The certification process for final Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell repeal — the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with the President, must certify to Congress that the United States military is trained and ready for open service — was always subject to tinkering by subsequent Congresses. Duncan Hunter, R-CA52, has obliged — with more sand in the gears. He will introduce an amendment that will require additional military leaders’ certifications before open service is permitted.

Judge James Ware, who succeeded Vaughn Walker, has called for briefs and scheduled a hearing on the motion by Prop 8 Defendant-Intervenors to vacate Judge Walker’s ruling on the grounds that he is 1) a homosexual and 2) in a long-term relationship and therefore 3) his ruling that invalidated Proposition 8 could directly benefit himself.

This is rank bigotry, and I’ll tell you why: Yes on 8 says Judge Walker’s ruling shouldn’t count because he’s gay and in a long-term, committed relationship that might result in a marriage should his own ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional be upheld.

Aside from actions having consequences, this is a powerful example of the dangers of foreign occupation. Provocations can lead the local populations to turn on not only the occupiers, but the NGOs and UN officials trying to keep the peace and help the villagers.

The collective here at Firedoglake has carved out quite a niche on LGBT issues from the gavel to gavel liveblog coverage of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Brown) Proposition 8 trial in the Northern District of California, to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell DADT) case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans in the Central District of California, to the recent change in policy by the Obama Administration regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to the broad based and excellent issue coverage of LGBT matters generally by Teddy Partridge. But that coverage has been centered on somewhat antiseptic and theoretical policy issues and statutory/Constitutional interpretation. There is another, darker, and more brooding area of LGBT law that is every bit as important, and quite arguably more directly important, to the relevant community.

It is downright inappropriate to have an unapologetic terrorist sympathizer head our Committee on Homeland Security. So long as King maintains his terrorist support was justifiable but that of brown people is somehow different, he stands as a symbol of US hypocrisy on terrorism.

The Ohio Legislature has already passed a gay marriage ban, AND a referendum put a gay marriage ban in the Constitution in the Bush-Kerry year of 2004. I guess Ohio Republicans would tell you this redundancy was needed because the State Supreme Court limited the impact on parenting and custody relationships. So that necessitated this language. In an anti-union bill. I guess Ohio Republicans are really anti-union!

This false claim that all the terrorists indicted in the last two years are allegedly motivated by Islamic extremism is not just sloppy. It serves to excuse one of the biggest problems of Rep. Peter King’s fear-mongering: the way it tautologically focuses on Islamic extremism and ignores other terrorists that pose an important threat to this country.

Why is everyone making such a fuss about Haley Barbour’s comment that life in his home state “wasn’t that bad” during the Jim Crow era? During Barbour’s teen years, Mississippi was a perfectly fine place to grow up

By now everyone has seen the time traveler in Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 movie, “The Circus.” A woman talking on a cell phone passes through the frame, just behind the horse painted to look like a zebra.

From the WaPo, 11/2/1991: “Jo Ellen Murphy, art director of the Weekend section, said that ‘[Juan Williams] was obsessed with my sex life and that’s all he wanted to talk to me about . . . . I raised my voice at him and said, “Just don’t talk to me again.” ‘ ”