Of particular significance is the fact that the court determined that sexual orientation is a suspect classification that requires strict scrutinty of the restrictive statutes. This is, I believe, a first and will have broad immplications in California and perhaps beyond.

-- dplawyer

I took note of that, too. I almost think it's more significant than the main holding, if only for California's purposes.

As for federal law, I had a law professor who used to call the failure of the Supreme Court to designate homosexuals as a suspect class the "gay exception to the Constitution." I wonder how, in light of all the kerfuffle, the same people who are so angry about this decision can also try to claim that homosexuals aren't a "discrete and insular minority."

Since since all of you will no longer donate to Obama I just hit the $250 button again and got 20-30 friends to do the same. I convinced them to donate by sending them to Glenn's blog & salon to read the anti Obama blogs.

-- bernbart

In other words, you've adopted the Sanjaya strategy of Presidential elections?

Congrats to Arne. Loved the pictures!

--Kristin (with an "i")

Do they teach Constitutional Civics in school anymore? When I was in High Scool in the seventies, they wouldn't let you graduate until you had taken and passed a "Constitution Test" I seem to remember having to pass an easier version in 8th grade as well. Did they discontinue that practice? If so, when?

I graduated in '95. My father was my government teacher, so I got a great education (I'm obviously biased, but he is extremely well-read and he focused a lot on these issues while still trying to stay with required curriculum - not easy), BUT the class was only a semester. The second semester was economics.

I work in education now, and government is still taught to seniors in California, but I don't believe there's a Constitution test for high school students (I took one in 8th grade, also). And, the new standardized high school exit exam in California as only math and language arts.

My father recently retired, and one of the reasons was kids not giving a rat's behind about Constitutional issues and governance. While education is a mess, particularly in California, some amount of the problem is the students and not what's being taught.

"A military judge says some statements by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, were made in 'highly coercive' settings. It could set a standard for other cases."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-hamdan22-2008jul22,0,2649154.story

Excellent work, Glenn! And, for his part, Sunstein said absolutely nothing. My favorite quotes were when he talked about whether we should "criminalize crime" and this one:

"Congress is our national lawmaker, and there are processes there that could have a bipartisan quality. There are also commissions that can be created, commissions that can try to figure out what’s happened, what’s gone wrong and how can we make this better."

Sure. Congress makes laws, the President violates them, and Congress goes back in and retroactively removes the laws. And, commissions? Is he serious? That's how we're supposed to stop a lawless and renegade Executive Branch? Might as well use silly putty to stop a levy break.

After reading the comments to your piece on the Blue Dogs, I know why I generally only read the comments to your blog, and leave the rest of the Salon commenters to their devices.

Good to know that exercising one's rights in a democratic society makes one a "brownshirt." And that having leaders in Congress who ignore the Constitution merely creates "diversity." For one to ask Congress not to march lockstep with the Republican Monarchy is ignoring the Democrats' "big tent" philosophy. That suggesting political consequences for those who do not represent their constituents is the equivalent of lining them up against a wall and shooting them. The rhetoric is unbelievable! No wonder we're in this mess.

The road to getting the Democrats in line is going to be a lot longer and tougher than I thought.

What is up with this "big tent" nonsense as an argument here? I don't think that was ever supposed to include those who don't uphold the Constitution or the rule of law. That's not the kind of diversity the Democratic party is looking for, but those are the kind of people Glenn is talking about.

But, if being a big tent party means that every crappy legislator without a spine who refuses to do his/her job and kowtows to rampant abuses of power by one of the worst Presidents in our history, then I'm glad I'm not a Democrat anymore!

I know you feel sorry for yourself

Glenn makes a big point of not trying to read motives into what people do without evidence for those motives. We should all follow his example.

Sure, he's mocking some idiotic arguments. IMO, they deserved mocking. But, there was an important point made, too. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that people will hold on to their party loyalty in the most absurd and overdramatic ways, at the cost of looking like complete morons is all the more reason to fight the party establishment.

I just was going to post the same thing as Glenn and Frankly, My Dear...

You were right, Kitt! This was a case of something I just learned about. Hypercorrection: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/h.html#hypercorrection.

Go figure. Okay, back to talk of Stalinst purges and big tents!