U.S. state lawyers don't have to defend gay marriage bans: Holder

BY ERIC M. JOHNSON

Tue Feb 25, 2014 3:52am EST

0 COMMENTS

• inShare1
• Share this
• Email
• Print

United States Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during the Human Rights Campaign's 13th annual Greater New York Gala in the Manhattan borough of New York, February 8, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/KEITH BEDFORD

(Reuters) - The United States' top law enforcement official has launched into the divisive gay marriage debate by telling a newspaper his state counterparts do not have to defend laws and bans in court that they think are discriminatory.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's comments to the New York Times came after at least five state lawyers, all of them Democrats, came under fire for refusing to try and defeat legal challenges to bars on same-sex unions in their areas.

Some Republicans and campaigners against gay marriage have criticized the stands taken by the state-level attorneys general, saying they have a duty to defend state law, whether they agree with the policy or not.

But Holder, the nation's first black attorney general who has called gay rights one of "the defining civil rights challenges of our time", drew parallels with legal fights over the racial integration of schools in the 1950s.

"If I were attorney general in Kansas in 1953, I would not have defended a Kansas statute that put in place separate-but-equal facilities," Holder said in an interview published on Monday.

Gay couples and rights supporters have launched a series of legal challenges to bans in federal and state courts in recent months following two key decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

Attorneys general should base their decision on whether to defend their states in such cases, not on politics, but on questions of guarantees under the U.S. Constitution, such as equal protection of the law, Holder added.

"Engaging in that process and making that determination is something that's appropriate for an attorney general to do," Holder told the New York Times.

A decade ago, only one state was preparing to allow same-sex marriages.

Now around 17 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex nuptials in a movement that has gained momentum since the nation's top court ruled in June that legally married same-sex couples were eligible for federal benefits.

Attorneys general in states such as Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Virginia, have said they would not defend gay marriage bans.

Their refusals have not led to the automatic overturning of the bans. In Oregon, for example, the ban stood as it was enshrined in the constitution.

Federal judges have ruled gay marriage bans unconstitutional in Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia, but the decisions have been stayed pending appeal.

Holder's view drew opposition from a Republican attorney general, the New York Times reported.

Holder also said he had not reviewed a bill passed by Arizona lawmakers this month allowing businesses to refuse service to customers on religious grounds - which critics decried as anti-gay - but that if it is signed into law it would likely face fast legal challenges.

Arizona's attorney general would have to decide whether to defend it.

Band members beaten in Sochi on cam

Band members beaten in Sochi on cam

Uganda president: Homosexuals are 'disgusting'

By Elizabeth Landau. Zain Verjee and Antonia Mortensen, CNN

updated 1:44 AM EST, Tue February 25, 2014

Ugandan President: Being gay not a right

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: People who perform same-sex marriages could face up to seven years in prison
• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-homosexuality bill Monday
• The White House says Museveni took his country a "step backward"
• Museveni changed positions on the bill several times before signing it

(CNN) -- President Yoweri Museveni, who made anti-homosexuality laws in Uganda much tougher Monday, told CNN in an exclusive interview that sexual behavior is a matter of choice and gay people are "disgusting."

After signing the bill that made some homosexual acts punishable by life in prison, Museveni told CNN's Zain Verjee that, in his view, being homosexual is "unnatural" and not a human right.

READ: How Museveni and Verjee clashed

"They're disgusting. What sort of people are they?" he said. "I never knew what they were doing. I've been told recently that what they do is terrible. Disgusting. But I was ready to ignore that if there was proof that that's how he is born, abnormal. But now the proof is not there."

Museveni had commissioned a group of Ugandan government scientists to study whether homosexuality is "learned," concluding that it is a matter of choice.

"I was regarding it as an inborn problem," he said. "Genetic distortion -- that was my argument. But now our scientists have knocked this one out."

Dean Hamer, scientist emeritus at the National Institutes of Health,wrote an open letter to the Ugandan scientists in the New York Times last week urging them to reconsider and revise their report. Among his responses to their conclusions: "There is no scientific evidence that homosexual orientation is a learned behavior any more than is heterosexual orientation."

Gay Ugandans committing suicide

Ugandan pres. rejects Western criticism

Museveni, whose public position on the measure changed several times, signed the bill into law at a public event Monday. The bill was introduced in 2009 and originally included a death penalty clause for some homosexual acts.

The nation's Parliament passed the bill in December, replacing the death penalty provision with a proposal of life in prison for "aggravated homosexuality." This includes acts in which one person is infected with HIV, "serial offenders" and sex with minors, according to Amnesty International.

The new law also includes punishment -- up to seven years in prison -- for people and institutions who perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, language that was not in the 2009 version of the bill.

Lawmakers in the conservative nation said the influence of Western lifestyles risked destroying family units.

The bill also proposed prison terms for anyone who counsels or reaches out to gays and lesbians, a provision that could ensnare rights groups and others providing services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The White House issued a statement Monday: "Instead of standing on the side of freedom, justice, and equal rights for its people, today, regrettably, Ugandan President Museveni took Uganda a step backward by signing into law legislation criminalizing homosexuality."

The statement continued: "As President Obama has said, this law is more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda, it reflects poorly on the country's commitment to protecting the human rights of its people and will undermine public health, including efforts to fight HIV/AIDS. We will continue to urge the Ugandan government to repeal this abhorrent law and to advocate for the protection of the universal human rights of LGBT persons in Uganda and around the world."

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also denounced the law, saying it institutionalizes discrimination and could promote harassment and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

"This law violates a host of fundamental human rights, including the right to freedom from discrimination, to privacy, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion and expression and equality before the law -- all of which are enshrined in Uganda's own constitution and in the international treaties it has ratified," Pillay said in a statement.

Uganda's President Museveni signs controversial anti-gay bill into law

Museveni also told CNN that the West should not force its beliefs onto Ugandans.

"Respect African societies and their values," he said. "If you don't agree, just keep quiet. Let us manage our society, then we will see. If we are wrong, we shall find out by ourselves, just the way we don't interfere with yours."

He also said Westerners brought homosexuality to his country, corrupting society by teaching Ugandans about homosexuality. The West has also helped make children at schools homosexual by funding groups that spread homosexuality, he said.

Attitudes against homosexuality are prevalent in Uganda. A 2013 report from Pew Research found that 96% of Ugandans believe society should not accept homosexuality.

Thirty-eight African countries have made homosexuality illegal. Most sodomy laws there were introduced during colonialism.

Even before Museveni signed the bill into law, homosexual acts were punishable by 14 years to life in prison.

Ugandan gay rights activist Pepe Julian Onziema told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that some gay people in Uganda would rather kill themselves than live under the new law.

"Prior to the bill becoming law today, people attempted suicide because they are like, 'I'm not going to live to see this country kill me -- so I would rather take my life.' "

Many have already left the country in fear of violence, Onziema said, and among those who stay, many are stopping their activism.

Onziema, however, says he is not afraid. He says he won't let the law take away his voice.

Some gay Ugandans would rather die than live under new law

Governor of Arizona Is Pressed to Veto Bill

By FERNANDA SANTOSFEB. 24, 2014

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

PHOENIX — As the Arizona Legislature sent a bill to her desk Monday that would grant business owners the right to invoke religion to refuse service to gays and others, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, faced pressure from many corners to veto the measure, which has cast unwanted national attention on Arizona.

Elected officials, civic leaders and business groups spoke out publicly against the measure, which passed both houses of the Legislature on Thursday.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED IN OPINION

• Editorial: A License to DiscriminateFEB. 24, 2014

On Twitter, Arizona’s United States senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, also Republicans, had nearly identical posts, with both of them saying they hoped Ms. Brewer would veto the bill. An executive from Apple Inc., which plans to build a big manufacturing plant in Mesa, called Ms. Brewer to urge her to reject it, and W. Douglas Parker, chairman and chief executive of American Airlines, sent her a letter citing the state’s “economic comeback” and saying, “There is genuine concern throughout the business community that this bill, if signed into law, would jeopardize all that has been accomplished so far.”

Their calls were echoed by three Republican state senators — Adam Driggs, Steve Pierce and Bob Worsley, all members of the party’s conservative camp — who had helped pass the legislation in the first place. “While our sincere intent in voting for this bill was to create a shield for all citizens’ religious liberties, the bill has instead been mischaracterized by its opponents as a sword of religious intolerance,” the senators said in a letter to Ms. Brewer, adding that the matter was “causing our state immeasurable harm.”

The bill’s remaining supporters took to the airwaves and the Internet to defend it. Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, an architect of the bill, issued a news release calling attacks on the legislation “politics at its absolute worse,” and saying, “Instead of having an honest discussion about the true meaning of religious liberty, opponents of the bill have hijacked this discussion through lies, personal attacks, and irresponsible reporting.”

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

• 

  Religious Right in Arizona Cheers Bill Allowing Businesses to Refuse to Serve GaysFEB. 21, 2014

• Bill Viewed as Anti-Gay Is Passed in ArizonaFEB. 20, 2014

Ms. Brewer was in Washington on Monday but was scheduled to return Tuesday to Phoenix, where she will have until the end of the week to act on the bill. Her spokesman, Andrew Wilder, suggested that she would not take that long, but he would not say what she was inclined to do.

The religion bill comes as Arizona prepares to host the Super Bowl next year and struggles to regain its economic vitality. From Washington on Monday, Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, a Democrat, told Ronan Farrow of MSNBC that if Ms. Brewer signs the measure, “the N.F.L. may be looking, or maybe should be looking, to move the Super Bowl out of the state.”

And Barry Broome, president and chief executive of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, said that leaders of four companies looking to relocate to Arizona had put his organization on notice, saying they might reconsider if the bill became law. The state’s image is still scarred by a divisive immigration law passed in 2010, which gave police officers the ability to stop people whom they suspected of being in the country illegally, and triggered widespread boycotts.

Among the Republicans vying to succeed Ms. Brewer, who cannot run for re-election because of term limits, there was broad consensus against the measure, which would expand the state’s definition of “exercise of religion” to protect businesses and citizens from lawsuits after denying services on religious grounds.

One candidate, Scott Smith, the mayor of Mesa, who is a Mormon, said that the bill “gives carte blanche for anybody to discriminate under the guise of religion.” Another candidate, Doug Ducey, the state treasurer, qualified his view, saying that he would veto the bill but then “bring together all the interested parties before this legislative session adjourns to forge consensus on acceptable language protecting religious liberty.”

Mr. Wilder, the governor’s spokesman, said Ms. Brewer’s office had received more than 10,000 calls and emails on the matter as of Monday morning.

Meteorite smashes into moon in largest lunar impact ever recorded

Rock travelling at 61,000 km/h punched a crater 40 metres wide and produced a flash that could be seen from Earthl

• Ian Sample, science correspondent
• The Guardian, Monday 24 February 2014 11.24 EST
• Jump to comments (260)

Link to video: Meteorite hits moon in largest lunar impact ever recorded

Astronomers have captured the moment a lump of rock slammed into the moon with so much force that the bright flash could be seen from Earth with the naked eye.

The 400kg (63st) meteorite, travelling at 61,000 km/h (40,000 mph), punched a fresh crater on the moon's surface some 40 metres wide in what is thought to be the largest lunar impact ever recorded.

The rock, which was about a metre in diameter, ploughed into an ancient lava-filled basin called the Mare Nubium, producing a flash almost as intense as the Pole Star that took more than eight seconds to fade.

The impact energy was equivalent to 15 tonnes of TNT – at least three times as great as that from the previous record-holding lunar impact, observed by Nasa in March last year.

The flash was picked up by two telescopes in Spain's Midas observatory. Photograph: J Madiedo/Midas

The event was recorded by Spanish telescopes that monitor the moon under a project called Midas (Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System). The flash was picked up at 8.07pm GMT by two telescopes in Seville, southern Spain. Both were peering at the unlit side of the moon where the bright flickers from impacts are easier to spot.

Unlike Earth, the moon has no atmosphere to protect it from incoming meteorites, so the surface is pocked with craters. The rock would have swiftly burned up in the Earth's atmosphere long before it reached the ground.

Details are published in the latest Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Astronomer Jose Madiedo, who leads the Midas project at the University of Huelva, saw footage of the strike soon after the telescopes' software had processed the impact on 11 September 2013. "When I saw it on the screen I realised I had witnessed a rare and unusual event. It was really huge. I couldn't imagine such a bright event," he said. "We image a lot of impacts on the moon, but they're caused by very small rocks. They can be the size of a nut, and just a few grammes, and go up to 1kg. But this event was really impressive and very rare," he said.

The telescopes capture scores of much smaller lunar impacts every day. The smallest rocks the telescopes can see weigh only a few grammes and hit the lunar surface every three hours or so.

The telescopes spot impacts from the tiny flashes of light produced as the rocks are vaporised in the intense temperature of the collision. The flashes usually last just a fraction of a second, but the flash from the 11 September impact lasted longer than any seen before.

By observing the moon, Madiedo hopes to learn more about threats to Earth. "We are very close neighbours.

What happens on the moon can also happen on the Earth," he said. "This impact … shows that the rate of impacts on our planet for rocks of this size, around one metre in diameter, is about 10 times greater than we thought."

Few rocks this size would be a danger to people on Earth, because most would be completely destroyed as they burned up in the atmosphere. Though parts of very resistant rock might survive the intense heat of entry and reach the ground as small meteorites, they would not pose a serious threat, Madiedo said.

• This article was amended on Monday 24 February 2014 to correct the SI unit of the speed at which the meteorite was travelling.

Shrek theme park to open in London

DreamWorks to open attraction inspired by the series of hit animations about the green ogre, with a fifth film also mooted

• Peter Bradshaw on Shrek Forever After

• Ben Child
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 25 February 2014 03.46 EST
• Jump to comments (1)

Major attraction ... Shrek the ogre

Hollywood studio DreamWorks Animation will partner with the company behind the London Eye ferris wheel for a Shrek-themed attraction on the capital's South Bank.

Shrek's Far Far Away Adventure will be one of six similar sites across the globe. The attraction is due to open in summer 2015 and will celebrate the four-film animated fantasy saga about a grumpy green ogre that has so far taken more than $3.5bn at the worldwide box office, as well as other films from DreamWorks Animation.

"The 20,000-square-foot experience will be based on a brand-new adventure being written by the DreamWorks team," said the studio and partner Merlin in a statement. "It will feature a Shrek interactive walk-through adventure, a character courtyard where visitors will be able to meet Shrek and his swamp friends, along with characters from Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon."

The attraction will be installed at County Hall, near the London Eye, the London Sea Life Aquarium and the London Dungeon, all of which are owned by Merlin. The theme park operator is the largest company of its kind in Europe.

"We're excited to work with Merlin to build something that we think is going to be a singularly unique way to experience Shrek and his world," said DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. "This attraction is going to be unlike anything that currently exists and will undoubtedly become a new type of destination for families."

The London Shrek attraction will be the first to open, with a further five sites set to be built between now and 2023.

In a separate interview with the US Fox Business Network, Katzenberg said a fifth Shrek movie was also likely to hit the big screen in the future. "We like to let them have a little bit of time to rest," he said. "But I think you can be confident that we'll have another chapter in the Shrek series. We're not finished, and more importantly, neither is he."

The most recent Shrek film, Shrek Forever After, took $752m globally in 2010 despite lukewarm reviews.

• Stuart Heritage: why the last 10 minutes of Shrek 2 is cinematic genius

Sell UK visas to highest bidders, say government immigration advisers

Proposal to allow wealthy to bid for tier-one visas criticised as creating 'eBay culture' for British residence

• Alan Travis, home affairs editor
• The Guardian, Monday 24 February 2014
• Jump to comments (213)

Visas giving the right to settle in Britain are already available to rich individuals under tier one of the points-based immigration system. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

Visas giving the right to settle in Britain could be auctioned off to the highest bidders under proposals expected to be unveiled on Tuesday by the government's official immigration advisers.

The suggestion, expected from the home secretary's migration advisory committee (Mac), has already been criticised by immigration lawyers for creating an "eBay culture" for permanent UK residence.

Under the proposal overseas millionaires will be invited to bid for a limited proportion of investor or tier-one UK visas which allow holders and their families to live indefinitely in Britain.

A second option would allow visas to be "bought" through donations to hospitals or universities.

The proposals are expected to be put forward in response to concerns that the existing investor visa route is failing to benefit the UK and has simply become a cheap way for some wealthy Russian, Chinese and Middle Eastern families to settle permanently in Britain.

The existing route, known as tier one of the points-based immigration system, lets rich individuals accelerate the process of being allowed to settle in the UK by between two and five years depending on how much is invested.

Applications have been running at about 600 a year to apply under this route which does not require applicants to be able to speak English or have a job to come to.

Official concern over the use being made of tier-one visas first came to light in December 2012 when the Home Office announced that leveraged investment funds held in offshore accounts could not be used to fund their investments in Britain.

There has also been concern that the investments have been made have often been in government gilts or loans to the applicant's own businesses – neither of which are directly beneficial to the British economy.

Professor Sir David Metcalf, chairman of the migration advisory committee, has told MPs he thinks it is time to think more creatively about the operation of the investor visa route. "It may very well be that we should be auctioning some of these slots," he told the Commons home affairs select committee. "There should be a proper discussion about it. Equally it may well be that we should be letting people in if they endow a Cambridge college, a major teaching hospital or the London School of Economics with £10m," he added.

Nick Rollason, head of business immigration at the Kingsley Napley law firm has warned that an auction of investors' visas would create an "eBay culture" for visas that would leave a bad taste in the mouth of the British public.

Another leading immigration lawyer, Sophie Barrett-Brown of Laura Devine Solicitors, added: "An auction approach has, rightly, been rejected by the Home Office previously (when the points-based system was first introduced) and sent out the wrong message to the public."

She said that the alternative suggestions expected in the Mac report had to be seen in the context that it had been asked to provide an analysis and recommendations on the economic impact of tier-one investors: "The UK government will take into account wider policy considerations in deciding which of the migration advisory committee's suggestions to follow," she said.

TUE, 25 FEBRUARY 2014 AT 3:00 AM

Bella Thorne: 'Non-Stop' Premiere Pretty

Bella Thorne keeps it chic at the premiere of Non-Stop held at Regency Village Theatre on Monday night (February 24) in Westwood, Calif.
“Non-stop was a fun movie…everyone did great. You should see it!” the 16-year-old actress tweetedafter the screening.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics ofBella Thorne
The flick, starring Liam Neeson,Julianne Moore and Michelle Dockery, is about an air marshal who springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages that put his fellow passengers at risk unless the airline transfers $150 million into an off-shore account.
10+ pics inside of Bella Thorne…