Sunday Morning: Another Victory in Court

Sunday morning, a beautiful fall day -- was yesterday perfect, or what? I went out with my jacket on, and I think it's still in the back seat of the car, it came off immediately. This is Hawaiian shirt weather. It looks like election day will be nice, cloudy with a high of 63 degrees. Remember the primaries in February? It was freezing cold, sleet, turnout was low and the outcomes of the elections were probably affected by turnout. I suppose that's all part of the fun of it.

Hopefully you have studied your sample ballot and know how you want to vote. Just about everybody has had the experience of staring at a list of names for Judge or something, and not knowing who any of them are. Well, we've seen this year how much difference it makes who the judge is! Let's vote for the right people this time, from President to dog-catcher.

By the way, some regions are finding that if you vote for a straight ticket your vote for President will not be recorded. Check your votes carefully before you submit them.

Speaking of judges, the shower-nuts had filed a lawsuit, trying to get the new gender-identity nondiscrimination law stopped, and oral arguments were this past Friday. The Alliance Defense Fund is a rightwing legal group out of Arizona that filed the suit. Here's a bit from ADF's press release.

ROCKVILLE, Md. — Alliance Defense Fund Litigation Counsel Amy Smith and ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks will be available for media interviews following oral arguments in circuit court Friday in Bloem v. Montgomery County Board of Elections. Representing Montgomery County voters, ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit against the board for removing legislation from the ballot without notice to the petition sponsors. The suit also asks the court to stop enforcement of the legislation, which adds “gender identity” to the county’s anti-discrimination ordinances.

“A democratic government should not silence its people. The board had no legal authority to disenfranchise 900,000 county voters who have the right to voice their opinion on this controversial law,” said Smith. “The voters did exactly what the county told them to do, and are now being unjustly punished for it.” ADF attorneys available to media after hearing on Md. voters’ rights

Well, the news is that their lawyers were "available to media," but a quick search of Google indicates that no media took advantage of their availability.

The county's 900,000 voters have the chance every couple of years to decide what kind of people will enact new laws for the county. The County Council who voted unanimously for this new bill was elected fairly by the people, and the County Executive who signed it was elected fairly. That's how a representative democracy works.

It didn't take long for a judge to deny the temporary restraining order that ADF had asked for. The standard for awarding a temporary restraining order is that the plaintiff will suffer "irreparable harm" if the TRO isn’t granted. It is hard to imagine what irreparable harm the Alliance Defense Fund would suffer, or the Citizens for Responsible Whatever, for that matter, if they lost the right to discriminate against transgender people. Jonathan Shurberg, arguing for Equality Maryland, made the case that his clients would be irreparably harmed if discrimination were re-legalized.

I wasn't there, but reports are that the judge was very well informed about the history of this case, and repeatedly asked the ADF if they were trying to get him to overrule the Court of Appeals.

It's interesting that the first round of lawsuits was Equality Maryland suing the Board of Elections, and now ADF is suing the Board, with Equality Maryland signed on as intervenors -- they're on the same side as the Board now. By the way, word is that Jonathan Shurberg was in great form, as usual -- he was "crisp, organized, clear – just great," we were told.

As I hear it, the next step will be a motion by the plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction suspending the nondiscrimination law and ordering the referendum to go onto the 2010 ballot. The hearing is scheduled for January 30, together with the Board of Elections' and Equality Maryland's motion to dismiss the lawsuit altogether.

Okay, this will go one of two ways. If the shower-nuts are right, by 2010 it will be impossible for women to use a public restroom or shower anywhere in Montgomery County because all of them will be crowded with lurking perverts, pedophiles, and predators in dresses, waving their festering penises around and leering at the ladies. In that case, they probably won't need a referendum, the County Council will have seen what a tragic mistake they made, and will have changed the law already. If the shower-nuts are wrong, by 2010 people will have forgotten what the issue was supposed to have been in the first place, and transgender people will be able to find jobs and contribute fully to society.

WPFW is playing some pretty mellow jazz this morning. A fire hydrant up the street has been opened for some reason, and water is pouring down the gutter with robins jumping in and out of it, playing at the end of our driveway. There is something weird going on with my blood pressure the past couple of days, which worries me, and I'm keeping an eye on it. I see people are raking their yards, but my main front tree hasn't dropped its leaves yet, so I'm waiting. I usually have to rake twice in the fall, I don't want to do it three times, no matter how bad the neighbors make me look! We've got the windows open these days, the sun is shining weakly through a gap in the clouds, and I've got a honey-do list as long as my arm. One more cup of coffee and I'll get to it, maybe.