 |
| Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli Photo via The Associated Press |
By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) APR 30 | The Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kenneth Cuccinelli, has fired the Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding for backing out of the DOMA cases. Cuccinelli who has previously publicly stated his opposition to "special rights for homosexuals" had written in a letter to Joseph Lynch in the firm's Washington, D.C. office earlier this past week:
"King & Spalding's willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives."
He added that "Virginia seeks firms of committment, courage, strength and toughness, and unfortunately, what the world has learned of King & Spalding, is that your firm utterly lacks such qualities."
Cuccinelli told reporters he acted because;
"Virginia does not shy away from hiring outside counsel because they may have ongoing professional relationships with people or entities, or on behalf of causes that I, or my office, or Virginia as a whole may not support. But it is crucial for us to be able to trust and rely on the fact that our outside counsel will not desert Virginia due to pressure by an outside group or groups."
Chuck Anziulewicz, an LGBTQ Activist, a part-time commentator for West Virginia Public Radio, and an AIDS Education specialist with the West Virginia Department of Health, after learning of Cuccinelli's letter, said:
"Perhaps the law firm of King & Spalding simply came to the realization that there was no point in defending something as transparently unconstitutional as the Defense of Marriage Act. WHY is DOMA unconstitutional?
A Straight couple legally married in Iowa is automatically entitled to 1,138 legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities according to the Government Accounting Office (GAO). Many of those benefits have to do with tax law, Social Security, inheritance rights, child custody, and so on. But because of DOMA, a Gay couple that is legally married in Iowa is still unrecognized by the federal government for those benefits.
Consider, also, the "Full Faith & Credit" clause of the Constitution. Because of this, any Straight couple can fly off to Las Vegas for drunken weekend, get married by an Elvis impersonator, and that marriage is automatically honored in all 50 states, and at all levels of government. But thanks to DOMA, a Gay couple that is legally married in Iowa becomes UN-married if they relocate south to Missouri.
The ONLY real difference between a married Gay couple and a married Straight couple is the gender of the two people who have made the commitment. It has nothing to do with procreation, since couples do not need a marriage license to make babies, nor is the ability or even desire to make babies a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license. So there is really no constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that married Straight couples have always taken for granted.
This cannot be accomplished in a piecemeal, state-by-state fashion; it is the FEDERAL government which, through its own actions, has made this a federal issue."
Posts
1 comments:
To be fair the while thing leaves King and Spaulding in a very interesting situation. They took the client on, allegedly without sufficient due diligence. They hogtied their own staff, many of who are gay rights proponents, with the contractual terms. They dropped the client, doubtless at some cost to themselves. Yet the nature of the hog-tie in the contract implies that thsi was signed off at senior level.
Clement was right to resign, whether that be on a point of principle or because he wanted to move elsewhere, when his client was unceremoniously ditched. The ditching has made the client look highly toxic, after all. To be fair it was a toxic case at best.
Losing Virginia as a client is no real political loss since it was done by Cuccinelli, but it is a loss for the firm. It is a win for LGBT rights, however.
But what I wonder is what the heck is going on inside this law firm and what the heck went on. We'll not know, of course, unless someone is unwise enough to let it slip.
Post a Comment