MSNBC Interviews Binational Gay Couple Facing Deportation

Maggie Gallagher On The HRC

"To anyone who has been at the forefront of the marriage fight, there is little new in the extraordinary effort to punish a whole law firm because HRC doesn't like its client. Gay marriage advocates have again and again used class networks of power to attack individuals, livelihoods and whole business enterprises to make support for marriage so expensive that they can effectively silence opposition to their views. But this time it happened in full public view.

"In a truly Orwellian statement, HRC President Joe Solmonese praised King and Spalding's decision to abandon a client under fire as an example of putting 'principle above politics.' Oh Joe, oh Joe. It's important for all of us to remember that life for ordinary gay people can still be difficult, even as a powerhouse gay movement flexes its cultural, financial and behind-the-scenes political power to repress the rights of others to organize, speak, donate and now hire a lawyer to defend marriage. One thing is clear: This is not a movement that needs extraordinary intervention by the courts to protect its rights." - NOM chairman Maggie Gallagher, writing for Yahoo News.

Tony Perkins Vs. Coca-Cola

Ever since King & Spalding dropped their DOMA cases, word has been that their top hometown client Coca-Cola had some role in convincing them to pull out. Yesterday FRC president Tony Perkins hinted that Coke may be next on their shitlist. Via press release:

While this form of corporate terrorism may have paid off temporarily, even the press is chiding HRC for its own intolerance toward the legal process. But that doesn't faze homosexual activists. They were all too eager to take credit for their campaign of intimidation. "We did all of this, and we're proud to have done it," Sainz bragged. According to the email traffic, King & Spalding "was starting to hear from companies that... they might have to rethink their relationship with [the firm]."

Rumors are flying that one of those companies was Coca Cola. People closest to the story are suggesting that the soda king did most of the arm-twisting. "Sources... confirm that one of King & Spalding's top clients, Coca Cola, also based in Atlanta, directly intervened to press the firm to extricate itself from the case." A spokesman for the company refused to comment. But if the allegations are true, I guarantee that FRC won't hesitate to!

Pat Robertson Goes Off On DOMA

Tony Perkins: Gay Activists Are Cowards

"The people who avoid a debate are the ones afraid of losing. That's why the groups like GetEQUAL and others are forming what is basically a mobile protest unit. Yesterday, its activists rallied outside the offices of King & Spalding--only to learn that its attorneys had bailed on the case. So what did they do? Hopped in the car, drove across town to Paul Clement's new firm, and started demonstrating there. 'I think Bancroft PPLC just bought itself a world of pain,' wrote one blogger. 'Go get them!!!' As far as they're concerned, the Constitution doesn't decide who gets lawyers--homosexuals do. FRC's Peter Sprigg was on target in a message he tweeted earlier today: Being falsely accused of bigotry may not be as bad as proving beyond all doubt that you're a coward!" - Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, via press release.

Focus On The Family On King & Spalding

With side attacks on the president and Vaughn Walker.

Andrew Sullivan On King & Spaulding

"To put pressure on lawyers defending clients or laws because lobby groups don't like them is deeply illiberal. It remains disgusting, for example, that rightwing groups targeted lawyers defending terror suspects and Gitmo prisoners. When the far right did this, it was despicable. Now that the left is doing it, it remains just as despicable.

"Memo to the gay rights leadership: the ends do not justify the means. Let DOMA have the most robust defense it can possibly muster and let us argue just as passionately for its unconstitutionality. When civil rights groups bully, they lose the moral high-ground. When you have men like David Brock leading the charge - and there are no means he has ever eschewed to achieve his ends - the danger is that we prove the far right's point. We must be better than them." - Andrew Sullivan, writing for Daily Beast.

GOP Praises Paul Clement, Disses King & Spalding Over DOMA Withdrawal

"I want to express my gratitude to former Solicitor General Clement. I admire his unwavering commitment to his clients and his dedication to uphold the law – qualities that appear to be inconsequential at King and Spalding where politics and profit now appear to come first. King and Spalding’s cut and run approach is inexcusable and an insult to the legal profession. Less than one week after the contract was approved engaging the firm, they buckled under political pressure and bailed with little regard for their ethical and legal obligations. Fortunately, Clement does not share the same principles. I’m confident that with him at the helm, we will fight to ensure the courts – not the President – determine DOMA’s constitutionality." - Rep. Dan Lungren, chairman of the House Republicans Study Committee.

Paul Clement Quits King & Spalding To Continue House DOMA Defense

Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement has resigned from King & Spalding in order to continue as the GOP's defense attorney in the House DOMA battle. Earlier today Clement's now-former employers announced their withdrawal from the cases.

"I resign out of the firmly held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters. Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do," Clement wrote to King & Spalding chairman Robert Hays. "I recognized from the outset that this statute implicates very sensitive issues that prompt strong views on both sides. But having undertaken the representation, I believe there is no honorable course for me but to complete it."

Read Clement's full resignation letter. (PDF)

BREAKING: Law Firm King & Spalding Backs Out Of House DOMA Defense

No confirmation is yet available, but the above HuffPo tweet is blowing up on Twitter right now. If true, stand by for NOM to get the vapors.

UPDATE: Politico confirms the story. King & Spalding has issued the below statement.

Today the firm filed a motion to withdraw from its engagement to represent the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives on the constitutional issues regarding Section III of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Last week we worked diligently through the process required for withdrawal. In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate. Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.

Stand by for the screaming outrage! I can't wait!

UPDATE II: The Human Rights Campaign reacts.

“King & Spalding has rightly chosen to put principle above politics in dropping its involvement in the defense of this discriminatory and patently unconstitutional law. We are pleased to see the firm has decided to stand on the right side of history and remain true to its core values. Speaker Boehner is likely to pursue continued defense of this odious law. However, law firms that value LGBT equality should remain committed to those values.”

UPDATE III: Lambda Legal's Jon Davidson reacts.

"Today, we learned once again that it is a bad idea to defend antigay bias and discrimination in court, and fewer and fewer people are willing to do it. We welcome the news that the law firm, King and Spalding, has decided to withdraw from the engagement to represent House leadership in defending DOMA. We were very surprised and disappointed when King and Spalding accepted this assignment, because they have been supporters of LGBT equality in the past. We thought we might have to face them in court as adversaries in our case, Golinski v. OPM - and we were ready to do that. But I guess their sense of justice got the better of them - and that's good news for all of us. Some attorney will no doubt accept this job and defend DOMA in court on behalf of the House leaders - that's the way the legal system works. We're just glad it is not a law firm that has shown respect and support for their own LGBT attorneys, for our community and for our fight for equality. We welcome the firm back to the right side of history."

Maggie Gallagher's Pissed At The HRC

"Is everyone entitled to a lawyer? Not in HRC's eyes. HRC is openly attempting to hurt an entire law firm, because one of its lawyers took on a client HRC does not like: the House's defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. This kind of thing has been done behind the scenes many times--the use of class power behind the scenes to punish those who disagree with HRC on marriage. (I just spoke to the wife of a litigator in San Francisco who lost his job--was denied a partnership--because he donated to Prop 8.) But this is even worse, and very public: the attempt to punish an entire business enterprise because a lawyer defends what is in HRC's eyes an unpopular client. Will the legal culture permit HRC to tell it who can hire a lawyer? We'll see." - Maggie Gallagher, writing for NOM's blog.

View the HRC's campaign against King & Spalding.

Matt Baume: Marriage News Watch

Richard Socarides On DOMA Battle

Hate Groups Unite On DOMA Letter Campaign To Congress

In a partnership with World Net Daily, Pastor Ken Hutcherson is spearheading a letter campaign to Congress demanding that legislators "leave the 5000 year-old definition of marriage alone." For the low, low price of $29.95, enemies of equality can send the letter to every legislator.

Now there is a way to fight back. It’s an innovative, high-tech, grass-roots lobbying campaign called “TIME TO DEFEND MARRIAGE: The Genesis 2:24 Campaign.” Supported by the Family Research Council, Dr. James Dobson, Gary Bauer and dozens of high-profile Christian leaders throughout the country, headed by Ken Hutcherson, pastor of the Antioch Bible Church in Washington state. It’s a project of a new coalition called “The Initiative for Moral Excellence” – or TIME. The campaign allows you to lobby all 535 members of Congress to fight legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, a piece of legislation defining marriage as an institution between one man and one woman and signed by President Clinton into law. Nothing short of a complete repudiation of those legal attacks on the law will save marriage in America. By participating in this campaign, you can send copies of the letter below to all 535 members of Congress for one low price of $29.95 – far less than postage alone would cost you if you tried to do it yourself.

WND is selling the letter in their "superstore," where you can also buy "survival seeds" to live through the coming apocalypse.

GOP Contract Bars King & Spalding Staffers From Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

Over at Metro Weekly, Chris Geidner unearths an interesting stipulation in the GOP's contract with King & Spalding, the legal firm hired to defend DOMA.

All of King & Spalding's employees – lawyers and non-lawyers – are barred from advocating for the Respect for Marriage Act – the bill that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act – in the 112th Congress, according to the terms of the contract to defend DOMA that King & Spalding partner Paul Clement signed on the firm's behalf on April 14. The contract, which was entered into with U.S. House of Representatives General Counsel Kerry Kircher on behalf of the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to defend DOMA in court, contains a provision that prohibits all King & Spalding attorneys and non-attorney employees from any advocacy to "alter or amend" DOMA.

HRC's Fred Sainz: "This particular provision adds insult to injury. Not only is K&S promoting discrimination, they also are muzzling their own employees from opposing discrimination and doing what's right."

RELATED: As I noted here last week, King & Spalding last year earned a 95% positive rating from the Human Rights Campaign and trumpets their devotion to LGBT equality on their corporate website.

Maggie Praises GOP's DOMA Team

"Paul Clement is one of the ablest litigators in the country, whose seven years acting as solicitor general is the longest period of continuous service since the 19th century. The solicitor general's job is arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Clement has argued more than 50 such cases. As a friend of mine, himself an able litigator, put it: "He's the best. Boehner could not have made a better choice." And so, thanks to Boehner, Obama's plan to sabotage DOMA's defense has backfired. For the first time since Obama became president, we will have a legal eagle in the courtroom defending DOMA who actually wants to win the case." - Maggie Gallagher, writing for Real Clear Politics.

Expat Glenn Greenwald On UAFA

Today MNBC interviewed Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald about the pending Uniting American Families Act. Greenwald was forced to emigrate to Brazil in order to stay with his partner.

DOMA Repeal To Advance In Senate

Responding to pressure from the Courage Campaign, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has agreed to become the tenth and final vote needed to advance the bill to repeal DOMA out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. While the repeal effort has a reasonable chance of success in the Senate, it is, of course, doomed in the GOP-dominated House.

Quote Of The Day - Tony Perkins

"I was somewhat amused when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had just spent the last four years adding trillions to the deficit, said the U.S. Congress couldn't afford to retain lawyers to defend DOMA now that President Obama's DOJ surrendered to their liberal base on the issue. On the heels of the news that Congress will add another DOMA challenge suit to their caseload, this time a challenge in New York State, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) today sent a letter to Pelosi regarding the House's intent to protect taxpayers.

"He writes: 'The burden of defending DOMA, and the resulting costs associated with any litigation that would have otherwise been born by DOJ, has fallen to the House. Obviously, DOJ's decision results in DOJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA. It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DOJ, defending DOMA.' The Speaker's solution is both simple and effective. We've seen no reply from the newly fiscally aware Rep. Pelosi. I applaud the Speaker for taking the right steps to defend the laws of this nation." - Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, via press release.

$500,000 To Defend DOMA

According to a press release from the Human Rights Campaign, the GOP's contract with the law firm hired to defend DOMA stipulates a maximum payment of $500,000. Oh, but it could be more.

In order to defend discrimination by any means necessary, House Republican leaders have contracted with the law firm King & Spalding at the rate of $520 an hour to argue that they’re right to deny recognition to legally married couples, according to the contract made public today. The document caps the cost at $500,000 but can easily be increased upon further negotiations with the firm. “DOMA inflicts a great cost on same-sex couples but now its defense is burdening taxpayers to the tune of $520 per hour,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “The firm of King & Spalding and their attorney Paul Clement should be ashamed at every penny earned in trying to justify discrimination against American families.” There are currently at least nine cases challenging the constitutionality of section 3 of DOMA which bars federal recognition of marriages between same-sex couples. If the House were to intervene in all nine that would mean less than 100 billable hours would be spent per case in order to hit the $500,000 cap.

Where are the jobs?