Teresa Collett on Proposition 8
Teresa Collett on Proposition 8 from LEFT MN on Vimeo.
Update: Et tu, Kluwe? The teletypes at Left.mn have been clacking away with news that Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, two outspoken NFL players (Kluwe plays for the Vikings and Ayanbadejo plays for the Ravens; not shown above) who support gay marriage, have filed this own amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to affirm the Ninth Circuit’s holding that Prop 8 in California is unconstitutional. Nice going, guys.
In recent days, Teresa Collett, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas Law School, filed a brief on behalf of Minnesota For Marriage in the U.S. Supreme Court in Hollingsworth v. Perry. It’s an amicus brief in support of a reversal of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision invalidating California’s Proposition 8 on due process and equal protection grounds. If affirmed, it would almost certainly be the death knell of DOMA, little DOMAs in the states, and the constitutional amendments passed in many states limiting marriage to “one man and one woman.”
This ought to sound familiar to you. Prop 8 is California’s marriage discrimination amendment. Unlike Minnesota’s, it passed. This is partly why Minnesota for Marriage thought California’s Frank Schubert was the Cat’s Pajamas and paid him a bunch of money as a consultant. Frank went zero for four around the country last fall.
Collett was a prominent spokester and supporter of the marriage discrimination amendment that was on the ballot in Minnesota. As was the case in Minnesota, the Prop 8 effort was largely financed by Catholics, and the Catholic Church, especially. Only in California, Mormons were big supporters, too. (They would have been in Minnesota, if we had any Mormons.) Just as an aside, if you don’t find the idea that the Mormons were fervently supporting one man and one woman marriage funny, you have no sense of humor at all.
Anyway, Prop 8 was challenged in federal court (just as the Minnesota initiative would have been if it passed). In an opinion that ran for, well, pages and pages, California Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker found Prop 8 to be unconstitutional, and the Ninth Circuit agreed.
So, now we’re back to Teresa Collett. Finally, you say. Well, so do I. After being completely in favor of a gay marriage ban, now she wants to talk. This reminds me of Saddam Hussein offering to negotiate after he was discovered in the hole, while he was still in it.
The central point of Collett’s brief is that the result of the ballot initiative defeat in Minnesota means that people want to “continue to have a conversation” about gay marriage. This is even funnier that Mormons proposing one man one woman marriage, because Minnesota for Marriage and Andy Parrish were always telling us that Minnesota had already decided it didn’t want gay marriage just a few short months ago.
The video is just an imagined monologue by Teresa Collett on the subject, but it is based on things she has said or written.
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