Tag Archives: DOMA

BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee approves Respect for Marriage Act

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein

The Senate Judiciary Committee today voted 10-8 to approve the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation pushed by supporters of marriage equality that would, in effect, repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA is the measure passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996 that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, even those performed in jurisdictions that does give them legal recognition.

Despite that sign of apparent progress, DOMA repeal is still a very long way from reality. According to FoxNews.com, the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., acknowledged that the votes are not there to get the Respect for Marriage Act passed by the full Senate. And in the House, ruled by Republicans that have insisted on defending DOMA in the courts despite President Barack Obama’s directive to the Justice Department against defending it, the measure likely wouldn’t even get a hearing.

Read more in Friday’s issue of Dallas Voice.

—  admin

Are political leaders really paying any attention?

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Sen. John Cornyn

Spend just a little time paying attention to the news coming out of Washington, D.C. — or any state capitol, or any city hall — and you’ll probably wonder, as I do, if anyone in the “halls of power” actually pays any attention to anything their constituents says — outside, of course, of the polls that tell them what they need to say to get re-elected.

Yesterday, Dallas Voice reader Ron Heath of Fort Worth reinforced my belief that the “leaders” don’t pay any attention when he forwarded to me an email he had received in response after writing to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, one of two Republicans that represent Texas in Congress.

Heath had written to his senator about DOMA — the Defense of Marriage Act. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against DOMA, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages in any way, including those same-sex marriages conducted in jurisdictions where they legally recognized. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama instructed the Department of Justice not to continue to defend portions of DOMA in court, after which Republicans in the House of Representatives promptly decided to hire their own lawyers and pay them to defend DOMA.

Also, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote today on the Respect for Marriage Act, which would effectively repeal DOMA and give legally married same-sex couples the federal benefits, privileges and responsibilities they have so far been denied.

Ron Heath was encouraging Sen. Cornyn to vote in favor of repealing DOMA. Sen. Cornyn, or whoever reads his correspondence, apparently wasn’t paying any attention. Read Cornyn’s response to Heath after the jump:

Continue reading “Are political leaders really paying any attention?” »

—  admin

Obama vows to ‘keep up the fight’ at HRC dinner in D.C.

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LISA KEEN  |  Keen News Service

Before going out to dinner with the First Lady to celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary, President Barack Obama dropped by the Human Rights Campaign’s annual national dinner to vow that he will “keep up the fight” to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and to stop bullying against LGBT youth.

Obama’s 17-minute speech on Saturday evening in Washington was greeted by the standing-room-only crowd of about 3,000 with frequent applause and standing ovations — none bigger than when he reminded the audience that his administration helped repeal the federal law banning openly gay people from the military. Another 1,500 appeared to be viewing HRC’s live webstream of the speech.

He identified six things in all that his administration has accomplished for the LGBT community — repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” passing expanded hate crimes legislation, instituting a policy requiring hospitals receiving federal support allow visitation by same-sex partners, lifting the ban on travel by people with HIV to this country, adopting the “first comprehensive national strategy to fight HIV,” and “no longer defending DOMA in the courts.”

“I believe the law runs counter to the Constitution, and it’s time for it to end once and for all,” said the president. “It should join ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in the history books.”

He promised to do several more things, with the community’s help, including to support a bill in Congress to repeal DOMA, as well as “an inclusive employment non-discrimination bill,” to help young people who are being bullied, and to ensure that Congress does not “turn the clock back” on DADT repeal.

Without being specific, the president gave high praise for the Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese, who will leave his position in March.

“What he has accomplished at the helm of this organization has been remarkable,” said President Obama.

Solmonese delivered what will almost certainly be his last speech before a national LGBT audience Saturday night. And both he and President Obama termed the movement’s responsibility now as “standing by” the administration in its fight to repair the economy by helping pass his American Jobs Act, and only a subtle hint at the help with re-election.

President Obama said he would “continue to fight alongside you — and I don’t just mean in your role, by the way, as advocates for equality.”

“You’re also moms and dads who care about the schools your children go to. You’re also students figuring out how to pay for college. You’re also folks who are worried about the economy and whether or not your partner or husband or wife will be able to find a job. And you’re Americans who want this country to succeed and prosper, and who are tired of the gridlock and the vicious partisanship, and are sick of the Washington games. Those are your fights, too, HRC.”

Without naming them as his potential Republican rivals in the 2012 presidential race, Obama chastised “a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the President of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed.”

That was a reference to an incident during the nationally televised debate on Fox News September 22, when several audience members loudly booed after an active duty soldier in Iraq identified himself as gay and — via YouTube — asked whether the candidates would defend the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

“We don’t believe in that,” said Obama. “We don’t believe in standing silent when that happens. We don’t believe in them being silent since. You want to be Commander-in-Chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient.”

© 2011 by Keen News Service. All rights reserved.

—  John Wright

Testing a new era: Who defines spouse?

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IN DOUBT BECAUSE OF DOMA | NCLR attorney Shannon Minter, third from left, stands with other marriage equality supporters outside the California State Supreme Court during a March, 2008 press conference. Minter says that confusion caused by DOMA could lead to NCLR client Jennifer Tobits losing benefits due her from the estate of her late wife, Ellyn Farley. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Dispute over woman’s estate between her partner, parents highlights the problems of DOMA

CHUCK COLBERT | Keen News Service
lisakeen@me.com

One obituary described Ellyn Farley as a happy, studious, pet-loving attorney married to her spouse Jennifer Tobits and only “reluctantly” wearing dresses to attend Mass.

The other described her as a fierce litigator and champion to the underdog, survived by her parents, her brother, various aunts and uncles, a godmother, and “good friends for life who will be in her heart forever, Jennifer and Nancy, of Chicago; and numerous cousins and other devoted friends.”

The first was published in the Chicago Tribune, in the city where Farley lived with her spouse Jennifer Tobits. The latter was published in the Roanoke Times, in Virginia, where Farley grew up.

The first was drafted by one of the lesbian couple’s friends and was reviewed and edited by Tobits.

The latter was coordinated by Farley’s parents who, according to Tobits, did not consult her about its contents.

The first makes clear that Farley was married to a woman; the latter scrubs that reality out of her life story.

Now, Farley’s surviving spouse, Jennifer Tobits, and her parents, Joan and David Farley, are squaring off in two different courts over their different portrayals of Farley.

In probate court in Illinois, they are fighting over Farley’s will. In a federal court in Pennsylvania, where Farley’s law firm is headquartered, they are trying to influence a judge’s determination of who should properly receive the benefits of Farley’s profit-sharing plan.

“This is the new era,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights. “We are all familiar with hearing stories about parents stepping in and not honoring their children’s relationships and trying to take all the assets. Now that so many couples are in marriages or civil unions or domestic partnerships, it’s still happening; but we have a degree … of legal protections that we didn’t have before.”

But in this new era of litigation, Minter said, “there is a lot of confusion” caused by the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

DOMA

DOMA is the federal law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing marriages between same-sex couples. It has two sections.

One states, “No state … shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state … respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other state, territory, possession or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.”

The second section reads, “In determining the meaning of any act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

Farley’s parents, represented by the right-wing Thomas More Society, a pro-life law firm, say DOMA precludes the courts from awarding any of Farley’s death benefits to Tobits.

Minter of NCLR, which is representing Tobits, says DOMA does not apply to private employers, such as Farley’s law firm.

“[P]rivate employers cannot use that as an excuse for not honoring our marriages,” said Minter.

Nevertheless, Farley’s law firm, Cozen O’Connor, has asked a federal court to settle the dispute for them.

The Tobits/Farley case

Jennifer Tobits and Ellyn Farley were married in Toronto on Feb. 17, 2006, and made their home in Chicago. Just a few weeks after their marriage,

Farley was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, which she battled for four years.

She died on Sept. 13, 2010.

Shortly after Farley’s death, her parents, Joan and David Farley of Roanoke, Va., petitioned an Illinois probate court for the right to take over administration of their daughter’s estate. They also sought the assets of a profit-sharing plan Farley had, as partner of the Cozen O’Connor law firm.

The firm filed a motion on Jan. 24, 2011, asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to determine who gets the benefits payment.

“In the last week of her life,” said Minter, “Ellyn wrote a will because she feared her parents would try to take everything from Jennifer.

“Ellyn appointed her close friend Nancy [Tuohy] to be the executor of the estate,” he explained. “Initially, Nancy accepted that position and acted as the executor but declined the responsibility later after she realized that she would need to hire an attorney in order to resolve the Farleys’ various claims to Ellyn’s estate.

“The Farleys knew that Jennifer and Ellyn married,” explained Minter. “But they take the position that the marriage is not valid and are arguing that it should not be legally recognized because of DOMA.”

What will Illinois do?

The underlying issue in this case is whether Illinois will recognize the marriage, said Minter.

A civil unions law took effect in Illinois on June 1 this year, and, according to James L. Bennett, Midwest regional director of Lambda Legal, “Illinois recognizes marriages performed in other states or countries, even Canada, as civil unions in Illinois.”

Under that law, said Minter, Tobits would be preferred over Farley’s parents to be administrator of Farley’s estate.

The law firm states, in its document to the federal court, that the firm “had not received a valid designation of beneficiary form from Ms. Farley prior to her death.”

Following Farley’s death, said the firm, Farley’s parents presented them with a beneficiary form “purporting to show that Ms. Farley had designated them as her beneficiaries … and had represented her present marital status as ‘single.’”

The form was dated Sept. 12, 2010, the day before Farley died.

But Cozen also notes that, “inconsistent with the declaration” that Farley was “single,” the beneficiary form submitted by the Farleys “also purports” to have the notarized signature of “Ms. Farley’s spouse.”

The firm says the form “is not signed by [Farley’s] spouse.”

“Accordingly, Cozen O’Connor cannot determine the validity of this designation of beneficiary form,” states the firm’s document to the court.

Tobits, in documents she filed with the federal court, denies ever signing the beneficiary form, but she also acknowledges obtaining a “blank designation of beneficiary form” for Farley’s father the day before Farley died.

Tobits said she did this because the father had instructed hospital staff that the parents — and not Tobits — would make medical decisions for

Farley and because she “feared” the father “would refuse her access to Ms. Farley’s hospital room unless she complied.”

“Wanting to see her dying wife and to avoid a dispute in the hospital with her wife’s parents,” said the documents filed by NCLR, “Ms. Tobits went home to retrieve the form.”

Tobits said she was not present when Farley purportedly signed the form and that the form “was signed” about 30 minutes after Farley had begun vomiting blood.

Farley “fell asleep that night” and died the following morning.

Tobits claims that Farley “suffered from weakened intellect,” that Farley’s parents exercised “undue influence” over Farley, and that Farley did not sign the form of her own free will.

“Ellyn did not have to fill out a form for her spouse to get the benefits,” Minter said. “Under the plan, the benefits go to an employee’s spouse unless the employee designates someone else and the spouse gives written consent, which must be notarized,” he explained.

“The Farleys filled out the form and pressured Ellyn to sign, but Jennifer did not” give her written consent, said Minter.

Cozen O’Connor court documents confirms, “Ms. Tobits’ signature does not appear on the designation of beneficiary form in the space reserved for spouse consent to beneficiary designation.”

Marriage discrimination

Evan Wolfson, founder and president of the National Freedom to Marry organization, said the dispute “highlights how unfair marriage discrimination is, adding to tensions and bad actions even within families.”

And DOMA, he says, “gives those who would tear families apart an extra weapon to use even if the weapon itself is not appropriate.”

The Farley parents’ attorneys say DOMA is implicated because the benefits they seek to acquire from Farley’s law firm are part of an ERISA plan.
ERISA — the Employee Retirement Income Security Act — is a federal law that sets minimum standards for pension plans in private industry.
NCLR’s Minter acknowledges that ERISA “governs many aspects of how benefits must be structured.

“But the plan here,” he said, “defines spouse for itself, which is perfectly acceptable under ERISA.”

And DOMA “does not apply,” said Minter, “because [the law firm’s beneficiary plan] is private.”

“Jennifer meets [the law firm’s plan] definition,” said Minter. “ERISA does not dictate how private employers define spouse or prevent them from treating married LGBT employees equally. Likewise, because there is no need to look beyond the plan’s clear definition of ‘spouse,’ it is irrelevant whether Pennsylvania law would define it differently in some other setting.”

© 2011 Keen News Service. All rights reserved.

—  John Wright

BLAG files homophobic brief defending DOMA in Edie Windsor’s lawsuit over estate tax

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The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group this week filed briefs in federal court explaining why the Defense of Marriage Act is not unconstitutional — even though a trial court judge has said it is unconstitutional and the Obama Administration has instructed the Department not to continue to defend DOMA because the administration, also, says the law is unconstitutional.

Edie Windsor

But Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, after the administration issues its instructions to the DOJ on DOMA, decided that the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group would go ahead and hire an outside attorney to fight for DOMA in court because, apparently, the very idea of the federal government having to recognize legally-sanctioned same-sex marriages is too horrible to even consider.

The briefs filed by BLAG attorney Paul Clement came in connection with Edie Windsor’s lawsuit against the federal government over the $350,000 estate tax she had to pay when her wife, Thea Spyer, died. Windsor and Spyer had been together for 44 years when Spyer died in 2009, and the two women were legally married in Canada in 2007. Even though New York state, where they lived, did not allow legal same-sex marriages to be performed in the state at that time, the state did recognize same-sex marriages performed in jurisdictions where it was legal.

Had Spyer been a man, Windsor would have owed no estate tax when Spyer died. (Windsor is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more information on the case, go here.)

Windsor and her attorneys claim in court that she should win her suit by default, without the need for a trial, because she is right on the legal arguments and there are no factual disputes. The BLAG briefs filed this week dispute that claim, laying out reasons laws that discriminate against the LGBT community — like DOMA — should not be subject to more thorough review, legally known as “heightened scrutiny.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, when deciding whether to apply heightened scrutiny, courts typically consider two factors: whether there is a history of discrimination based on the characteristic and whether the characteristic is relevant to one’s ability to participate in or contribute to society.  They sometimes also consider whether the characteristic is immutable and whether the group is particularly vulnerable politically.

The BLAG brief addresses all these factors.

Among their arguments, the most notable have been their claim that gays have not historically faced discrimination; they still believe that sexual orientation is a choice, not an identity; due to the recent victories in the LGBT community, they think gays have plenty of political power; despite the findings of an American Psychological Association study saying otherwise, they think same-sex couples make bad parents; and, the ever-popular crutch of the anti-gay marriage fanatics, that they need to protect the institution of marriage from being extended to same-sex couples.

You can go here to read what Zack Ford at Think Progress has to say about BLAG’s claims. And if you want to know more about Edie and Thea and their 44-year love story, watch the video below.

—  admin

WATCH: The DOMA debate 15 years before Sen. Cornyn skipped Wednesday’s hearing on repeal

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Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, skipped Wednesday’s hearing on the Respect for Marriage Act.

ThinkProgress has posted the below compilation of some of the hateful comments made on the House floor during debate of the Defense of Marriage Act before it was passed in 1996. The point is to highlight the sea change that has taken place in America since then on LGBT equality and same-sex marriage — which is underscored by the reluctance among Republicans today to use it as a wedge issue. On Wednesday, ThinkProgress notes, only two Republican senators showed up for the committee hearing on the repeal of DOMA, and only one spoke up against the Respect for Marriage Act.  One of those who spoke in support of DOMA 15 years ago, as shown in the video, was Texas Congressman Tom DeLay, then the GOP whip, who warned that “attacks on the institution of marriage will only take us further down the road of social deterioration.” Fast forward to Wednesday, when one of the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who didn’t show up for the hearing was Texas’ John Cornyn, who once suggested in the draft of a speech that same-sex marriage would lead to man-box turtle marriage. Things have indeed changed, even in Texas.

—  John Wright

WATCH: Full Senate hearing on DOMA repeal

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Photo by Jamie McGonnigal/EqualityPhotography.com

In case you missed it, below is video of Wednesday’s historic Senate hearing, in it entirety, on the Respect for Marriage Act, which would, of course, repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. Read our recap of the hearing here. Now that the hearing is over, some may be wondering what the future holds for the DOMA repeal legislation. The short answer is — probably nothing in the current Congress. There are enough votes on the Senate Judiciary Committee to mark up the bill and send it to the floor, but it would face an uphill battle there and has zero chance of passing the Republican-controlled House. Andrew Sorbo, a 64-year-old retired school teacher who testified about the impact of DOMA in the wake of his 30-year partner’s death, summed it up best after the hearing: “As a student of history, I’m very cognizant of how this is the beginning of probably a long process. I think it very well may be that it’ll reach the Supreme Court before the Congress acts.”

—  John Wright

Senate committee holds 1st-ever hearing on repealing DOMA

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LISA KEEN | Keen News Service

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a legendary civil rights activist, led off today’s historic hearing to discuss repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, likening it to laws decades ago that requires separate water fountains and restrooms for “whites” and “coloreds.”

“I find it unbelievable in the year 2011,” said Lewis, “that there is still a need to hold hearings and debates about whether a human being should be able to marry the person they love.”

But there was a hearing, and there was debate.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, came well prepared to do battle, bringing in a full complement of his allowed witnesses, minus one whom he said was afraid to testify against repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for fear of being harassed.

Photo by Jamie McGonnigal/EqualityPhotography.com

But none of the committee’s other Republican members — who include John Cornyn of Texas — showed up to ask questions, and Democratic senators who support the Respect of Marriage Act (SB 598), the bill to repeal DOMA, were also well prepared.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., called DOMA an “immoral and discriminatory” law and he challenged Grassley’s chief witness, an official with the mammoth Focus on the Family group. (Watch video from ThinkProgress above.) The witness, Thomas Minnery, claimed a federal study found that children raised by a male-female married couple are happier and healthier than children raised by other families.

“I checked the study out,” said Franken, referring to a 2010 study published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “It doesn’t say what you said it does,” said Franken. The hearing room erupted in laughter. “It says ‘nuclear family,’ not opposite-sex married families, are associated with those outcomes.”

Minnery said he understood “nuclear family” to mean heterosexual.

“It doesn’t,” said Franken, bluntly. “It says, ‘Two parents who are married to one another and are the adopted or biological’ parents of their children. I don’t know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies these ways.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., opened the hearing by saying he called it to “assess the impact” of the law on American families. He said the 1996 law “goes well beyond the harm to a family’s dignity,” harming it economically, health-wise, and in other ways.

Several of Leahy’s seven witnesses provided personal, often dramatic, stories to illustrate those harms. Ron Wallen, a 77-year-old man from Indio, Calif., said his life was thrown into “financial chaos” after his life partner for 58 years succumbed after a long illness. Because he was not eligible to receive his same-sex spouse’s Social Security benefits and pension, said Wallen, his household income dropped from $3,050 per month to $900 per month.

Susan Murray, an attorney who help usher in Vermont’s landmark civil union law and who represents numerous same-sex couples, said many people simply did not understand what a civil union was. And she said she has found that many corporations believe DOMA prevents them from providing equal benefits to their employees.

“Companies think the law allows them to discriminate,” said Murray.

Andrew Sorbo, a history teacher in Catholic schools in Connecticut, talked about “always having to use the pronoun ‘I’” in his classroom.

“I could not say, ‘We are going on vacation,’ because the next question would be, ‘Who is the other person?’” said Sorbo.

“DOMA,” he said, “is an insult to our dignity and our sense of equality.” He said he was “appalled and baffled” by the fact that those in Congress who oppose same-sex marriage “can’t understand how they are the philosophical descendants of those who defended slavery, who defended the laws against mixed race couples, and who defended the laws that allowed the separate but equal statutes that Rep. Lewis spoke of.”

The mainstream media gave some attention this week to a statement by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, during a routine briefing on Tuesday, that President Obama supports the Respect for Marriage Act.

Carney, in response to a question, said Obama “has long called for a legislative repeal” of DOMA.

“He is proud to support the Respect for Marriage Act … which would take DOMA off the books once and for all,” said Carney.

Numerous LGBT groups issued statements, applauding the statement from Carney that the president supports the Respect of Marriage Act. They consider Obama’s support for the repeal measure specifically to be a significant step forward in his position.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, a spokesman for Obama said he’s supported the repeal of DOMA since 2004. But after he became president, his Department of Justice initially mounted a vigorous defense of the law in courts, arguing, among other things, “DOMA does not discriminate against homosexuals in the provision of federal benefits.”

After considerable outrage from the LGBT community, the DOJ softened its arguments in court briefs. And then, in a dramatic announcement in February of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he and President Obama believe DOMA is unconstitutional and that laws disfavoring LGBT people should have to pass the strictest form of judicial scrutiny.

Rep. Lewis seemed to have been referring to President Obama when, in his remarks, he chastised those who are “comfortable sitting on the sidelines” and called on “elected officials … to lead, to be the headlights, not taillights.”

Ranking minority member Grassley was the only Republican senator to comment and ask questions during the hearing, saying — at times with the vigor of a preacher – that DOMA is “not an expression of dislike for gay and lesbian people.” He and other opponents of the bill pointed out that many of the Democrats on the committee — including Chairman Leahy and Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Charles Schumer of New York — voted in favor of DOMA in 1996. The fact that they voted for DOMA, said Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, “refutes the empty revisionist claim that DOMA embodies an irrational bigotry against same-sex couples.”

Whelan said it is “a profound confusion to believe that the values of federalism somehow require the federal government to defer to or incorporate the marriage laws of the various states in determining what marriage means in the provision of federal benefits.”

Whelan also said that repealing DOMA would “have the federal government validate” same-sex marriage and “require taxpayers to subsidize the provisions of benefits. And, he said, repealing DOMA would “pave the way” for polygamists and other polyamorous unions to be recognized under federal law.

Bill sponsor Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chaired the committee for a portion of the hearing, said DOMA denies rights and benefits to legally married same-sex couples. And she vowed that, “However long it takes” to repeal DOMA, “we will achieve it.”

The hearing was covered live by C-SPAN and will be rebroadcast from time to time.

© 2011 Keen News Service. All rights reserved.

—  John Wright

What’s Brewing: Senate DOMA hearing; Gov. Perry’s Religious Right trifecta; NY marriage

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Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, has been named a chairman of Rick Perry’s Aug. 6 day of prayer.

Your weekday morning blend from Instant Tea:

1. The Senate Judiciary Committee this morning will conduct the first-ever hearing on the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. The DOMA repeal legislation was endorsed Tuesday by President Barack Obama. Today’s historic hearing begins at 9 a.m. Central time. You can watch live on the committee’s website by going here.

2. We’ve long known that Gov. Rick Perry’s Aug. 6 Day of Prayer is being funded by the American Family Association, but now it looks like Perry has achieved the trifecta of Religious Right involvement. The AFA announced Tuesday that Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America have been named co-chairmen of the event. From Right Wing Watch: “Even though Perry and the AFA are adamant that the prayer rally is apolitical, the fact that leaders of three of the most prominent Religious Right political groups in the country are hosting the event along side a potential presidential candidate makes us think otherwise.”

3. Fearing overwhelming demand this coming Sunday — the first day same-sex couples can marry — New York City officials have announced a lottery system that will guarantee 764 couples access to one of the city’s five clerks offices.

—  John Wright