Posted on 11/21/2001 11:39:36 AM PST by FormerLib
Pro-‘gay’ lawyer: “If you don’t have the money you have no business being in court”
Tres Kerns, co-chairman of TakeBackMaryland.org, said ACLU-Maryland’s campaign to force pro-family groups to pay for a “Special Master” report resulting from a “gay” lawsuit contradicts the ACLU’s own First Amendment values — and will have a chilling effect on people getting involved in electoral politics.
TakeBackMaryland leaders expressed dismay that the ACLU is not satisfied that Kerns and two other pro-family advocates will be forced to pay a total of $4,000 (out of $40,000) toward a “Special Master” report — which recently ruled that thousands of already-certified signatures toward a 2002 ballot measure against a “gay rights” law may be invalid.
Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Eugene Lerner ordered the Special Master with the acquiescence of Maryland’s Attorney General, who refused to mount a strong state defense of the state election board despite the frivolous nature of the lawsuit launched by the pro-homosexual groups Free State Justice and ACLU-Maryland.
Kerns and two other TakeBackMaryland.org leaders intervened in the lawsuit due to the AG’s lackluster defense of the Board of Elections. On July 19, the election board validated 47,539 TakeBackMaryland signatures, enough to put the pro-homosexual Non-Discrimination Act on hold until it is voted on in a statewide referendum in November 2002.
On October 31, Charles Butler, lead attorney for the homosexual lobby’s court challenge to the state-certified petition, belittled the arguments of TakeBackMaryland.org interveners Kerns, Pastor Matt Sine and Mark Hart — who argued that they should not have to help pay for a homosexual lawsuit whose sole purpose is to strip their organization of its hard-won success in taking an unpopular “gay” law to the voters. (The ACLU is paying for the homosexuals’ share of the Special Master’s fees.)
Reminded in court of that TakeBackMaryland.org is made by average citizens with little financial means at their disposal, Butler said, “If you don’t have the money you have no business being in court.”
Bill Devens, co-founder of TakeBackMaryland.org said, “The bottom line is that Maryland's judicial system prevails over the voice of Maryland’s people and Maryland justice isn't about what is right and fair, it is about who has the deepest pockets.”
Pastor Matt Sine, co-founder of TakeBackMaryland.org, noted the hypocrisy of Butler and the ACLU for “talking about tolerance and their seeming concern for the democratic ‘process’ while at the same time deposing people in wheel-chairs and little old ladies who signed a petition in Christian bookstores.”
Kerns said the ACLU is violating both the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment by using “legal technicalities” to overturn the obvious intent of Maryland voters who signed a petition because they wanted to take the “gay” law to referendum. He recalled how in the wake of the Florida presidential election crisis, national ACLU officials complained bitterly that citizens’ votes were not being counted.
An ACLU press release at the time affirmed: “The right to vote, and to have one's vote accurately and fairly counted, is as fundamental a right as we have in this country. … The ACLU remains committed to ensuring that in the future, each and every vote is counted equally and accurately.”
Kerns said the Glendening administration, which fought hard for passage of the pro-homosexual law, has worked hand-in-hand with the homosexual side rather than defend the election board against their lawsuit.
No one but fools, simpletons and criminals would live over there.
The Constitution provides that each state will be guaranteed a republican form of government. It's long overdue to round up the Maryland Taliban, bomb them into oblivion, and begin liberating the poor people of Baltimore, and the WarshDC suburbs.
Man oh man, is the state of Virginia looking better all the time. Of course, everyone would rather live over there so housing costs 50% more across the board!!!!
In the space of 30 years the place bloomed from a couple of hundred thousand people to over one million people.
And the roads? After all that growth they are pretty much the same as they were, and it's all Maryland's fault.
Close, but it was the anti-family, anti-gun, pro-homo, pro-affirmative action, generally nonsensical liberal garbage that the leftist Marylanders force on all of the decent people that provided the growth for Virginia. Oh, and let's not forget the various taxes and other business-unfriendly rot in MD that keeps businesses happily moving into VA, too!
You think that's bad? I live in the 4th Congressional District. Yeah, where that useless load Wynn is going to serve until he dies of old age!
It is precisely the "poor people of Baltimore, and the WarshDC suburbs" that continually vote to give us the "Taliban" government in Maryland. Nothing will change their mind short of a thermonuclear device.
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