No, not him, although that was the last movie he was in where he was cute.

The clips of the oral arguments before the Seventh Circuit when Reagan-appointee Judge Richard Posner ripped new assholes (so to speak) into the AGs from Wisconsin and Indiana regarding their marriage equality bans were a thing of beauty.

A day late, but not a dollar short, I give you a linque to his incredibly readable and awesome opinion. There have been other opinions snarkily quoting Scalia’s dissent in the DOMA case, but Posner lays it out in language that you can share with your Aunt Marge in Minnetonka or Tio Manuel in Midland.

And as a side note — my favorite thing about Posner is that he uses contractions, which rumor has it is because he dictates his opinions and can’t (cannot, if you want to be an annoying attorney) type. Read his opinion out loud – it really is like he’s the awesome dinner guest you bring with you to Thanksgiving in Hot Springs to explain to grandma why you’re (not you are) getting married to your friend/roommate of 20 years.

My favorite passage:

Indiana has thus invented an insidious form of discrimination: favoring first cousins, provided they are not of the same sex, over homosexuals. Elderly first cousins are permitted to marry because they can’t produce children; homosexuals are forbidden to marry because they can’t produce children. The state’s argument that a marriage of first cousins who are past child-bearing age provides a “model [of] family life for younger, potentially procreative men and women” is impossible to take seriously.
At oral argument the state‘s lawyer was asked whether “Indiana’s law is about successfully raising children,” and since “you agree same-sex couples can successfully raise children, why shouldn’t the ban be lifted as to them?” The lawyer answered that “the assumption is that with opposite-sex couples there is very little thought given during the sexual act, sometimes, to whether babies may be a consequence.” In other words, Indiana’s government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and so must be pressured (in the form of governmental encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents—model citizens really—so have no need for marriage. Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.

BAM!

“That didn’t take long: Two Subway customers have sued the chain because their ‘footlong’ sandwiches came up a little short, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The lawsuit by two New Jersey men comes after last week’s hubbub made by customers who discovered that their sandwiches measured about a half-inch short.” [Newser]

The Supreme Court heard arguments this morning on a case that will either take last year’s Citizens United corporate personhood decision to a whole new level, or limit the impact of the decision.  This case could also affect the ability of the media and advocacy groups to get information from the government regarding corporate malfeasance.

Today’s case, Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, revolves around whether corporations can argue that they have “personal privacy” in not having government investigation documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

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