Issa looks to call back IRS official who refused to testify, says she voided 5th Amendment right
[FoxNews.com]
Published May 23, 2013
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa declared Thursday that the embattled IRS official who refused to testify Wednesday had no right to do so, and is now looking to haul her back before his committee.
Though Issa dismissed her from the hearing room, he questioned at the time whether she had waived her rights by delivering the statement. A spokesman told Fox News on Thursday that Issa had reached a decision.
“After consulting with counsel, Chairman Issa has concluded that Ms. Lerner’s 5th amendment assertion is no longer valid,” spokesman Ali Ahmad said. “She remains under subpoena, the Committee is looking at recalling her for testimony.”
Issa, citing the concerns over Lerner’s comments, never actually adjourned the hearing — where other current and former Treasury and IRS officials testified. He only called it into recess. The thinking among Republicans is that they can still call her back to testify.
Lois “Lame” Lerner: ‘I have not done anything wrong,’ then pleads Fifth
[DailyCaller.com]
WASHINGTON – Lois Lerner, head of the IRS tax exempt organizations division, told the House Oversight Committee that she had done nothing wrong before invoking her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and not testify.
“I have not done anything wrong,” Lerner said in a brief opening statement. “I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules and regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”
Lerner said she “would very much like to answer the committees questions today,” but that her counsel had advised her not to testify, in light of the Department of Justice criminal investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
Because she was taking the Fifth, Lerner said, “I know that some people will assume I’ve done something wrong. I have not.”
Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the committee, subsequently dismissed Lerner from the hearing.
WATCH VIDEO:
Gov’t Official Put on Leave After Benghazi Finally Breaks His Silence and Levels Big Charges
[TheBlaze.com]
May. 21, 2013 10:26am – by Becket Adams
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Getty Images)
Raymond Maxwell, one of four State Department employees recently disciplined by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made headlines this month for penning slightly cryptic verses critical of the agency’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
And now Maxwell, who was placed on forced “administrative leave” despite his claim had no role in consulate-related security issues, is back in the news for ditching the poetry and outright accusing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of making him the Benghazi scapegoat.
Will U.S. Designate Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and Nigeria As Religious Freedom Violators?
[CNSNews.com]
May 20, 2013 By Patrick Goodenough
Pakistani Christians protest against the country’s blasphemy laws and violence targeting their minority community. An independent U.S. watchdog has urged the executive branch every year since 2002 to designate Pakistan as a “country of particular concern” over religious freedom violations. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – As the State Department prepares to release its annual report on international religious freedom Monday, a key issue for many Americans concerned about religious persecution is whether it will blacklist a handful of particularly egregious violators – or, as in previous years, ignore the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The question is especially sensitive in the case of countries where the plight of minority Christians has worsened, even as their governments benefit significantly at the cost of U.S. taxpayers.
Charles Krauthammer: IRS Scandal Could Be a ‘Fatal Problem’ for Obama
[TheBlaze.com]
Fox News
Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations could be “fatal” for the Obama administration if it turns out that anyone in the White House was aware of it.
Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Krauthammer called the IRS situation “the one scandal that people have a visceral sense about” — it’s the one U.S. institution, besides the military, that can do very serious harm.
Going after conservative groups based on their politics is “a violation that everybody — left or right– understands,” he added.
Krauthammer urged that there’s no suggestion that Obama knew what was happening, “but if there’s any indication that there were people in the White House who knew, who orchestrated, who encouraged or whatever, then it can be a fatal problem.”
ICE admits hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records released
[FoxNews.com]
Published May 16, 2013
Posted CWN: May 17, 2013
March 29, 2013: People are taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol near Falfurrias, Texas. (Reuters)
Hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records were released earlier this year as the Obama administration prepared for budget cuts, according to newly released data that challenged claims the program involved “low-risk” individuals.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement released the figures to two top senators, after a three-month delay and under the threat of congressional subpoenas.
Of the 2,226 detainees that were released in February, the department revealed, “622 have been identified as having some type of criminal conviction.”
A statement from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., who received the stats, said 32 of them had multiple felony convictions. The department then “re-apprehended” 24 of those, the senators said, after realizing the “seriousness” of their crimes.
McCain called for those responsible to be punished.
Obama evades question on White House knowledge of IRS targeting
[DailyCaller.com]
May 16, 2013
President Barack Obama dismissed calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS scandal, and evaded a question asking if White House officials knew of the IRS targeting of conservative political groups.
“I can assure that I certainly did not know anything about the [inspector general] report before the IG report had been leaked through the press,” he told reporters during a Thursday lunchtime press conference held in the White House Rose Garden.
Obama’s evasion will likely spur public suspicions that White House officials knew about, or even supported, the IRS targeting.
CBS: Police Found Note Claiming Responsiblity Inside Boat Where Boston Bombing Suspect Was Hiding
[TheBlaze.com]
May. 16, 2013 8:55am
Police found a note inside the boat where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding and eventually captured — a note written by the suspect and claiming responsibility for the destruction, CBS News is reporting.
The note said the bombing was retribution for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the actions that have killed Muslims.
“When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” the note — which CBS reports was scrawled with a pen on an interior wall — apparently said.
According to CBS, the note is significant because it is an admission of guilt outside of the questioning administered to Tsarnaev before he was read his Miranda rights. Any admissions made during that questioning would not be admissible in court.
Backfire: ABC, CNN, NBC Call for White House to Release Libya Emails
[Breitbart.com]
by John Nolte 15 May 2013, 4:34 AM PDT
***UPDATE: NBC’s senior White House correspondent joined the chorus Wednesday. On his MSNBC show, “The Daily Rundown,” Chuck Todd looked into the camera and said, “Attention White House: Release all the emails.” The headline has been updated to add NBC.
Assuming they are the ones who leaked to CNN an email written by Ben Rhoades (a Deputy National Security Advisor close to the President), the White House might have been too clever by half Tuesday. An act that was obviously meant to pour water on the Benghazi fire started by an ABC News report, has only ended up being gasoline. Now both CNN and ABC have joined conservative media in calling for the White House to release all the emails surrounding the editing of the CIA talking points.
Friday, in a bombshell report that blew the long-simmering Libya scandal wide open and right into the arms of the mainstream media, ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported that an email written by Rhoades specifically mentioned the State Department’s concerns about the CIA talking points. Here is how Karl transcribed the Rhoades’ email:
We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.
State Dept. Won’t Say Its Own Officials Set to Testify on Benghazi Are ‘Credible People’
[CNSNews.com]
May 6, 2013
By Penny Starr
The burnt-out interior of a building at the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Mohammed Hannon)
(CNSNews.com) – When asked at a press briefing on Monday to say that two State Department officials set to testify in Congress on Wednesday about the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi are “credible people,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell would not do it.
The two officials are Greg Hicks, who was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, and Mark Thompson, who was the deputy coordinator for operations in the department’s counter-terrorism division.
“Before we get to the specifics of what they’re expected to testify, I wonder if you could provide us with your assessment of the caliber of these two individuals,” James Rosen of Fox News asked Ventrell. “Are they credible? They’ve been working at fairly senior posts here and abroad for years and years. I wonder first what thoughts the Department has about the caliber of these two individuals.”
Holder Threatens Kansas Over Gun Control Nullification Law
[WesternJournalism.com]
May 3, 2013 by Breaking News
Photo Credit: European Parliament Creative Commons
On Thursday, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback received a letter from Federal Attorney General Eric Holder threatening action against the state should it enforce SB102 which Brownback signed into law last month.
The new law states, Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas
The bill also provides for criminal penalties against federal agents who attempt to enforce specific federal laws on guns manufactured in the state of Kansas and sold within the state – as the state takes the position under the new law that the federal government does not “interstate commerce” authority over such items.
In his letter, Holder didn’t take too kindly to such a proposition.
Why did no one object to the “Pentagon mosque”?
[Salon.com]
Muslims have been praying inside the Pentagon since Sept. 11 but right-wingers have been strangely silent
[Separation of Church and State in a Military Complex like the Pentagon? What's wrong with this picture?]
Navy imam Chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam lifted his voice to God as he called to prayer more than 100 Department of Defense employees Monday at a celebration of Ramadan at the Pentagon.
God is most great, sang the lieutenant commander and Islamic leader, in Arabic, as iftar — the end of the daily fast began.
Uniformed military personnel, civilians and family members faced Mecca and knelt on adorned prayer rugs chanting their prayers in quiet invocation to Allah.
The “ground zero mosque” story seems to be dying down, but nothing lays bare the absurdity of what we’ve just lived through quite so much as this Washington Times story, quoted above, from 2007.
Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes — daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven’t even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.
The “desecration” began shockingly soon after the attacks. Cox reported in October 2001:
Justin Elliott is a reporter for ProPublica. You can follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott.
Special forces could’ve responded to Benghazi attack, whistle-blower tells Fox News
[FoxNews.com]
Published April 30, 2013
A military special ops member who watched as the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi unfolded last September told Fox News the U.S. had highly trained forces just a few hours away, and said he and others feel the government betrayed the four men who died in the attack.Speaking on condition of anonymity, and appearing in a Fox News Channel interview with his face and voice disguised, the special operator contradicted claims by the Obama administration and a State Department review that said there wasn’t enough time for U.S. military forces to have intervened in the Sept. 11 attack in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, an embassy employee and two former Navy SEALs working as private security contractors were killed.
“I know for a fact that C-110, the EUCOM CIF, was doing a training exercise in … not in the region of North Africa, but in Europe,” the operator told Fox News’ Adam Housley. “And they had the ability to act and to respond.”
“You know, it’s something that’s risky, especially in our line of profession, to say anything about, anything in the realm of politics, or that deals with policy.”
- Special Forces operator
The C-110 is a 40-man Special Ops force capable of rapid response and deployment specifically trained for incidents like last year’s attack in Benghazi. During the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Libya, the C-110 were training in Croatia, just 3 ½ hours away.
“We had the ability to load out, get on birds and fly there, at a minimum stage,” the operator told Fox News. “C-110 had the ability to be there, in my opinion, in a matter of about four hours…four to six hours.”
‘Obamacare’ Poll Finds 42% of Americans Unaware It’s Law
[ABCNews.com]
A new poll finds that many Americans are confused about the health care overhaul legislation commonly called “Obamacare. ”The Kaiser Family Foundation released results of a non-partisan study today finding more than 40 percent did not even know the law was in place.“Four in ten Americans (42%) are unaware that the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is still the law of the land,” the report says, “including 12 percent who believe the law has been repealed by Congress, 7 percent who believe it has been overturned by the Supreme Court and 23 percent who say they don’t know enough to say what the status of the law is.”
The survey showed public opinion on Obamacare is at its second-lowest rating in the past two years. Less than half – 40 percent – of adults viewed the ACA favorably, whereas 35 percent said they viewed it unfavorably. Another 24 percent said they did not know or refused to answer.
GMA Devotes 109 Minutes to Other Trials, But Not One Second for Gosnell Horrors
[Newsbusters.org]
By Scott Whitlock | April 29, 2013 | 11:22
Forty two days ago, on March 18, 2013, abortionist Kermit Gosnell went on trial, charged with the grisly murder of multiple babies and a patient. Yet, in the seven weeks that followed, ABC News has permitted no coverage, discussion or mention of the case, not even a single utterance of Dr. Gosnell’s name.
But that’s not due to lack of interest in shocking criminal cases. Over the same 42 days, the Media Research Center found that ABC’s Good Morning America has aired 41 stories — about one per day — on other sensational criminal cases, including the Amanda Knox re-trial and the Jodi Arias case, totaling 109 minutes of coverage.
So it would seem that ABC doesn’t have a problem delivering the gruesome details of murder cases to morning show viewers, suggesting that the networks’ blackout of the Gosnell case has more to do with the negative light it shines on the abortion industry.
Over six weeks of weekday and weekend coverage, GMA featured the Arias case 22 times. Arias is accused of stabbing and slitting the throat of Travis Alexander, her ex-boyfriend. Clearly, the producers and hosts of the morning show aren’t worried about discussing stomach-churning details. The Associated Press recounted the graphic accusations against Gosnell, including testimony by some of the abortion clinic’s workers that they “‘snipped’ babies’ necks after they were born alive to make sure they died.”
Jihad Blows Up the Liberal Utopia
[American Spectator]
Credibility shredded from Boston to Benghazi.
Jihad has blown up The Liberal Utopia.
The visionary liberal land of political and social perfection.
President Obama is not happy — and he isn’t alone.
You know the place.
• The Liberal Utopia is a land where gun background checks prevent mass murder.
• The Liberal Utopia is a land where Islamic fundamentalists have changed their perception of America because the President travels to Muslim nations to give lovely speeches, believes that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere is a wonderful sign of an Arab Spring, and refuses to use the word “terrorist” whether his administration is investigating Ft. Hood, Boston, or Benghazi.
• The Liberal Utopia is a land where a 2009 presidential video proclaiming a “new beginning” in American relations with Iran will halt the effort to build a nuclear bomb.
Photos Show ‘Persons of Interest’ in Boston Marathon Bombings
[Newsmax.com]
April 18, 2013
The FBI is now sharing the photos with the public but the New York Post ran several photos that they linked to the investigation Thursday.
In the photos being distributed by law-enforcement officials, one of the men is carrying a blue duffel bag. The other is wearing a black backpack in the first photo, taken at 10:53 a.m., but it is not visible in the second, taken at 12:30 p.m, the Post reported.
“The attached photos are being circulated in an attempt to identify the individuals highlighted therein,” said an e-mail obtained by The Post. “Feel free to pass this around to any of your fellow agents elsewhere.”
Authorities know the names of the two men, but do not have enough evidence to make an arrest for Monday’s attack, which killed three and wounded 176, sources told the Post.
Fox said a reporter for the network had seen the photos and called them “clear.”
Here’s a Quick Recap of What You Need to Know About the Boston Bombings
[TheBlaze.com]
Editor’s note — We’ll be discussing this story and all the day’s news during our live BlazeCast from 12pm to 1pm ET…including your questions, comments & live chat:
BOSTON (TheBlaze/AP) — An explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday killed three people and injured dozens more. TheBlaze brought you intense live coverage of the aftermath. Considering all that has unfolded, here’s an an at-a-glance look at the facts in the case:
THE EXPLOSIONS
Two bombs exploded about 10 seconds and 100 yards apart at about 2:50 p.m. Monday in Boston’s Copley Square, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy named Martin Richard (TheBlaze has profiled Martin here), and more than 140 were injured. The explosions occurred four hours into the race and two hours after the winners had crossed the finish line, but thousands of runners were still on the course.
Bill Maher: ‘The Second Amendment Is Bulls—t!’
[Newsbusters.org]
By Noel Sheppard | April 13, 2013 | 12:43
HBO’s Bill Maher made a statement Friday that should deeply concern all Americans.
During the panel discussion segment of his Real Time program, he said to loud applause from the audience, “The Second Amendment is bulls—t!” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: This is the problem with the gun debate is that it’s a constant center-right debate. There’s no left in this debate. Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said which is the Second Amendment is bulls—t. Why doesn’t anyone go at the core of it?
In reality, the audience applause as well as his panelists – which included sportscaster Bob Costas, former Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, and former Reagan OMB director David Stockman – all appearing to agree with Maher is even more horrifying.
Welcome to the American left, ladies and gentlemen.
It’s so cold; it’s GLOBAL WARMING – No, it’s a HOAX!
[CWNewsONLINE.net]
April 10, 2013
By Justin Waldman
Last week I was listening when this young 13-year-old boy named Alex called Rush Limbaugh. Funny, how the Left Liberals get so pushed out of shape with people who don’t believe in “man-made global warming.” This call is reverberating across the media. And it’s all because of this call to Rush.
Why is the left so worried about a young boy doing his own research come to that conclusion? Just as Alex said, they do not want to believe the lie and the evidence. It’s also because of the AGENDA behind all of the proposed precepts that global warming is caused by carbon released into the air.
FACT: DID YOU KNOW THAT PLANTS DEPEND ON CARBON DIOXIDE TO SURVIVE? AND WE DEPEND ON PLANTS BECAUSE THEY PRODUCE OXYGEN.
Obama’s agenda includes getting into this global lie of climate change and man-made global warming is bad, therefore, we must do something about it. In his first term, the progressive Left tried to pass a law that would enact Cap and Trade, which would be a way to tax industry for carbon (CO2) pollution.
This “science” and it’s proponent politicians have been trying to make carbon units a “commodity” for trading. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Be like Alex and do your own research. This is why the progressive left is so afraid! It’s a hoax to make money.
That’s why there is this global push for “green” energy, carbon reduction, pollution taxes, etc. It’s all based on a lie. The University East Anglia emails have proved it. To me, this is rotten how the progressive Left still wants people to believe this LIE.
Mitch McConnell Joins Filibuster Against Gun Control
[Breitbart.com]
by AWR Hawkins CWN Post: April 09, 2013
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he will join GOP Senators to filibuster a bill expanding gun control regulations if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings it up for a vote this week.
This puts McConnell shoulder-to-shoulder with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and eight other Senators who have said they will block a push for gun control in the Senate.
Currently, Reid’s gun control package focuses on instituting universal background checks and new laws against gun trafficking. Reid has made it clear he will allow also amendments establishing an “assault weapons” ban and Sen. Richard Blumentahl (D-CT) has made it clear he will also try to add a “high capacity” magazine ban as an amendment.
McConnell says he now stands with Paul, Cruz, Lee, Rubio, Inhofe, and the other Senators who have vowed to oppose any “motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for additional gun restrictions.”
President Obama Reluctantly Embraces President Obama’s Idea
[Townhall.com]
- Kevin Glass
Managing Editor, Townhall.com
April 05, 2013
President Obama’s budget proposal is due out next week. We’ve already got a relatively good idea of what he’s going to propose – more spending, more taxes, maybe some hints of deficit reduction. It also looks like President Obama will propose a statistical adjustment to Social Security’s adjustment formula – moving to the chained consumer price index (C-CPI) – that the Obama Administration has long portrayed as an important entitlement reform.
What is a C-CPI reform, exactly? It would peg Social Security cost-of-living adjustments to a different – and, economists say, more accurate – form of inflation. The practical effects of this are that there would be modest benefit cuts and modest tax increases over what’s currently projected for Social Security. Over a ten-year period, the CBO projects, there would be a $127 billion spending cut to Social Security and a $123 billion dollar tax hike. Liberals dislike the C-CPI reform due to the spending cuts and conservatives dislike it because of the tax hikes.
A “senior administration official” told the Huffington Post that President Obama’s plan is “not the President’s ideal deficit-reduction plan” and characterizes the C-CPI proposal as a “key Republican request… not the President’s preferred approach.”
This is a dishonest framing at best. As the Washington Post reports, it has consistently been the Obama Administration pushing for a C-CPI reform to Social Security. This is from a WaPo report on December’s fiscal cliff negotiations [emphasis mine]:
Liberal Democrats, too, were on edge about Obama’s offer on the inflation measure, known as the chained consumer price index, or chained CPI. Obama tentatively embraced the change in budget negotiations with Boehner in the summer of 2011.
Big Government: An Unnecessary Evil That Should Be Abolished
[Infowars.com]
March 31, 2013
There are two types of people in this world; those who worship the ideal of centralized command authority, and those who do not. Those who value freedom regardless of risk or pain, and those who value slavery in a desperate bid to avoid risk and pain. When I consider the ultimate folly of man, in the end I look to the meek and unquestioning masses who strive to avoid risk, because it is they who always end up feeding the machines of war, despair, and tyranny. The power thirsty halls of elitism surely instigate and manipulate the tides of this wretched ocean of quivering souls, but ultimately, the weak-hearted and weak minded make all terrible conquests possible.
They live by the rule of fear, and their fear drives them to seek control; control of their environment, control of others, and by extension they believe, control of the future. They attempt to mitigate their overwhelming fear by containing the world and sterilizing it of everything wild, untamed, and unknown. They dream of a society of pure predictability, and zero responsibility. They are willing to sacrifice almost anything to attain this position of artificial comfort.
The concept of “big government” appeals to such people for many reasons…
Government in most cases is nothing but an abstraction. It is merely a tool that serves the interests of a particular group of people at any given time. Modern politics is an expression of the foolish cat fight between factions of people to decide who gets to wield the weapon of government and impose their ideology on the rest of us. At least, that’s what it almost always devolves into. The great illusion of the system, though, is that ANY group of average people ever actually wields any power. The truth is, big governments are always operated by very small and exclusive clubs of root beneficiaries out of the sight of the population.
Justices indicate interest in narrow ruling on gay marriage in landmark hearing
[FoxNews.com]
Published March 26, 2013
Such an outcome would almost certainly allow gay marriages to resume in California but would have no impact elsewhere.Click to listen to the Supreme Court arguments in the Prop 8 case
.
Kennedy said he feared the court would go into “uncharted waters” if it embraced arguments advanced by gay marriage supporters. But lawyer Theodore Olson, representing two same-sex couples, said that the court similarly ventured into the unknown in 1967 when it struck down bans on interracial marriage in 16 states.
Kennedy challenged the accuracy of that comment by noting that other countries had had interracial marriages for hundreds of years.
There was no majority apparent for any particular outcome and many doubts expressed about the arguments advanced by lawyers for the opponents of gay marriage in California, by the supporters and by the Obama administration, which is in favor of same-sex marriage rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts told Olson that it seemed supporters of gay marriage were trying to change the meaning of the word “marriage” by including same-sex couples.
Lawyers representing supporters of the California ban known as Proposition 8 argued that the court should not override the democratic process and impose a judicial solution that would redefine marriage in the some 40 states that do not allow same-sex couples to wed.
The case attracted high interest. Spectators were waiting in line since Thursday for the chance at being in the room while the two sides try to sway the court.
By ruling broadly, the court could overturn every state constitutional provision and law banning same-sex marriages. Or, they could set back the gay marriage movement by upholding California’s ban and continuing to leave the issue up to the states. By choosing the middle route, though, the justices could dismiss the case — a move likely to let gay marriages resume in California, with no impact anywhere else.
The case before the high court came together four years ago when the two couples agreed to be the named plaintiffs and become the public faces of a well-funded, high-profile effort to challenge Proposition 8 in the courts.
The fight began in 2004 when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses. Six months later, the state Supreme Court invalidated the same-sex unions. Less than four years later, however, the same state court overturned California’s prohibition on same-sex unions.
Then, in the same election that put President Obama in the White House in 2008, California voters approved Proposition 8, undoing the court ruling and defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
The ballot measure halted same-sex unions in California. Roughly 18,000 couples were wed in the nearly five months that same-sex marriage was legal and those marriages remain valid in California.
The high-profile case has brought together two one-time Supreme Court opponents. Republican Theodore Olson and Democrat David Boies are leading the legal team representing the same-sex couples.
They argued against each other in the Bush v. Gore case that settled the disputed 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Opposing them is Charles Cooper, Olson’s onetime colleague at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.
On Wednesday the court will consider a provision that defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits, as part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
The arguments come at a time of changing views on the issue. Support for gay marriage is becoming a mainstream Democratic position and the issue is causing a sharp divide among Republicans.
The issue has created fault lines within the Republican Party, as some prominent members drop their opposition to same-sex marriage while others stiffen it.
Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told “Fox News Sunday” that proponents of gay marriage are effectively asking “for unelected judges to deny the people of the states the right to decide what marriage is in their state.”
Bauer said he would prefer that every state bar gay marriage. But, acknowledging that’s not likely, he said the court should let the states decide.
However Nicolle Wallace, a former adviser to former President George W. Bush and to the 2008 McCain campaign, said those arguing against Prop 8 are in fact using a “conservative legal argument.”
“They will basically lay out the conservative case that there is not any place in the Constitution that allows for a different set of rules for a different class of people,” she told “Fox News Sunday.” “There’s also a moral imperative here. If you believe, if you value and treasure and revere the institution of marriage, then you should want every family unit to be really wrapped in marriage.”
Top Democrats who previously opposed same-sex marriage — and had taken the more moderate position of supporting civil unions — have in recent months and years shifted course. President Obama announced his support for gay marriage in the months leading up to the presidential election. Hillary Clinton also recently followed suit.
But Republicans have also been crossing to the pro-gay marriage side. Wallace is among dozens of Republicans who filed a brief in the Supreme Court case arguing for Prop 8 to be overturned. And Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, publicly reversed his position on the issue after his son came out as gay.
The position shifts, though, do not signal a party-wide change of heart. Many Republicans would still prefer the issue be left up to the states and are encouraging the high court justices to rule narrowly.
“They would be far better off to decide these two cases on the narrowest possible grounds,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday. A sweeping decision against gay marriage, he said, would be a “huge mistake” that would “undermine respect for the judiciary.”
Americans as a whole are likewise divided. A Fox News poll released Thursday showed 49 percent of voters favor legalizing gay marriage, while 46 percent oppose it.
That marks a shift since the question was first asked in 2003 — when 32 percent said gay marriage should be legal, and 58 percent opposed it.
Support for gay marriage has grown the most among Democrats, and self-described moderates and independents. Still, support for gay marriage rose by 10 points among Republicans over the past decade, according to the Fox News polling.
Gay marriage has been approved in nine states — Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington — and the District of Columbia. But 31 states have amended their constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriage. North Carolina was the most recent example last May.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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