As you may recall, Deval Patrick was scathing in his criticism of Tom Reilly’s decision to certify the same sex marriage ballot initiative. It was a statement dripping with righteous indignation. In certifying the measure, Tom Reilly expressed his personal opposition to the initiative, but based his ultimate decision on his belief that, as the state’s Attorney General, it was the right legal position. (Sound familiar, Mr. Patrick?) Regardless, with the fate of the ballot question hanging in limbo and Reilly vulnerable until a favorable SJC decision, Patrick scored political points at his opponent’s expense. Of course, when a unanimous SJC agreed that Tom Reilly had, indeed, made the right legal decision, not a word of retraction from Deval Patrick of his earlier criticisms. No criticism of the SJC. Nothing. I guess it was never really about the principle of the matter, just the politics.
So, let me be clear, Mr. Patrick: it is OK to hang your hat on the “right legal decision” when you are defending United Airlines against same sex couples seeking domestic partnerships, but it is not OK for Tom Reilly to employ the same rationale in acknowledging the constitutionally-protected right of citizens (no matter how misguided) to amend their State Constitution? Interesting. . .Of course, Tom Reilly now has the entire SJC on his side while, according to the Bay Windows article, the best that a Deval Patrick supporter and fundraiser could muster is this: “My guess is the board was probably not well-briefed.” Not well-briefed, huh? Like, by somebody with a background in civil rights law perhaps? Somebody like. . .hey, isn’t Deval Patrick a civil rights attorney? Exactly.
Speaking of Deval Patrick, civil rights stalwart, where was he when President Clinton supported and signed the Defense of Marriage Act? Indeed, Deval Patrick was “serving in the nation’s top civil rights post” precisely when President Clinton was embracing and signing into law the single, most damaging piece of federal legislation to the cause of same sex marriage. According to the Phoenix, Deval Patrick now calls DOMA a “mistake.” Umm, no kidding. When was it ever not a mistake? This wasn’t the interpretation of a 200 year-old document. This was the creation of new law.
My question is this: why didn’t Deval Patrick realize that DOMA was a mistake in 1996 when he was in a position to make a difference for gay Americans? When Bill Clinton placed his political capital behind DOMA and then his John Hancock on it, why didn’t Deval Patrick resign in protest, as he has suggested that he did at Coke? Obviously the payout wouldn’t have been as handsome, but was the principle no less worthy?
Bay Windows is correct: Deval Patrick has won a large measure of GLBT support based upon what he has said during the campaign. Of course, when it came to his performance on the UAL board and the DOMA issue, what Patrick appears to have done is very little or nothing. At UAL, he was justified by the “right legal decision” (although the city’s attorney and his own supporter disagree). Under Clinton, he was justified by God-knows-what.
Where was Deval Patrick? Good question, Bay Windows. Where was Deval Patrick?
Obviously, this Laura Kiritsy (if that is her real name) has ties to the Reilly campaign. The fact that she has worked in Boston — the very city where Reilly works — for years is a strong indication alone that this violates OCFR laws and possibly the Geneva Convention. Her use of legal terms like “benefits” shows that at the least she has the bonds between would-be lawyer types that make any person with a law school background the wrong person to comment on this.
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Such truthiness allows me to ignore the salient points raised in this article, just as the links between the “Killer Coke” campaign and Reilly’s staffers allow me to ignore the issues raised by that campaign.
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(I get one snark comment per election season, don’t I?)
seems like it probably could have been passed over a presidential veto…and of course Clinton was probably still skittish about supporting gay rights after the thrashing he got when he tried to order the armed services to allow gays to serve in the military (which ended with the don’t-ask-don’t tell compromise). As for Deval, I do wonder about his legal judgment regarding the initiative petition. O’Reilly’s position was the only logical interpretation of the law as applied to the situation…under Deval’s interpretation, it would be impossible to amend the constitution with regard to any issue that had been decided by the SJC.
…. apparently reluctantly.
because it effectively illustrates that Clinton knew how awful DOMA was when he signed it. As if his “Gee, I’m sorry – I really don’t want to sign this” excuses his actions. Typical Clinton.
Doesn’t resonate with you at all?
Wimp.
I don’t know the legal ramifications of the bill.. if they were mostly symbolic, I’d have let it slide so we could fight about something that mattered that month.
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I wasn’t paying much attention during all of this though.
But support for it was OVERWHELMING. At that time, only a very small segment of the population favored any kind of marriage rights for gays. The opposition to DOMA was mostly just saying that it wasn’t necessary because gay marriage didn’t exist. There has been tremendous progress on this front in terms of general attitude in the last ten years–I believe more than half of Americans support domestic partnerships (including the next Republican nominee for governor of Florida, if you can believe it).
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What DOMA did was allow states to refuse to recognize gay marriage/domestic partnership granted by another state, and explicitly state that any spousal benefits under federal law (Social Security, right to joint filing of income tax, military and government benefits & pensions, etc) were only for heterosexual spouses.
here’s the Phoenix in early 2005:
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Clinton was a total chickenshit on DOMA – he should have vetoed it. He didn’t; apparently Patrick wanted him to (I don’t know who the Phoenix’s sources are, but this article was written way before Patrick’s campaign was considered a serious threat to Tom Reilly). Should Patrick have resigned in protest? It’s always a difficult decision whether to do that, but you know as well as I do that in general, the Clinton Justice Department was way more sympathetic to civil rights issues than had been the case in the preceding 12 years of Republican administrations, and there was a lot of good to be done in that job.
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On UAL, you’re only telling half the story that Bay Windows tells, and it’s a pretty important half you leave out. From the article:
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What’s better – going along with San Francisco’s ordinance, claiming victory, and stopping, or using the issue as a springboard to get benefits for all UAL’s gay employees?
United Airlines and its board had implemented its “groundbreaking” domestic benefits program of its own beneficence, but it didn’t and Deval Patrick knows better. The program was implemented in direct response to the public relations and economic fallout from San Francisco. In fact, that was how United Airlines “got to the domestic partner benefits to all employees” rather than Deval’s account.
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Before adopting the program, United Airlines had been the subject of a nationwide boycott. From the Human Rights Campaign press release:
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In fact, the campaign against United Airlines was even waged on television.
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Contrary to Deval Patrick’s rosey account of a company benevolently arriving at the “right outcome,” Business Week surmised that United’s motives were about politics and money:
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Perhaps most damning was United’s legal alliance with Pat Robertson. From the same BW article:
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So, by finally offering domestic benefits AND partnering with Pat Robertson in its lawsuit, United Airlines appears to have been trying to have its cake and eat it too: mending fences with the gay community, while extending an olive branch to the Christina right. A win-win for United’s bottim line.
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One final point: United Airlines only offered domestic benefits after a federal court ruled that it must offer some form of benefits. Sure, they may have gone further than the court mandated, but the public relations damage was already done. In for a penny, in for a pound.
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So, David, who is only telling “half of the story?” Me or Deval?
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As for DOMA, if the anonymous sources are correct than that doesn’t say much for Patrick’s influence while holding the “nation’s top civil rights post,” does it? You and I think Clinton was “chickenshit” for signing DOMA, so why didn’t Deval say so? Were the political costs too great? Were the economic costs to great to just quit Coke without a severance package? Where is the courage in those stances?
I just read that Business Week article. Frankly, it makes UAL look pretty good, with the one exception of the litigation over the San Francisco ordinance, which clearly pissed off a lot of people that previously had been their allies. Other than that, it sounds as though they were out in front of most of corporate America on openly marketing to the gay community. (And of course the motive is money! It’s a corporation, for God’s sake! But don’t pretend that there wasn’t a financial downside for doing what they did – they were getting hit by Christian right activists for their gay-friendly marketing and policies.)
to get a promotion in the post-Deval endorsement era? 😉
Where are those things these days? (Not that I could or would recommend myself.)
The recommend button is again mysterously missing…
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Has there been a policy change about promoting posts that “Ask the tough questions?” 1
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Why has no “tough question” post been promoted since the BMG endorsement?
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In fact this is a substantial enough post that it is being reported in an article in today’s Globe.
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Why is it only (some of) the “Questioning Deval” posts that are missing the “promote buttons”?
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1 quoted form Deval Patrick’s ad.
to BMG’s attention and David responded quickly. He says there is a software glitch and that it has been reported to the site administrator. Hopefully, it will be up soon.
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As for a promotion – I agree, but I’m biased. I believe the substance of this diary, including the comments, is quite strong.
Shameless, I know. . . 😉
At one point when the button wasn’t in the usual place, I could find it at the bottom of the posting after all the comments, and it worked from there. I’m using Safari, for whatever that’s worth.
Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe wrote a follow-up article to the Bay Windows piece.
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After having Googled up a storm in reponse to David’s comment last night, I still find the most amazing aspect of Patrick’s reponse to be his assertion that “the board got it right.” It is clear that the board had painted the airline into a corner with their earlier opposition to the San Francisco measure, which Patrick still supports, and responded with a domestic partnership program to combat the fallout. That’s called damage control, even if the outcome is a good one.
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If you read Patrick’s accounts, especially in Bay Windows, you are left with the impression that United developed its program to address its concerns with the San Francisco ordinance. However, this quote from San Francisco’s attorney suggests that United’s enlightened approach was absent from the early debate:
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As noted in the Business Week article above, United only reponded after 26 months of a litigation, a nation-wide boycott, and a court order to provide certain benefits. I guess some would call that “rigorous debate.”
and my concern, as a democrat, is that Patrick says one thing and does another. Deval says that he supports equality for women and then it is revealed that Deval belonged to an exclusionary, all-men’s club at Harvard until 2001. Patrick says he supports equality for gays and lesbians but then there are revelations that as an attorney for United Airlines he fought a protracted legal battle defending UA’s right to deny benefits under the Equal Benefits Ordinance to gays and lesbians. Additionally, he was serving under President Clinton when the Defense of Marriage Act was signed. Deval says that he wants to help minorities, the poor and the elderly and then he choses to go to work for the predetory lender, Ameriquest. These groups are the very ones most often victimized by this despicable corporation. Deval says that he is an environmentalist but as a corporate atorney he goes to work for Texaco and Coke. Both corporations have been accused of causing serious environmental hazards which have caused residents living near these plants serious health problems. Patrick says that he supports labor unions and then he works for United Airlines and Coke who were embroiled in bitter even deadly labor disputes. As a voter, I am very troubled by Deval’s pattern of poor judgement and hypocrisy.
I disagree of your characterizations of a lot of those “facts,” but you already know that. These points, however, cry out for clarification:
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Patrick quit the Fly Club in 1983, not 2001. The 2001 date comes from the Club’s paperwork, which even the Club admits is a disaster. Furthermore, as Patrick himself said in the Globe article, if you take down the sign that says “Fly Club” and replace it with three Greek letters, you’ve got a frat. Are we really going to start disqualifying people from public office because they joined a frat? Or a sorority, for that matter?
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Patrick didn’t “fight” the legal battle at UAL. He was on the board, not the general counsel or otherwise involved in day-to-day operations at the company. The rest of that issue is amply discussed in other posts.
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On DOMA, what’s your point? That his boss didn’t agree with him? Happens to the best of us.
until 2001. Deval refused to answer whether he had continued receiving Fly Club mailings. I wonder why? Maybe because the Fly Club had his Texaco email address and his Milton home address? Wonder how they got that information????? It’s very puzzling and it begs the question that if Deval was still on the list in 2001 and getting their mail after he supposedly quit the club in 1983 why didn’t Deval call the Fly Club and demand that his name be taken off the mailing list. Anyway, the point is not when did Deval “quit” the club but rather why did he join this sexist club at all. Was it because of the influential people that belonged. Is it a case of ambition over righteousness? A black man who I’m sure at times has felt racist exclusion joins an exclusionary male-only club once again shows a lack of judgment and is very insensitive. The fact that he compares it to a frat shows that Deval still misses the point. I would have thought that Deval, being a father of two daughters, would be more aware and think that sexist exclusion is just as evil as racist exclusion. Apparently, not. No question a pattern of: believe what I say and don’t look at what I do has emerged with Deval. It’s very troubling.
a fraternity or a sorority? Doesn’t that answer your question regarding why Patrick joined the club?
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Really, don’t you think this is getting a little silly?
why does anyone join a fraternity or a sorority? It’s really a ridiculous process, in my opinion. Having said that I do not think that this discussion is “silly.” My guess is that you think it is silly because yet again it shows hypocrisy on Patrick’s part.
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What an amazing turnaround you made from earlier today when you repeated in your post, WTF?, (real classy by the way) another blogger’s comment:
“Tacky” is a word wealthy women use to demean other wealthy women, isn’t it?” And then YOU said
“Take a zero for the mean-spirited sexist remark, too.”
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I guess you like Deval think that words mean more than actions. Like the action of joining the sexist Fly Club? Oh yeah, but I forgot you think that discussion is “silly.”
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I agree. I didn’t belong to a sorority and have no use for them. That said, I do not judge others for having belonged to one.
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No, I think it’s silly because whether or not someone belonged to a group that operated like a fraternity or sorority is inconsequential in my view.
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I’m sorry that you found my “WTF” not very classy, perhaps “tacky” even. If you are offended by the abbreviation, I apologize. No offense meant to you personally.
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Fraternities and sororities are frivolous things, in my view, and mean nothing. They do not reflect anything of value, especially 20+ years later. If a student were to talk to me about joining a sorority or fraternity, I would probably counsel that student against it for a lot of reasons; however, that student’s desire to join does not make him/her bad, biased, dishonest, or otherwise deficient.
the Fly club is not a sorority or a fraternity. Patrick joined this sexist club post graduation as an adult not as a college student. His actions still beg the question why would Patrick, a black man, join this exclusionary club? The most important point here is that Deval sells himself as “no ordinary leader” and day by day he is appearing more and more ordinary.
he says:
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This is a none issue in the real world. You may not think so, so he won’t get your vote if he’s the nominee. Perhaps you’d prefer Kerry Healey. Whatever. This is ancient history and of interest only to those who support another candidate. I wouldn’t want to be judged on what I did in 1983–Patrick and I are about the same age–so that’s my stance.
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You are, of course, free to eviscerate me as is your perpetual wont.
Why is it that all of the Deval Patrick criticisms here )(and oddly, in the Globe) take the same form? “Why didn’t he…”? They all seem to be innuendo-based, very light on facts, merely raising “suspicions”, often clearly baseless.
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This is the kind of thing that turns people off to government. Instead of talking about the very clear-cut philosophy differences between the candidtes, we’re just talking about things they didn’t do without even talking about what could have been done differently.
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Couldn’t we do the same thing to other candidates? For example:
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Is Tom Reilly against free speech? Then why didn’t he resign his position in protest as Attorney General when the “Free Speech Zone” was set up at the Democratic National Convention? Why didn’t he attempt to fight this squelching of legal dissent?
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Tom Reilly says he was a bad student. Why won’t he release his grades to the public? Just how bad a student was he? What caused him to fail in school? A character flaw?
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Why doesn’t Tom Reilly go into any detail about his time in private practice? Is it possible that defended some child molesters and doesn’t want the public to know about it? Why doesn’t his website even mention the name of the firm he was with? Why doesn’t he get into more specifics about the types of criminals he tried to keep out of jail?
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What caused Tom Reilly to leave St. Francix Xavier University? Have the records been sealed on his stint there?
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Why hasn’t Reilly commented on his failure to solve the case of the abduction of Sarah Pryor in 1986? What caused him to fail? A character flaw?
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See how that works? It’s ugly, and if repeated often enough, people start to wonder. Oh, but I don’t have to tell the Reilly campaign about that, since they’re clearly well-versed.
I wrote my post yesterday after having read the Bay Windows article. Today’s Boston Globe cites that same article as the basis for its own story. I think Bay Windows would be surprised to discover itself part of a pro-Reilly conspiracy.
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If you carefully read through the diary and the comments, you will discover plenty of facts. Deval Patrick served on the UAL Board of Directors from 1997-2001. United Airlines, along with Pat Robertson’s group, led the fight against a 1997 San Francisco ordinance that would have required the airline to offer domestic partnership benefits to its gay employees. Deval Patrick supported the company’s decision (and still does), citing a particular legal dilemma – the need or desire to offer the same benefit to all employees nation-wide. According to the comments of San Francisco’s attorney, it does not appear that United Airlines raised that issue in its discussions with the city. After 26 months of bitter litigation and a nationwide boycott by the gay community and others, United Airlines announced that it would offer domestic partnership benefits in 2000. News accounts and independent sources such as Business Week make it clear that the benefits program was a response to the economic and political pressures resulting from the San Francisco situation. Deval Patrick appears to be suggesting that the company’s ultimate decision, and his role as a board member, are examples of enlightened capitalism – the company came to “the right outcome.” The objective record indicates that the company’s ultimate decision had less to do with its legal dilemma than with its public relations/economic dilemma.
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The obvious question: did United come to the “right outcome” by way of the right path? It appears the company acted out of economic necessity, which doesn’t jibe as well with Deval Patrick’s rosier account. He supported the strategy that produced the boycott. The company could have responded by offering benefits or announcing an intention to offer benefits in 1997. Instead, United and its board, including Deval Patrick, had to buckle under pressure before arriving at that position.
Questions, not many answers, and lots of smoke. Again the high minded ear-catching slogans of Deval Patrick and his campaign are not matched by the track record.
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Was there any board that Deval Patrick was on that was not caught up in some huge controversy over civil rights?
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Maybe the recent spotlight focused on DP’s track-record explains some of the recent negativity he demonstrated in Springfield. There was recent speculation in the Globe and the Herald that Gabrieli was about to go negative. I do not think that is or will be the case. In fact, I will make a friendly wager with anyone who wants to take it that Patrick’s tone, ads, comments, and emails, etc. will be far more negative than Gabrieli’s between this week and election day. In other words, Patrick – “no ordinary leader” – will be revealed as an “ordinary” politician.
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One last question, will Patrick be seen or heard from working for the public good in MA if he loses? I have no clue, but his record is sparse on this front. I hope that changes regardless of this election’s outcome. On the other hand, I have every confidence Gabrieli will be out there working for a better Massachusetts regardless of the outcome on 9/19/06. His record of helping others and donating his time and money is remarkable. That’s just one of the reasons I am voting for Chris Gabrieli in the primary.
Couldn’t have said it better.
Long time no chat. Been a little busy as of late and popped in today to see what was going on here and found this from MaverickDem and had to respond. I am not even sure where to begin.
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Ok, let’s start with the true irony of this post. How can someone who supports Tom Reilly even think of writing this post. The man has been an active oppononent of gay rights for his entire career in politics. Reilly only saw the light on gay marriage when it became clear that support of gay marriage was the politically beneficial position for him to take (at least publicly) if he wanted to have any chance of winning the nomination. Tom Reilly and his supporters do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to the issue of gay rights and specifically gay marriage.
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Others have responded to certain of MavDem’s points, but I wanted to touch on a couple of other points. First, most of Deval’s GLBT support came before the whole certification issue was raised. I believe that Deval’s first major campaign event was an event with the GLBT community. From the first day of his campaign, Deval has reached out to, met with and responded to members of the GLBT communtiy, addressing our concerns and making the case why he would make a fantastic governor. In the interest of fairness, Chris Gabrieli has also done the same in turns of GLBT outreach (and also has a strong record of support for GLBT issues and gay marriage). Tom Reilly, not so much. Has Reilly even had a GLBT camaign event as of yet?
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Onto the legal rationale issue. My understanding of Deval’s position is that subjecting corporations to local ordinances such as this would make it impossible to do business. The fight wasn’t over whether the rights at issue were good or bad (and UAL did add domestic partner benefits in response) but whether a city could hold a large corporation hostage making it less effective. The issue at question wasn’t a civil rights question, but more a role of government issue. With regards to the Reilly certification issue, yes the SJC did endorese Reilly’s certification. And though I don’t necessarily agree with the decision, Tom Reilly was vindicated on that one point. Of course, the rest of his anti-gay marriage record still stands.
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As for DOMA, I think others here have pointed out that Deval was frozen out of the process, that Clinton signed the bill reluctantly and that a veto would have been overridden (only 16 senators voted against the bill). From the posts on this thread, it sounds like Deval thought DOMA was a mistake then as well and made is opposition clear.
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I think in the end, the take away is this. No candidate is going to be perfect on any issue. However, in comparing the three candidates on this issue, it is clear that two (Patrick and Gabrielli) have long records of active support for gay issues, and specifically gay marriage, while one has a long record of actively opposing, in both words and actions, gay rights and specifically gay marriage. These “issues” that are raised in this article are from the 90’s and were known to members of the GLBT community before they decided who to support. They are part of the larger calculus one needs to look at when evaluating candidates. When you do the calculus, it’s clear that on the issue of gay rights, Patrick and Gabrielli come out way ahead of Reilly. Hell, I think that Healy actually gives Reilly a run for his money on this issue. At least I know where she stands whereas Reilly has a say one thing do another approach to the issue.
Here is how the story
Should have been written…Cut and pasted from the Globe
without the “inuendo”
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“””Patrick was on the UAL board from 1997 to 2001.”
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My view was it was right to do domestic partner benefits," Patrick said.I advocated for — successfully — that we provide these benefits companywide. . . . The good thing about this whole controversy is it also raised a serious policy question. And on the policy question the board got it right, and I’m proud about that.<
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The legal question is quite a bit more narrow," he said.It’s hard to run a company like United if you have to comply with dozens and dozens of municipal ordinances that affect employment in all of the different places where you operate.”<
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He said he told the board that United was right to fight the ordinance because it would be hard for the airline to operate nationally if cities dictated its employment policies. He also said he urged United to make domestic partner benefits companywide policy, which it did in July 1999
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United became the first US airline to grant domestic partner benefits to its employees and retirees worldwide.””
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But that makes it not so much news
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