The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

The LA Times, which puts out "We agree with the gays but their tactics are just so uncivil!" editorials every few months just to remind everyone how centrist they are, has an editorial out saying that HRC (you know, the radical, far-left queers' organization) just doesn't get how the legal system works and shouldn't be saying anything against King & Spalding for taking on the defense of DOMA. Every law needs to be defended, and while this one could have been defended by House lawyers, it also needs a $900/hr private lawyer because if a lawyer doesn't bill nine months worth of food stamps per hour then she can't possibly be competent.

Back in the adult conversation about this move, Metro Weekly says that part of the contract K&S signed with the House says that none of their employees can advocate against DOMA, even employees who aren't working on the litigation. This means that lawyers at any of the firm's offices could be prohibited from speaking in favor of DOMA repeal or volunteering with an organization like Lambda Legal that opposes DOMA.

It's also explicitly illegal in several states where K&S has offices, since apparently some people still consider it a bad idea to allow employers to use their power, in providing food and shelter and health care to employees, to keep their employees out of the political process.

It's a perfectly Republican contract. Not only is it for the defense of discrimination, it's was apparently a no-bid contract for political cronies, taking work government workers would competently be doing and giving it to a more-expensive private entity that also wants the right to control its employees' outside of work political speech. Add in a tax break for the firms' partners and a set of guns for the associates' and it might just be the Platonic ideal of conservatives' values.

img flickr