Word: courting
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...those issues returned with a vengeance. A doctor who specialized in the most controversial sorts of abortions was murdered in Kansas. President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, which restarted a tired debate about affirmative action. And while the blowhards have taken up their battle stations - the leadership of the Republican Party, especially, seems to have shifted from politics to infotainment - the terrain on these issues has shifted subtly in the past few years. (Indeed, gay marriage - once the hottest of hot buttons - seems to be easing toward public acceptance, as state after state approves it.) (See pictures...
...seem to have reached a quiet consensus that Sotomayor is right, that our national diversity is a splendid advantage in matters of justice and culture. You want to have powerful Latinas - and others, the full panoply of American types - helping make big decisions, not just on the Supreme Court, but in boardrooms, schools and editorial offices. That presence is what makes this society so much more vibrant than it used...
When super-lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies went to court last week to ask a federal judge to toss out California's Proposition 8, one might have expected longtime gay-marriage advocates to welcome the move with open arms. After all, not only is Olson, 69, one of the preeminent members of the Supreme Court bar and Boies an acclaimed trial lawyer who famously squared off with Olson in 2000 when they took opposing sides in the Supreme Court's landmark Bush v. Gore election case. But perhaps even more important symbolically, Olson is a former top lawyer...
...Many of the movement's leaders say the smarter route to equality is a state-by-state battle to convince not just judges but lawmakers and voters alike. "History says the odds at the Supreme Court now are not so good," said a statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union and eight other national legal and gay-rights organizations deeply involved in legal wars over marriage. "The U.S. Supreme Court typically does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states...
...suit over the controversial law banning gay marriage but ultimately decided to move forward anyway. "We have given this a great deal of thought," said Olson, who noted that sitting on the sidelines hardly guarantees that some other plaintiff won't seek his or her own day in court. "Both David and I have seen cases at the Supreme Court brought by people who didn't know what they were doing. We feel we do know what we are doing." (Watch a gay-marriage wedding video...