Meet Edie Windsor, talking about her late spouse and companion of 44 years, Thea Spyer.
Windsor's lawsuit against the federal government for refusing to recognize her marriage challenges the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, and was instrumental in the Obama administration's
decision to stop defending that law in court.
Speaker John Boehner, represented by Paul Clement, has taken up the mantle of bigotry, filing a mess of anti-gay motions in an attempt to have Windsor's case dismissed. Joe Sudbay reports that, among all the documentation Clement has submitted, there's a research paper from Professor Lisa Diamond, who takes issue with the use of her research by Clement.
In what amounts to a legal bombshell, Diamond maintains that Boehner's crack legal team misconstrued and distorted her writings. She stated, "They have completely misrepresented my research."
From the Reply Memo filed today:
Professor Lisa Diamond, the author of two of the academic articles Plaintiff seeks to strike, has submitted an affidavit testifying that BLAG [Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives] has in fact distorted her research and that she never would have agreed to testify to the propositions BLAG has advanced in its papers. It is hard to imagine a more concrete example of why the materials submitted by BLAG are not reliable. Had BLAG followed the rules and used as expert witnesses any of the authors it cites (as contemplated by the May 11 Scheduling Order), and had Plaintiff’s counsel then had the opportunity to depose them, Plaintiff would have been able to obtain similarly damaging testimony from them as well.
Imagine that, Boehner's laywer misrepresenting the truth. Who'd have thunk it?