GT to Be Honored for Overturning Gay Adoption Ban.

It's an old legal truism that every person and issue deserves an attorney, but not everyone deserves you.

With that in mind I see that Save Dade is honoring GT for their pro bono and historic work overturning Florida's ban on gay adoption:

For the past 33 years, the state of Florida banned gays and lesbians from adopting.  In September of 2010, the ACLU of Florida victoriously struck down this ban. The ACLU of Florida has fought for the rights of children to have a "forever home," and this victory continues to prove their commitment to the fight for LGBT equality and rightfully earns them the 2011 Champions of Equality Award., stated CJ Ortuno, Executive Director of SAVE Dade.

The ACLU of Florida’s victory, however, was not its alone.  Greenberg Traurig LLP, a for-profit law firm, stepped up to defend , pro bono, the rights of the two children who have now been legally adopted by Martin Gill.

Greenberg Traurig has publicly stated that this case was the “most meaningful” for its team. Its willingness to go above and beyond to­ protect the interests of these children earns it the 2011 Champions of Equality Award.

As Glenn Garvin noted in his review of last night's excellent American Experience, dealing with the heroic efforts by visionary, forward-thinking activists to strike down Jim Crow in the South:

The immediate and profound reaction to each — even among viewers who lived through the 1960s: “That was America? It’s a testament to how stunningly and totally the civil-rights movement eventually triumphed that these images seem so utterly alien, as if they were drawn from a world long ago and far away. Could we really have lived in a country in which water fountains were marked white and colored? Where a public park could have a sign out front reading, whites only? Where a young white woman could smile sunnily into a TV camera and explain that three kids shot to death for registering black voters were asking for it? Where federal troops could be seen lining the streets of a state capital, grimly mounting bayonets onto their rifles in preparation for the day’s work?

It's always good to be on the right side of history, at least once in your life, on at least one issue of consequence.

The reception will be on 5/20 at the Ice Palace in downtown Miami.

Pentagon Lawyer "Apologizes" to Seminoles Over Al Qaeda Analogy.

Listen up, kids, this is what happens when you are straining to justify exemptions to the Constitution for certain classes of really bad people -- you wind up citing precedent from other unlawful or excessive periods of history driven by populist rage -- it could have been Korematsu but in this case it was that whole slaughter of the Seminoles thing:

“Not only was the Seminole belligerency unlawful, but, much like modern-day al Qaeda, the very way in which the Seminoles waged war against U.S. targets itself violate the customs and usages of war.”

Oops!

Ok, so you are saying the Seminoles were like al Qaeda because they both waged war against U.S. targets unlawfully but also "the very way in which" they waged war which "itself violate[d] the customs and usages of war."

Seems pretty clear.  If that's what you want to say, then own it.

Let's see how they walk this one back:

“I regret any larger suggestion that the Seminole Tribe should be equated with al Qaeda,” Johnson wrote in an April 7 letter.

Right!  I just meant it in the very narrow sense that they are exactly alike in the very way in which they waged war unlawfully, a way which itself violated the customs and usages of war.

Other than that -- totally different.

Johnson pointed out in the letter that war court prosecutors had written the military commissions review panel “clarifying the legal point they originally intended to make” – that the analogy “could have benefited from greater precision” but was a valid precedent.

"The morality or propriety of General Jackson’s military operation in Florida is irrelevant,” they wrote.

Hmm, when is the morality or propriety of a military operation ever totally irrelevant?

That's like citing Dred Scott purely on a question of civil procedure, or Ted Bundy on Evidence but acknowledging the guy may have gotten some other things wrong.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize.

 

This looks like a timely and relevant event and will be much better than anything else you were planning to do that day.

Do we understand each other?