Plenty more of the very serious people now recognize the danger Adler warned us about and weighed in on this very serious development. The Washington Post warns us all about the grave "disservice" that has been done to America when the poor, defenseless trial attorneys of BigLaw are "strong-armed." The New York Daily News said "Gay rights advocates went too far in attacking firm." (Wait?! Were torches and pitchforks involved? Did I miss storm the Oakwood Day?)

The New York Times called King & Sullivan's decision "deplorable." The Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the pushback and opined that Clement "is doing that which lawyers do when we're at our best." (Mr.Holder? Isn't what he's "doing" is defending a law you yourself said was unjustifiable? That's the best your profession can offer?)

Jennifer Rubin at Washington Post riles how awful it is when the “left decides who deserves representation.” (She gets the pronoun wrong, DOMA is a "what" not a "who.")

Of course, in the media rush to conclude it was all the gays' work—flattering as it is to be seen as so very powerful—something is oddly missing from all recaps. There's no recognition of the internal revolt this case was reported to have ignited within the firm. As less than 1% of K&S attorneys identify as LGBT, it seems a stretch to presume the gays were solely responsible for "mayhem" at the office as well. Maybe the gays had special pink ops infiltrators who worked to "divide the management."

We don't ultimately know what was the deciding factor here. All we do know is this prestigious team of some of the fiercest litigators in the country apparently found the temperature just too darn hot and got the Hell out of the kitchen.

And a consensus has formed it was solely the treachery of gays. And now, the LGBT community's actions have placed the future integrity of the entire American judicial system in very, very grave danger.

Are they right? Have gays corrupted the venerable and wholesome profession of law? Is it possible that gone are the days when the august chambers of the judiciary will be able to nurture the talent of such good and principled men as Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas to rise to the pinnacle of the vocation with their ethics intact?

Is it possible in the future, discriminatory laws may wander the streets begging anyone to provide them with vigorous representation? Will these laws only get over-worked and underpaid public defenders in cheap poly-blend suits to plead for their lives? Lord knows how many laws may now get sub par representation in kangaroo courts and be railroaded unceremoniously to the electric chair! Or maybe these laws will be sent to Guantanamo Bay, never to return.

Cry for all the sodomy laws on the books! Will people now be too afraid speak for them? What will become of our State's right to pry into our bedrooms and monitor that we're all using the parts God gave us in an appropriate and Christian manner?

And thank goodness, Alabama had the foresight to put to death the final anti-miscegenation law still on the books in 2000. Those laws wouldn't have wanted to live to see this brave new world, where standing up against interracial marriage might be seen as something to be ashamed of by the so-called "politically correct" in so-called "elite society."

Yes, the very serious people are very seriously concerned.

Alas, in no time flat the mainstream media will tire of scolding the gays for the corrosive effect they are having on the sacred institution of jurisprudence. Why, before the gays came along the law was a stranger to any practice of corruption. A careful eye reallly should be kept on the gays. But soon, the media will return to what it does best: ignoring the gay community.

And you know what? Fuck 'em.

If only they'd be half as interested in scolding our government for deporting our lawfully-wedded spouses. If only they cared to scold the IRS for substantially penalizing a 81-year widow because she had a wife that left her money, instead of a husband.

But, it's always a good time to scold the gays for getting just a little too noisy, and maybe just a little too effective.

Yeah. Fuck 'em.

Because soon there will be some very serious crime committed, and these watchdogs of the judiciary ethics will be busy booking "experts" to tell us whether the accused is guilty or not (all purely hypothetically, of course). They'll hold online polls so you vote: "Guilty?" or "Innocent?" They'll be inviting folks to call in and offer their opinions whether the accused should get the chair, or just life.

And they'll ask you to vote whether Muslims should get to build houses of worship where they please, you know, just like the Christians do.

Or maybe they'll be distracted by Lindsey Lohan's latest stint in jail, or rehab or correctional rehab. Or what hooker(s) Charlie Sheen is currently banging. Oh yes, the media will be WINNING!

And they'll tell us how awful that Julian Assange is, and by the way, be sure not to miss their 72-point headline coverage of the explosive new disclosure that horrible man has just so shamefully released. It's really juicy.

And don't forget all those new questions about the new, improved long-form birth certificate. They'll have to sort through those. The founding principles of Democracy depend on it! And those news media people are nothing if not deeply committed to the founding principles that keep this country grounded.

But you know what? There's a story they'll forget to tell.

The gays won.

See, time was no one would have the gay people. Lawyers wouldn't represent us, Doctors wouldn't care for us, bars wouldn't serve us drinks, Houses of God would not admit us, Police arrested us just for existing, and our own families cast us out like an unwanted stray dog.

And look at what just happened.

For two years we lobbied the Obama administration and the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.

And all those very serious people told us it an impossibility for the DOJ to do this and we were just being silly children and didn't understand how things worked.

And then the DOJ did just that.

And then we told Boehner, don't defend it and, of course, he did.

And then we took our case to BigLaw and asked them, "how can you say you support our community and then take our own tax dollars and use them to zealously work to hurt us?"

And the 38th largest law firm in America came to see things our way. And as lawyers do all the time in America, they dropped the case.

And Clement went to go lick his wounded pride where this case should have gone in the first place, Bancroft PLLC. This firm, lousy with ex-Bush administration cronies doesn't profess to be a friend to gays or progressives. It's a very supportive atmosphere for Clement's work, in fact, they're delighted to have him and have launched media campaigns to crow about it. And why not? The arrival of this marginalized, repudiated defender of bigotry is the best thing to ever happen to Bancroft, PLLC.

And at the end of the day, we beat the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. And Speaker Boehner was left with egg all over his shiny, orange face. And all those voters—especially the 51% that support marriage equality (aka as the Democratic base)—can see even more clearly that Speaker Boehner is wasting taxpayer dollars to defend a law that, like those poor gays of old, it sure looks like no one will have.

We won. We won. We won.

We won. We won. We won. (And we don't get to say that very often.) ☛ And the all very serious people can't take that away from us. ☚ So, carry on, troops. You're on the right track.

Update: Dale Carpenter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, provides a rare voice of dissent from "the gays are mean bullies" meme in the New York Times today. He tracks how gay rights supporters have slowly transformed the law over the last half-century. He isn't buy the idea that poor, little DOMA and Speaker Boehner are helpless victims.

No serious case can be made that an institution as powerful as Congress has a right to the services of the biggest law firms and the most credentialed lawyers. The Defense of Marriage Act is not unpopular, and while Congress may be indebted, it is not indigent. A thornier question arises when a firm withdraws from a representation, though in this case the quick withdrawal evidently caused no harm to the client. More troubling is the possibility that a firm might quit because of outside economic pressure rather than principle, though it is unclear whether such pressure played a role in this case. As [early gay rights pioneer Frank] Kameny’s lone crusade showed, the legal profession was not in the vanguard of gay rights. Unlike Mr. Kameny, of course, the House will have excellent counsel on its side: a former solicitor general who resigned from King & Spalding to protest its decision. The world of legal professionals is still a diverse one where basic values collide every day. Respectable constitutional arguments for the Defense of Marriage Act will surely be made — but grounded in ideas, one hopes, not contempt.

Update 2: The Economist suggest this may not be such a very, very bad thing, at least, not for the gays. From Gay marriage: Unpopular Clients:



“This is the way social justice happens. Not with a bang, but with white-shoe law firms becoming uncomfortable taking certain kinds of cases.”