Homosexual Activist Bullies Lose: Attorney Paul Clement Will Defend Marriage

The bullying of the Homosexual Equivalency Activists did not succeed.

The effort to force Paul Clement to withdraw from legal representation in defense of Marriage is one more manifestation of the growth of bullying in our culture. Only this variety does not receive much attention in the main stream media. It is the bullying of the Homosexual Equivalency Activists.

P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Those who are concerned about the decline of western culture will mark April 26, 2011 as an important day. Why do I say that? Because the Homosexual Equivalency Activist Bullies were not able to stop a well qualified lawyer from defending marriage - and the family and society founded upon it-  against attacks in Court - even though they tried.

On February 23, 2011, President Barack Obama ordered the US Justice Department to stop defending marriage. The Attorney General sent a five-page letter simply announcing the President's decision to the Congress. Government has long regulated marriage for the common good and the President's action was without any basis in law and a threat to the common good. Fifteen years ago Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act. It was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996.

The President's Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that the President has always opposed the Defense of Marriage Act but that personally he is "still wrestling" with his view on "gay marriage."  In 2008 candidate Obama said, "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian it is also a sacred union. God's in the mix." This was only one example of the sophistry which characterized his approach to fundamental moral and human rights issues. Here is the game plan he has followed in office: make defending life and marriage sound "religious" and then argue that "religious" positions have no place in public policy.

However, marriage is not simply a "religious" construct.  The Natural Law reveals - and the cross cultural history of civilization affirms - that marriage is between a man and a woman, open to children and  intended for life. Marriage is the foundation for the family which is the privileged place for the formation of virtue and character in children, our future citizens. The family is the first society, first economy, first school, first civilizing and mediating institution and first government.

Shortly after the Administration unilaterally announced they would not defend marriage House Speaker John Boehner announced the House of Representatives would. They retained the former Solicitor General of the United States, Paul Clement. Among his numerous credentials, he has argued fifty cases before the US Supreme Court. Paul Clement returned to the powerhouse Washington DC Law Firm "King and Spaulding" after his service as Solicitor General in the Bush Administration. He was appointed to head their national appellate practice in Washington, D.C.

Opponents of Marriage, the strongest among them the Human Rights Campaign, were livid. They thought their effort to force a legal equivalency in the positive law between homosexual relationships and real marriage had succeeded. After all, they had persuaded the Obama Administration to not defend the law of the land. They have the media using their Orwellian newspeak and they have reframed the debate to make themselves the ones pushing for "marriage equality" when they are in reality promoting the demise of marriage and the family and society founded upon it.

Now, a well qualified lawyer with the resources of a top firm behind him was going to defend true marriage. Joe Solmonese, the President of the Human Rights Campaign scolded House Republicans for "defending the indefensible". By that he meant real marriage, you know the kind between a man and a woman. He complained that Speaker Boehner "appears ready to go to great lengths, and the great expense of a high-power law firm, to try to score some cheap political points on the backs of same-sex couples."

His anger then turned toward the law firm, "King & Spaulding were not required to take up this defense and should be ashamed of associating themselves with an effort to deny rights to their fellow citizens. With such a high-priced lawyer, it's no wonder the Speaker is grasping at straws in order to justify spending taxpayer money on defending discrimination. Next he'll probably call for slashing Education Department funding because kids might learn it's unconstitutional to discriminate against certain groups of people."

On Tuesday, April 26, 2011 King and Spaulding caved and withdrew from representation. They used the kind of "lawyerspeak" mega firms use when they do not want to admit that they were worried about losing some of their moneyed clients. They noted "the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate." Just when Joe Solmonese once again thought he had succeeded in his bullying efforts, Paul Clement resigned from King and Spaulding. 

He said in his resignation letter "I take this step not because of strongly held views about this statute. Instead, 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 decisions is what lawyers do." He was immediately picked up by Bancroft PLLC, a small firm in Washington, D.C., in a lateral move. He is a partner in the firm. 

Joe Solmonese kept spinning. He told the Press that the Human Rights Campaign was "pleased to see the firm (King & Spalding) has decided to stand on the right side of history and remain true to its core values." In response Paul Clement said that "the surest way to be on the wrong side of history is to abandon a client in the face of hostile criticism."

The Human Rights Campaign describes itself as "America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality." They are well-funded and committed to a cultural and social revolution. They advocate what I call the "Homosexual Equivalency Movement". Homosexual equivalency activists insist that all Americans recognize a legal equivalency between true marriages and cohabitating practicing homosexuals or face legal punitive consequences. The Human Rights Campaign uses the Courts and the legislature to force this new America on all of us. They now have the support of the Executive Branch of the Government.

The effort to equate how one engages in non-marital sexual acts with a member of the same sex to being a member of a particular race or gender (thereby making practicing homosexuals a "protected class" for civil rights purposes) is legally and socially dangerous. One is a status; the other involves a behavior and a lifestyle. To restrict marriage to heterosexual couples is not discriminatory. Homosexual couples cannot bring into existence what marriage intends by its very definition.

In his apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Charity, Pope Benedict summarized the duty of the Catholic faithful when confronted with this assault on authentic marriage:  "Marriage and the family are institutions that must be promoted and defended from every possible misrepresentation of their true nature, since whatever is injurious to them is injurious to society itself."

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church wrote in 2003, "The Church's teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose.

"No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives."

Government has long regulated marriage for the common good. For example, the ban on polygamy and age requirements were enforced in order to ensure that there was a mature decision at the basis of the Marriage contract. Heterosexual marriage, procreation, and the nurturing of children form the foundation for family and civil society.

The leaders of the homosexual equivalency movement are activists committed to what they believe is a better future; a future where homosexual sexual practices are considered morally equivalent to the sexual expression of marital love between a man and a women. A future where the positive law of the nation will force us all to call to be a marriage what can never be a marriage - or face the police power of the State.

In the brave new world of their making there are no givens, including being male or female. "Gender" will soon be "chosen" by the person like a coat and there will be a legal "right" to that choice. The Human Rights campaign calls this "gender identity and expression". They call it a "right" and insist everyone recognize it. That is what "transgender rights" is all about. Make no mistake, they are following a strategy which has the restructuring of the culture and society as its goal.

This argument is now being used in States which passed "civil union" legislation. The activists are advancing a legal theory in the United Kingdom. It will soon arive on our shores. I wrote concerning this strategy in a 2010 article entitled "Segregation According to Sexuality? Legal Strategy to Force Homosexual 'Marriage" 
 
The effort to force Paul Clement to withdraw from legal representation is one more manifestation of the growth of bullying in our culture. Only this variety does not receive much attention in the main stream media. It is the bullying of the Homosexual Equivalency Activists and it did not succeed.

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