congress, to run his press shop in Indianapolis.

“Matt is a big-time, big-picture guy who knows how to maneuver Pence around petty politics and through serious politics,” said Feigenbaum. “[He] understands the politics of policy, unlike some other Pence aides.”

“I think Mike’s really going to have to reach out to diverse communities, whether it’s the business community, which has been very supportive of him up to now, or it’s the LGBT community,” said Kittle. “I think he does understand that this was not the right time and the right thing to do. It was a mistake. I believe he feels that way. I think he’ll have to express that.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/mike-pence-indiana-republicans_n_7174538.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

NEWS

Wie man aus einem traurig leeren Nutellaglas den besten Eisbecher aller Zeiten macht

Wie man aus einem traurig leeren Nutellaglas den besten Eisbecher aller Zeiten macht
Wir haben Ihnen kürzlich schon mal eine Idee geliefert, was man aus einem leer gekratzten Nutellaglas noch Leckeres rausholen kann. Sie erinnern sich?

Nachdem das Wetter bald wieder besser werden soll und Sie vielleicht weniger Lust auf heiße Schokolade als auf etwas Kühles haben, zeigen wir Ihnen, was sich unsere Kollegen aus den USA zum Thema gedacht haben.

Um ehrlich zu sein: Für diese Nascherei muss man nicht unbedingt ein Nutella-Glas haben. Aber es ist ein wunderbarer Vorwand, um sich etwas Gutes zu genehmigen.

Oder ein Trost. Denn schließlich gehört es zu den seeehr traurigen Momenten des Lebens, wenn man in der Küche voller Vorfreude ein Nutalla-Glas aus dem Schrank holt, nur um festzustellen, dass es fast leer ist. Kaum noch was da von der herrlich klebrigen Creme, aus der man so viel hätte machen können.

nutella

Aber wie versprochen haben die Kollegen im Internet eine Idee für solch grausame Momente gefunden und gleich mal ausprobiert. „Von Nutella-Freak zu Nutella-Freak“, schreiben sie, „das ist wirklich eine transzendentale Erfahrung, die man mindestens einmal machen sollte.“

nutella sundae

Das ist die Anleitung für das, was so herrlich sein soll:

  • Essen Sie ein Glas Nutella. (Eine harte Arbeit, aber irgendeiner muss es ja machen.)

  • Besorgen Sie sich Ihr Lieblingseis, Schlagsahne und Deko.

  • Geben Sie das Eis in das leere Nutellaglas. Achtung, es geht mehr rein, als man glaubt.

  • Mit einer ordentlichen Portion Schlagsahne bedecken.

  • Mit Leckereien wie gehackten Haselnüssen, Zuckerstreuseln oder noch mehr Nutella (falls Sie noch welches haben) garnieren.

  • LÖFFELN.

Wenn Sie den Eisbecher essen, kratzen Sie automatisch bei jedem Löffel ein bisschen Nutella von der Glaswand ab. Herrlich.

PS: Falls Sie danach einen effektiven Workout brauchen sollten: Da hätten wir auch was für Sie:

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Hier geht es zurück zur Startseite

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/nutellaglas-leer-eisbecher_n_7187568.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

NEWS

Here’s The Transgender-Prostitute-Revenge-Buddy Comedy You’ve Been Waiting For

Here’s The Transgender-Prostitute-Revenge-Buddy Comedy You’ve Been Waiting For

tangerine2.0One of the biggest surprises at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was the success of Sean Baker’s Tangerine, a brash, energetic, wildly entertaining buddy comedy-drama about transgender prostitutes in Hollywood. Known for directing clever independent films such as Starlet and Prince of Broadway that overcome their microbudgets, Baker’s latest managed to stun even the most jaded of film buffs at the Park City, Utah fest in January when it was revealed it had been shot entirely with an iPhone.

Here’s the official synopsis for the film:

It’s Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee (newcomer Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend (James Ransone) hasn’t been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra (newcomer Mya Taylor), embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.

The film will hit select theaters July 10. Check out the trailer (contains NSFW language) below.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/T4QIdJKbluM/heres-the-transgender-prostitute-revenge-buddy-comedy-youve-been-waiting-for-20150430

NEWS

Same-Sex Marriage: Will SCOTUS Make It Official?

Same-Sex Marriage: Will SCOTUS Make It Official?
This post was originally published on Truthdig.com

When I use the word “unthinkable” in connection with the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, I typically have in mind the long line of unthinkably bad decisions the court has issued since Roberts assumed office in 2005.

Topping the list are such abominations of constitutional law and statutory interpretation as the 2010 Citizens United case, which opened the floodgates on campaign spending in federal elections; the 2012 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act; and last year’s decree in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which recognized the religious personhood of closely held corporations.

When it comes to the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, the opposite, shockingly, may prove to be true. If Tuesday’s oral arguments in the four appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio that have been consolidated under the name of Obergefell v. Hodges are any indication, the court’s historic decision on the issue will be close. But I believe that when the dust finally settles, a majority of the justices — consisting of Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and perhaps Roberts himself — will hold that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to wed that no state may deny.

The day’s festivities included a raucous protest, with security guards escorting an anti-marriage-equality heckler from the courtroom, his shouts of “burn in hell” echoing as he departed.

Once underway, the hearing lasted two and a half hours. The questions the justices asked — with the exception of Clarence Thomas, who, as usual, invoked his right to remain silent — stayed true to form.

Justice Kennedy, the court’s most frequent “swing” vote in hotly contested cases, voiced apprehension over changing a conception of marriage that had “lasted millennia,” but he also worried aloud about the fairness of excluding gay families from the “sacredness and nobility” of marriage.

Chief Justice Roberts raised similar concerns, noting that the petitioners in the case were “not seeking to join the institution [of marriage]…but to change” it. The chief also asked pointedly why same-sex marriage bans don’t amount to sex discrimination.

The panel’s liberals, on the other hand, expressed no equivocation about their support for marriage equality. Justice Breyer referred to marriage as a “fundamental liberty,” lamenting that only same-sex couples “have no possibility to participate in that fundamental liberty.” Endorsing Breyer’s observations, Justices Kagan, Ginsburg and Sotomayor emphasized that a ruling granting recognition of same-sex marriage would harm no one — least of all heterosexuals, whose rights would remain fully intact.

Expressing the opposite outlook, Justice Samuel Alito raised the specter of polygamy, asking that if the petitioners prevailed, what would prevent a group of two men and two women from obtaining a marriage license. Justice Antonin Scalia, long renowned for his homophobic diatribes, warned that a pro-equality ruling would force clergy to perform same-sex ceremonies in violation of their religious beliefs.

Given the Roberts court’s overall track record and in view of where the nation as a whole stood until very recently, if the liberals joined by either Kennedy or the chief prevail, the court’s final decision will still be “unthinkable” — but in the most enlightened sense of the word.

Now, I’m not saying that victory is assured. It is entirely possible that a majority of the justices will align once again with the enemies of progress and deliver a repugnant surprise. Oral arguments can be deceiving. So before we pop the champagne or pen any epitaphs on anti-gay bigotry, let’s consider a little background:

The Obergefell caseswere brought by over 30 litigants to topple same-sex marriage bans in the four states that comprise the territorial jurisdiction of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Some, including plaintiffs April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse of Michigan, have yet to wed. Others, including Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon of Kentucky and Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty of Tennessee, were legally married elsewhere, but their unions have not been accepted in their new locations.

The lead party, real estate broker James Obergefell of Ohio, presents yet another factual scenario. In July 2013, Obergefell married his longtime and gravely ill companion, John Arthur, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease, in Maryland, which recognizes same-sex marriage. When they returned to Ohio, they filed a federal lawsuit to compel the state to acknowledge their nuptials, but Arthur died a few months later. Obergefell wants Ohio to list him as a surviving spouse on Arthur’s official death certificate.

In each of the consolidated cases, federal district judges ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Last November, however, in a ponderous 2-1 opinion written by Judge Jeffrey Sutton, the 6th Circuit reversed. Sutton, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, asserted that his hands were tied by an obscure 1972 Supreme Court decision — Baker v. Nelson — that consisted of a one-sentence order, dismissing a same-sex couple’s petition for “want of a substantial federal question.”

Citing Baker, Sutton admonished that the definition of marriage has traditionally been left to the states and is best decided by voters and legislatures.

But he didn’t stop there. Assuming for argument’s sake that Baker actually isn’t binding precedent, Sutton concluded the marriage bans under his review are lawful because same-sex marriage — as distinct from heterosexual marriage — is not a fundamental constitutional right. The bans, he continued, rationally further states’ legitimate interests in regulating sex, specifically “male-female intercourse.” In Sutton’s view, the bans also legitimately reflect the states’ rational policy decisions to “wait and see [how gay marriage plays out in other locations] before changing a norm that our society (like all others) has accepted for centuries.”

With Sutton clinging to the past, the 6th Circuit became the first — and thus far only — federal appellate panel since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor to uphold state restrictions on marriage equality. The 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th Circuits have gone the other way.

By a vote of 5-4, Windsor invalidated Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and compelled the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages approved by the states. Windsor did not, however, resolve the constitutionality of state laws that continue to limit marriage to heterosexual pairings. According to Lambda Legal, same-sex marriages currently are recognized in 36 states, the District of Columbia and parts of Kansas and Missouri but not in the rest of the country.

To clear up the double standards and settle the split among the federal circuits created by Sutton’s opinion, the Supreme Court agreed in January to hear the Obergefell cases, directing the parties to address two key points:

1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? 2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

Before Tuesday’s hearing, few commentators predicted that same-sex marriage opponents would win on both counts. Still, some cautioned that we could be looking at a split decision–that in a nod to federalism and states’ rights, the court would allow recalcitrant jurisdictions not to issue their own gay-marriage licenses but require them to accept out-of-state ceremonies.

I think not. After much hand-wringing and deliberation, a majority of the justices, either by a margin of 6-3 or 5-4, will brush aside Baker v. Nelson and answer “yes” to both key constitutional questions.

It’s not just the civil rights and gay communities that are asking the court to do so. In what is surely an unprecedented step, 379 of the world’s largest employers and employer organizations — including corporate giants Apple, Alcoa, Aetna, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, Google and Facebook — have filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief advising that same-sex marriage restrictions are bad for business.

The court’s decision is due by the end of June. Until then, the biggest element of suspense won’t be whether the high tribunal will declare same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional, but how far –from a constitutional perspective — it will go to define and protect marriage equality.

Both the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment will figure prominently in any final ruling, as they did in Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 landmark crafted by Chief Justice Earl Warren that overturned prohibitions on interracial marriage.

Under equal protection principles, laws that treat (or in constitutional parlance, “classify”) people differently are subjected to varying degrees of judicial scrutiny to test their legality. The tests range from what is called the “rational-basis” standard, which is highly deferential to the judgment of legislatures and electorates (and was used by Judge Sutton) to the “strict scrutiny” test, which is the least deferential and the hardest to satisfy.

Frequently used to review economic regulations, the rational-basis model requires only that a statute be logically related to a legitimate governmental purpose.

By contrast, laws that classify people on the basis of race, religion, alienage or national origin (so-called “suspect” classifications), and those that impair fundamental rights, trigger strict scrutiny. To withstand equal-protection discrimination challenges, such laws must further a “compelling state interest” and be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. Strict scrutiny is also applied to due process claims when fundamental rights are implicated.

In Loving, the Supreme Court proclaimed that “marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man” and evaluated Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage–and those then in effect in 15 other states –under strict scrutiny. Applying that benchmark, the court determined that the bans ran afoul of both equal protection and due process.

In their briefs, the lawyers representing Obergefell and his co-petitioners urged the court to follow Loving’s teachings and regard same-sex marriage as another iteration or subset of the fundamental right to marry. As such, they were not asking the court to carve out a new constitutional entitlement but to expand one that has long been established.

As a fallback, they argued that same-sex marriage bans are so illogical and founded in animus and prejudice that they can’t even withstand rational-basis review. This was the approach taken by Justice Kennedy in his majority Windsor opinion, as well as by former District Judge Vaughn Walker in his blockbuster 2010 decision declaring California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional.

Clearly, it would be best if our most powerful judicial body accorded same-sex marriage the greatest degree of constitutional protection possible. But the Roberts court remains an essentially conservative panel that has been dragged into an epic battle by an overwhelming sea change in public opinion and the steadfast militancy of the gay-rights movement. Nonetheless, even if the court chooses some intermediate legal theory on which to ground its opinion, it is poised to discard the country’s last same-sex marriage bans, dispatching them to the proverbial dustbin of history.

The once-unthinkable is about to happen. Get ready. Marriage equality is the future.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-blum/samesex-marriage-will-scotus-make-it-official-_b_7182754.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

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