Lying: the kind of activity we want our Supreme Court Justices participating in.

This week, the ACLU is featuring a symposium, Blog of Rights, in celebration of LGBT Pride Month. I, along with several other LGBT writers, leaders and supporters, are contributing essays on civil equality. My post just went live—“Moving That Civil Rights Ball Forward.” Drop by, give feedback and surf around the site. Others featured today are Andrew Belonsky of Queerty, and Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project.

“We know that people’s attitudes about LGBT people are more likely to be supportive when they have had an opportunity to talk to LGBT people about what it means to be LGBT,” said Matt Coles, Director of the ACLU’s LGBT & AIDS Project.  “We’re hoping this symposium will spark many of those important conversations.”

...The LGBT Pride symposium marks the second in a continuing series of symposiums hosted by the ACLU.  The ACLU Blog of Rights will serve as an online home for the discussion of crucial civil liberties issues including privacy, freedom of speech and religion, capital punishment, racial justice, voter rights, and the rights of LGBT people, immigrants, women, and prisoners. Blog posts will highlight current legislation, litigation and efforts to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU Blog of Rights is online at: http://blog.aclu.org/

The ACLU’s LGBT Project recently launched its LGBT activist toolkit, Get Busy, Get Equal, to encourage LGBT people to work for equality in their communities.  In addition to the blog, which features a weekday roundup of LGBT news and discussion about the ACLU’s advocacy on behalf of LGBT people, the site provides instructions on how to organize and work to pass local ordinances barring LGBT discrimination, domestic partner registries and safe school policies.  The Get Busy, Get Equal toolkit is online at www.aclu.org/getequal.

Kate Clinton, John Aravosis, and Choire Sicha of The New York Observer were featured yesterday. Keep checking in during the week for essays by Air America radio host Rachel Maddow, SiriusOutQ Radio host Michelangelo Signorile, Donna Rose of Donnarose.com, as well as famous New York City drag queen The Lady Bunny.

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Sorry, SC readers, but your state is two for two today on the wingnut scoreboard after the HS gay-straight alliance ban attempt story. How about a state-sanctioned religious license plate—no worries about church-state conflict in the Palmetto State:

South Carolina’s lieutenant governor announced Thursday that he is willing to put up $4,000 of his own money so his state can become the first in the nation to issue “I Believe” license plates with the image of a cross and a stained glass window.

...The bills mean South Carolinians attending local government meetings could soon see the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer posted on walls, pray without fear of being sued and drive home in cars with the “I Believe” plates.

Civil rights groups are considering lawsuits. An attorney for the New York-based American Jewish Congress, Mark Stern, said the bills are an obvious endorsement of religion by legislators in an election year. His group is looking to sue over the plates.

...”This is an example of the government’s underhanded attempts to endorse one particular religious viewpoint over all others under the guise of neutral education,” said T. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU’s Program of Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Religion belongs where it prospers best: with individuals, families and religious communities.”

I was really hoping for SC to secede from the U.S. with the launch of the Christian Exodus movement, but that really never got off of the ground. The organizers decided to pack their bags and head out to Idaho, a less populous state to take over, and with perhaps more sympatico Aryan Nation residents.

The desperation of the wingnuts to stop the launch of legal same-sex marriage in California next week is now laughable at this point.

Today Liberty Counsel is filing a petition requesting the California Court of Appeal to stay the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

On June 16, the Court of Appeal will regain jurisdiction over the same-sex marriage cases after the state Supreme Court’s May 15th ruling becomes final. In that ruling, the California Supreme Court directed the Court of Appeal to take “further action consistent with this opinion.”

The Supreme Court did not and cannot remove language from the state statutes, because it is not a legislature. In fact, the Supreme Court’s decision addressed only two statutes relating to marriage. There are many more relevant statutes that were not addressed.  The power to write laws belongs to the people and legislative branch of government, not the judiciary.

Since neither the Supreme Court nor the Court of Appeal has addressed the myriad of other statutes regarding marriage, local government officials do not have the power to issue marriage licenses until the legislature addresses these statutes.

Liberty Counsel’s petition asks the Court of Appeal to order that no marriage licenses be issued to same-sex couples until the language cited by the Supreme Court is stricken by the legislature and until there is a judicial determination that the other current marriage statutes are unconstitutional. The petition also argues that same-sex marriage licenses should not be issued until after the November 2008 general election, in order to preserve the people’s right to vote on the California Marriage Protection Act.

This case is far from over. We will not give up. The people will have the final say on marriage.

The winning streak for the arrogant stun-gun manufacturer is over.

A San Jose, California, jury yesterday said Taser had failed to warn police in Salinas, California, that prolonged exposure to electric shock from the device could cause a risk of cardiac arrest. The jury awarded $1 million in compensatory damages and $5.2 million in punitive damages to the estate of Robert Heston, 40, and his parents. The jury cleared the police officers of any liability.

...``I think Taser’s going to have to rethink its litigation strategy and its warning policies,’’ Burton said. The jury awarded $5 million in punitive damages to Heston’s parents and $200,000 in punitives to his estate.

Heston died on Feb. 20, 2005, after his father had called Salinas police because his son was ``acting strangely,’’ and seemed to be on drugs, according to the lawsuit complaint. Salinas police shot Heston multiple times with the stun-gun, continuing to discharge their Tasers into him until he stopped moving, the lawsuit claims.

Heston went into cardiac arrest and died, his family said.

Taser International had boasted that it had never lost a lawsuit. This verdict may be a change in that tide. More after the jump.

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