(San Francisco, December 17, 2010)—The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California heard oral arguments on Friday in a Lambda Legal lawsuit against the Obama Administration that may have major implications for the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster LLP filed suit against the federal government earlier this year on behalf of Karen Golinski, a 19-year employee of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Golinski seeks the same spousal health insurance for her wife, Amy Cunninghis, that heterosexual employees receive for their spouses. Golinski and Cunninghis have been together for 21 years. Golinski v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) requests an order directing the agency to obey prior rulings by the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals awarding the equal insurance benefits to Golinski. OPM should rescind its instruction to Golinski’s insurer, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, not to enroll Golinski’s wife in the family health insurance plan.

“This case could result in the next major court ruling on the constitutionality of DOMA,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal. “This began as a simple internal personnel matter; the irony is that the Obama Administration, through the decisions of OPM and the Department of Justice to assert DOMA as an excuse for the discriminatory treatment of Karen Golinski, has turned this into a challenge to DOMA itself.”

The judge previously asked both sides to file additional legal briefs addressing, among other topics, whether or not DOMA violates the U.S. Constitution. Lambda Legal has explained that the law indeed is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on sex and sexual orientation and infringes on the fundamental right to privacy and respect for one’s family relationships recognized by the Supreme Court in Lambda Legal’s landmark case, Lawrence v. Texas.

“Judge White, both through his request for supplementary information during the briefing process and his questioning at today’s hearing, seems keenly interested in how the Obama Administration now is defending DOMA, after having reached out to block benefits for Karen and Amy,” said Pizer. “He seemed rightly skeptical of the government’s argument that DOMA maintains ‘consistency’ in how the federal government allocates federal rights and benefits. Before DOMA, the federal government—consistently—respected all legal marriages, no matter what state issued the license or who married whom. Now, for the first time under DOMA, the government inconsistently distinguishes among legally married people, favoring heterosexuals and ignoring lesbians and gay men, and for no reasons other than ignorance, prejudice and anti-gay religious condemnation.”

“Judge White also skewered another piece of twisted logic on OPM’s part: that the Executive Branch agency’s duty to negotiate contracts with insurance plans to cover federal workers somehow authorizes it to meddle in and to thwart individual enrollment decisions ordered by top managers of a different branch of the federal government. OPM’s facilitation and support functions go nowhere that far.”

Lambda Legal’s Pizer represents Golinski together with Rita Lin, James McGuire, Gregory Dresser and Aaron Jones of Morrison & Foerster LLP.

The case is Golinski v. United States Office of Personnel Management and John Berry, Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in his official capacity.

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Contact: Jason Pérez Howe; 213-382-7600 x 247; jho...@lambdalegal.org

Eric Alva is the first Marine injured in the Iraq War, the first American for that matter, and he’s gay. Alva won a purple heart but lost his leg. He calls General Amos’ comments, that gays in the military are a distraction to straight soldiers and could cost lives, or limbs, “conduct unbecoming.”

Alva continues,

“I was just really taken aback on how disrespectful someone who is the leader of the United States Marine Corps can talk about, you know, members in the armed forces who is aware of that there are gay service members serving in the Marine Corps, and all branches of service. But what he did was totally, what we call in the military, conduct unbecoming. I mean, he literally took my Purple Heart and threw it in my face. I mean, to say that there are distractions and could cause deaths or even loss of limbs for people because of knowing that there are openly gay men and women serving in the military, I mean, this is just unbelievable, how someone can really act in a leadership role.”

“I mean, this is someone who I’m waiting for to get that call from the Commander in Chief himself, like General McCrystal, and maybe taken into that Oval Office and walk out not in charge of the Marines anymore.”

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Not only do supporters of the repeal have reason to celebrate today because of the House of Representatives’ vote in favor of a stand-alone bill to repeal the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, but also because the chances of the bill passing the Senate improved when Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine said she will support it.

“After careful analysis of the comprehensive report compiled by the Department of Defense and thorough consideration of the testimony provided by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs, I support repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law,” Snowe said in a statement. “However, as was stated in the letter I signed along with all of my Republican colleagues to the Majority Leader on Dec. 1, we must first fund the government beyond Dec. 18, and prevent the largest tax increase in our nation’s history from affecting all Americans on New Year’s Day before addressing other legislation.”

Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-CT, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, who are leading the push in the Senate for the stand-alone bill repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, believe they have the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate threshold.

At last week’s Senate vote when the repeal was attached to the annual defense authorization bill, the measure fell only three votes short.

56 Democrats voted for repeal at that time. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., missed the vote due to a dentist’s appointment, while Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, opposed repeal, arguing that the policy “probably should be repealed in the near future,” but not now because of “the effect implementation would have on our front line combat troops at this time.”

With Lincoln’s vote, that would mean 57 Democrats are in favor of repeal. Then come the Republicans. Collins brings the tally to 58 and Snowe brings it to 59.

Two other Republicans – Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Lisa Murkowski – have also voiced support for repeal, but both of them voted against repeal last week on procedural grounds. If the repeal is to pass – and to do so it must overcome a packed Senate lame-duck calendar – Democrats need to secure the support of Brown or Murkowski.

–UPDATE–

Murkowski will support the stand-alone bill, her spokesman says, so Democrats appear to have lined up the 60 votes they will need in the Senate to pass the repeal.

“Sen. Murkowski will support a stand-alone repeal of the DADT law,” said Murkowski spokesman Michael Brumas. “With the tax package out of the way, and legislation to fund the government on a glide path to passage, Sen. Murkowski will vote to move to DADT when it is brought to the floor.”

With six months left in his four-year term, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias signed an executive order on Sunday extending family-leave benefits to gay and lesbian employees in domestic partnerships.

The new policy will allow gay and lesbian employees of his office to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick partner or relative, the same benefit given to their married co-workers. It also would allow gay and lesbian employees to take time off for the birth or adoption of a child.

“These aren’t added bonuses or employee perks,” Giannoulias said. “These are the same basic rights other employees have long come to expect.”

Cocktails had been served on the terrace, the ubiquitous Washington buffet of tenderloin and salmon consumed, and the gay law students settled in to hear from the famed legal mind who is leading the battle to make sure they have the right to marry whomever they want, wherever in the United States of America they live.

But first, an introduction: The assembled were reminded of Theodore B. Olson’s sterling conservative credentials; about his loyal service in President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department; that he was President George W. Bush’s solicitor general; that perhaps the crowning achievement in his gaudy career as a Supreme Court advocate was persuading five justices to stop the vote counting in Florida in the 2000 election and acknowledge that Bush had won.

So far, so quiet.

But then Olson took the microphone, and began to describe his crusade to overturn California’s Proposition 8 and establish a constitutional right for same-sex marriage. The two gay families he represents are “the nicest people on the planet.” He believes to his core that discrimination because of sexual orientation “is wrong and it’s hurtful, and I never could understand it.” He knows some worry that the lawsuit is premature, “but civil rights are not won by people saying, ‘Wait until the right time.’ ”

This fight, Olson told the law students gathered on a spring evening in the luxe D.C. offices of his firm, Gibson, Dunn and Cruthcher, “is the most compelling, emotionally moving, important case that I have been involved in in my entire life.”

Standing O. Another jury persuaded.

Olson will try to repeat the performance Wednesday in a federal courthouse in San Francisco. He will present closing arguments in a potentially groundbreaking trial in which Olson and his political odd-couple partner David Boies — his Democratic rival in Bush v. Gore — are asking a federal judge to overturn Prop 8, with which California voters limited marriage to a man and a woman. The suit says that violates the U.S. Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses.

It is the first stop in what is likely to be a years-long, historic journey to the Supreme Court, the Brown v. Board of Education for the gay rights movement. Some critics wonder if it is a bit of an ego trip as well, whether Olson’s belief in his own skills could lead to a debilitating loss at the high court.

The case has prodigious legal talent on all sides. Washington lawyer Charles J. Cooper, a star in the same conservative orbit that Olson usually inhabits, is counsel for the California group that sponsored Proposition 8. Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, first nominated by Reagan and finally confirmed under President George H.W. Bush, drew the lot to hear the case. (He also picked up the San Francisco Chronicle one morning after the trial to see a column reporting that he is gay, an issue about which he has never publicly spoken.)

But no one has attracted as much attention as Olson, a tall and lanky man who is approaching 70 but still wears his strawberry-blond hair in bangs. That the man who was a loyal Reagan lieutenant and defended Bush’s anti-terrorism policies is now championing gay rights has been too much for some conservatives. M. Edward Whelan III, whose National Review column is influential in conservative legal circles, called the lawsuit “a betrayal of everything that Ted Olson has purported to stand for.”

Paul D. Clement, who was Olson’s deputy as solicitor general and then took over the job, said conservatives have “come to terms” with Olson’s decision, “but those who never understood it are still scratching their heads.”

Olson said people continue to look for a reason — for instance, there is no family member who influenced his thinking, he said — because “I’m a mossback conservative and thus not supposed to have these views.” But he said that while in the Bush administration, he opposed an attempt to amend the Constitution to define marriage.

“This is ‘California Ted,’ not ‘Federalist Society Ted,’ ” said Lisa Blatt, an attorney who worked with Olson in the solicitor general’s office, referring to his upbringing on the West Coast.

There was equal suspicion on the left, mixed with disbelief. As one blogger wrote on a gay Web site last year: “Ted Freaking Olson is now better on gay marriage than our president.” President Obama has said he favors civil unions, not same-sex marriage.

But the man-bites-dog aspect of Olson’s advocacy has brought a blizzard of publicity: profiles and television interviews and the chance for him this year to write a nearly 4,000-word cover story for Newsweek, “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.”

“We believe we can change people’s minds just by bringing this case,” Olson said. “It will give us an audience.”

Olson got involved when his former sister-in-law ran into liberal Hollywood activists Rob and Michele Reiner, who were lamenting Prop 8 shortly after its passage in November 2008 and were wondering about a legal challenge. The former sister-in-law suggested they call Olson because she thought he might be sympathetic.

Chad Griffin, a California consultant, was the original go-between for the Reiners and Olson. He had worked in the Clinton White House at a time when Olson was seen as a major cog in the “vast right-wing conspiracy” accused of miring the Clinton presidency in scandal and investigations.

“I never thought there was a single issue I could have agreed with Ted Olson about,” Griffin said. “I really saw him as the enemy.”

Now, he said, “Those who know him know that this is a man who both professionally and personally cares deeply about this issue.”

But among those who favor same-sex marriage, the question remains: Is this the time to bring the issue before an increasingly conservative Supreme Court?

Olson waves away the worries with a combination of legal research and sound bites.

He describes the recognition of the right to marry as a natural progression of the court’s precedents. Twelve times, “dating to 1888,” the court has recognized marriage as a fundamental right, he said. Add to that the court’s 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia that state laws limiting marriage to people of the same race were unconstitutional.

In 1996, the court struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that forbade laws offering anti-discrimination protection to gays. In 2003, it overruled a law that prohibited private homosexual acts.

Opponents of same-sex marriage point out that the court let stand a decision in which lower courts found constitutional a state’s right to limit marriage to a man and a woman. Olson said that was 40 years ago.

Andy Pugno, general counsel for Yes on 8, said Olson’s arguments ignore simple facts.

“There is no federally protected right to same-sex marriage, and it was perfectly rational for voters to adhere to a traditional definition of marriage and to decline to experiment with other kinds of marriage,” he said.

Olson argues that “tradition” would have meant that it was illegal for Obama’s parents to marry. Pamela Karlan, an opponent of Prop 8 and co-director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School, is not as confident in the court as Olson.

“I wouldn’t want to be up in front of this Supreme Court” to ask for a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Karlan said. “My own hope is that the voters of California will vote to repeal [Prop 8] before this case ever reaches” that stage.

Five states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, most because of court decisions. Thirty states have constitutional provisions that limit marriage to a man and a woman; others have statutory restrictions on same-sex marriage.

Olson said he sees no conflict between his conservative beliefs in democracy and his efforts now to have the courts overturn a referendum approved by voters.

“Whenever minority rights are put to a popular vote, the minority loses,” he said. California’s situation is especially complex, because 18,000 same-sex couples married during the period when the state supreme court allowed it and voters amended the state constitution to forbid it.

Olson, who has argued 56 cases before the Supreme Court, said it is “inevitable” that the court will decide the issue, and told the law students that the case he and Boies are preparing represents the best chance to win.

Asked by one student at the dinner whether he had suffered for taking the case, Olson told his own small story of discrimination.

As a form of protest, he said some conservatives have urged others to withhold money from the Republican National Committee, which has hired Olson for the latest challenge to campaign finance laws. But he took note of his audience’s political views and added that that is “something that most of you probably would not mind.”

A large majority of Iowa Republican primary voters say Iowans should have a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, according to the latest Des Moines Register Iowa Poll.

More than three-quarters of Iowans planning to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary say Iowans should have a chance to vote on changing the constitution specifically to ban gay marriage.

But the same consensus does not exist for ousting Iowa Supreme Court judges who voted last year to invalidate Iowa’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage.

And one-third of the poll respondents say that some Iowans have overreacted on the issue, and that gay marriage in the state is just not that big a deal.

The issue erupted in April 2009, when the state high court unanimously struck down the 1998 law. Since then, leaders in the Democrat-controlled Legislature have blocked debate on a constitutional amendment. Iowans can vote on a constitutional amendment referendum only after the Legislature passes a resolution allowing it in two consecutive General Assemblies.

Knoxville Republican Jackie Sharp is like most primary voters: She wants to vote, but does not see gay marriage as the top issue this year.

“I wouldn’t get out and march in a parade or anything, but it’s supposed to be a man and a woman, and I think we should at least get to vote,” said Sharp.

Sharp is among 45 percent who do not think voters should oppose the Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention in the November election.

“That’s going a little too far,” Sharp said.

Half of primary voters say Iowans should vote to remove the justices, the poll shows. Republican candidate for governor Bob Vander Plaats of Sioux City has urged voters to block the retention of justices this fall.

Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit are up for retention votes this year.

The poll of 501 likely primary voters was conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines Tuesday through Thursday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4percentage points.

A man who was previously convicted of a hate crime was arrested after he yelled a derogatory slur at a transgender person and assaulted her, police said.
The incident happened about 3:50 p.m. Sunday at Northwest Market Street and 15th Avenue Northwest. The transgender person, who police say identifies as a woman, told an officer the suspect approached at a bus stop, yelled slurs at her and punched her several times with closed fists.
The suspect, a 51-year-old man, was arrested and booked into King County Jail. Court records show he was previously convicted for assault and a separate drug charge in 2004, and at least two other drug cases. In one 2007 case, police caught him smoking crack under the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
According to an incident report, police are investigating the case as “possible malicious harassment,” the state’s hate crime law. Court records show the suspect was previously convicted of malicious harassment in 2003.
The victim in the Ballard case told police she was fearful for her life and wanted to go to a hospital. She was taken to Ballard Swedish Hospital.
The suspect was found near Northwest 54th Street and 14th Avenue Northwest and arrested for investigation of assault.
“The suspect appeared intoxicated and had a strong odor of intoxicants,” Officer Trung Nguyen wrote in an incident report. “He would not respond to my questions of whether he understood his rights.”
The victim was ashamed that someone would assault her based on gender, according to police. Nguyen photographed the victim’s injuries as evidence.
The suspect was ordered held on $250,000 bail, but he’s also being held for violating terms of his Department of Corrections probation in a previous case, and bail for that was denied.
Seattlepi.com is not naming the suspect because he has not been charged in this case.

Better Courts Now’s candidates are on a ‘mission from God’ to transform San Diego’s court system.

If you’ve had your fill of athletes thanking God for their good fortune on the basketball court or gridiron, and/or politicians claiming that God directed them to run for public office –- think George W. Bush –- then do not read any further. If, however, you’re interested in and/or intrigued by the “Mission from God” conceit, and wondering if folks adopting that charge from on high just might be coming to your humble township, then check out what’s been happening in San Diego, California.

What may have started out as a small, almost stealth-like campaign –- similar to those that took over school boards across the country — has evolved into a rock-em, sock-em, full-throated effort to remove four Democratic-appointed judges from Superior Court, and replace them with four bona-fide “Mission from God” Christian conservative attorneys.

The movement, called Better Courts Now, is supporting four San Diego Superior Court candidates that have the backing of “pastors, gun enthusiasts and opponents of abortion and same-sex marriages,” the Associated Press recently reported.

A banner on the front-page of the Better Courts Now (BCN) website welcoming visitors, reads: “Welcome to BetterCourtsNow.com. The most innovative approach to unifying the moral vote. Better Courts Now, is an attempt to network with you in a way that allows you to become a change agent in making judges accountable. Join the fight and let your voice be heard!”

In mid-March, Capital Weekly reported that the website “also includes testimonials from at least one person affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a group that has been in the center of political battles over gay marriage in California and around the country.”

“It’s important that we unify our votes so we ensure that solid men and women of high morals, who will not legislate from the bench, are elected to office,” Assemblyman Joel Anderson, R-La Mesa, says in a 97-second video. Later he adds, “We are in full agreement that we need to get behind BetterCourtsNow.com.”

Capital Weekly pointed out while “Anderson is probably the most recognizable person on the list [,] …. [o]ther prominent people on video page include: Steve Baldwin, who held the AD 77 seat from 1995 through 2000; Ron Prentice, San Diego chairman for the Yes on 8 Campaign; Don Hamer, a prominent black pastor in San Diego; Dean Broyles, an attorney the Western Center for Law & Policy; Brian Jones, vice mayor of Santee; and Charles Li Mandri, west coast regional director of the Thomas More Law Center.”

Dr. Jennifer Morse, the founder and president of the Ruth Institute in San Marcos, also appears on the site. According to Capital Weekly, “The Institute’s website displays prominently that it is ‘A project of the National Organization for Marriage’ [an organization founded in 2007 by Maggie Gallagher, a noted gay marriage opponent who also founded the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (IMPP)]. The group states that it promotes ‘lifelong commitment’ and ‘big families.’ It opposes unmarried couples living together and medical treatment for minors with gender confusion. The site also states that it sponsors students’ essay contests and ‘Gay marriage affects everyone’ seminars.”

“We believe our country is under assault and needs Christian values,” said Craig Candelore, a family law attorney and the founder of the Men’s Legal Center in San Diego, who is one of the group’s candidates. “Unfortunately, God has called upon us to do this only with the judiciary.”

According to AP, the election of judges — which is on the June 8 ballot along with primaries for state offices and U.S. Senator, as well as a number of state initiatives –- is normally a “snooze-button” affair that often causes a puzzled look and a “who’s she/he” reaction from voters. This time around, however, the snooze alarm is ringing loudly as the election has been turned “into what both sides call a battle for the integrity of U.S. courts.”

Better Courts Now was founded three years ago by the late Don Hamer, San Diego County’s Zion Christian Fellowship pastor, who was a major supporter of Proposition 8 (California’s ban on same-sex marriage) and, according to AP, “vetted the [judicial] candidates before he died of a heart attack in March.” According to a post by “Christian Dem in N.C.” at Daily Kos, Hamer was “the voice of seven videos back in 2008 that claimed Obama wasn’t really a Christian, including one in which he accused Obama of being a Muslim.”

Hamer’s fellow pastor, Brian Hendry –- the GOP candidate for the state senate from the 40th district — and others have carried on the work, “launching the mostly online campaign to replace the incumbent judges (Lantz Lewis, Robert Longstreth, Joel Wohlfeil and DeAnn Salcido, all Democrats) with Christian conservatives (Candelore, Bill Trask [the general counsel for a mortgage-lending firm], Larry Kincaid [an El Cajon lawyer who practices civil, criminal and family law and was an unsuccessful candidate for judge four years ago], and Harold Coleman Jr. [an Arbitrator],” AP reported.

Last week, East County magazine reported that “Better Courts Now’s candidates were not found qualified for the positions they seek by the County Bar Association. In response, Better Courts Now has accused the Bar of ‘blatant political bias’ and noted that Larry Stanwood Johnson, chair of the Bar’s Certified Family Law Specialists Committee, has solicited donations from Committee members for the incumbent judges.”

“Better Courts Now says it wants courts to be more accountable to the public,” AP reported. “But [Lantz] Lewis, [who has served twenty years on the bench] said the group appears to be seeking allegiance to its views –- not accountability.”

“I just don’t think judges should be in a situation, where they are asked, ‘Do you believe in God, abortion, gay marriage?’” Lewis said.

For Craig Candelore, a victory would be the first step toward reclaiming the culture: “If we can take our judiciary, we can take our Legislature and our executive branch.”

It’s now the turn of the Upper House, for the debate over same-sex marriage is about to continue in the General Legislation Committee. After a controversial demonstration against the initiative took place in the streets of Buenos Aires yesterday, some groups aim at approving the bill that seeks to amend the Civil Code to allow gay couples to get married.

Liliana Negre de Alonso leads the Committee. According to several sources, the debate is scheduled to start at 4:00pm.
Several leaders are pledged to be present, such as Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual Argentine Federation President María Rachid, and the head of La Fulana community centre Claudia Castrosin Verdú.

The bill aiming at allowing same-sex couples to get married posts the support of the biggest caucuses’ heads in the Upper House, Victory Front’s Miguel Angel Pichetto and Radical Gerardo Morales.

The Iowa Family Policy Center and a pastor-led group called “Purpose Ministries” have collected petition signatures from over eight-hundred Iowa pastors, urging Iowa’s elected officials to let Iowans vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

Iowa Family Policy Center president Chuck Hurley says the petitions will be presented to every statewide candidate in Iowa as well as all of the people who’re running for seats in the legislature.

“Whether they see the light, we believe and we hope that they will feel the heat,” Hurley says. “And that they will recognize that ‘we, the people’ as 31 other states peoples have done deserve…a chance to vote on the Iowa Marriage Amendment.”

Brad Sherman is pastor of the Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville and also the leader of “Purpose Ministries.”

“To the legislature, we simply say, ‘Stop representing the homosexual lobby that’s based primarily and funded primarily outside of Iowa and begin to represent the people of Iowa that elected you,’” Sherman says. “‘Otherwise, we believe a pink slip’s coming your way,’ and that’s the message we hope to convey with these petitions.”

Earlier this year, the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa presented legislators with a letter that had been co-signed by 167 Iowa clergy, urging legislators to oppose attempts to “diminish the marriage rights” of gay couples. The Bishop of Episcopal Churches in Iowa signed the letter, as did ministers who serve on several college campuses, including Wartburg in Waverly and Luther College in Decorah. Unitarian ministers, Protestant pastors and rabbis signed the letter, too. The head of the Iowa Family Policy Center today called some in the Interfaith Alliance group “pseudo” pastors.

“Someone who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing would be the scriptural definition,” Hurley said during a news conference just outside the state capitol. “Someone who would lead their flock astray on issues of moral and particularly spiritual matters and certainly someone who would so directly violate the revealed word of God in all the major faith traditions.”

A spokesperson for the Interfaith Alliance was not immediately available for comment.

According to Hurley, the 800-plus ministers who signed his group’s petition are “real” pastors. “We are at a crisis moment in this state and we will either stand up for good, Godly, family and marriage or we will go the way of other civilizations that have said, ‘Oh well,’” Hurley said. “We are here on behalf of 834 pastors who are not willing to say, ‘Oh well,’ and we applaud them for that.”

Hurley also blasted the art teacher at a Des Moines elementary school who showed a video to a fourth grade class which some parents found obscene. “And if that doesn’t matter anymore, if we are so callused to the hearts and minds and souls of our young people that we don’t care that they are being morally raped in this state, then we’d better hang it up,” Hurley said.

Click on the following link to listen to today’s 20-minute-long news conference: