DNRTFA, but the daughter should get a fucking medal. The lawyer should be taken to a private room somewhere, have his knees or elbows broken, and told if he ever fucking opens his mouth against gays again he's gonna end up buried in the fucking desert. Hypocrite.

@2 That's a bit strong, but I will refrain from admiring his transformation.

It seems to me that nearly every odious position taken by conservatives can be boiled down to lack of empathy.

The opportunity to argue a major case in front of the supreme court from either side is so huge, it wouldn’t surprise me if the lawyer never held any truly bigoted opinions and did it just for the professional experiance.

Keep in my, the lawyer is just the messenger.

But Jesus Christ, I wish CONSERVATIVES would learn to develop a little bit of fucking empathy before the issue directly affects their lives.

Fixed.

Fuck him. Cheney is way ahead of him and Cheney should still go fuck himself.

Somebody coined the term 'Miss America empathy' for stuff like this. Every contestant in the Miss America pageant has one pert charitable cause, such as 'child literacy' or 'foster care' or 'prevention of cruelty to animals' (note - politically correct causes only; no contestant can have 'reduce income inequality' or 'end mandatory minimums').

Similarly, every right-wing politician/apparatchnik can have one deviation from right-wing cruelty. Only one, and it's got to be personally justified. Examples are the Rep who started supporting better mental health care after his schizophrenic son committed suicide; or the Rep who supported more physical therapy being covered after he had a stroke and went through therapy (realizing just how many sessions it took before he even started to make progress).

In this case, the guy's child came out, and so the guy is taking his one waiver.

I think we ought to be taking "yes" for an answer. Sure, I wish he hadn't defended Prop 8, but if he hadn't, somebody else would have. Now that he has (a) lost the case and (b) repudiated its premise, I think we should see ourselves as one more step closer to the goal of equality.

@6 Sure, because liberals have always been for marriage equality.

More details from Jo Becker's book reported in the Washington Post:
http://tinyurl.com/nf5w689

Becker wrote that Cooper and his daughter spent hours discussing the case while it was ongoing and disagreed about Cooper’s view that states had reason to enshrine the traditional definition of marriage in their constitutions and withhold the right from same-sex couples.

“I think the most upset I got was being called an ‘experiment’ that people deserved to see the outcome of before accepting,” Becker quoted Lininger as saying. “It just made me feel — alien, I guess.”

@10: you know, liberals have always been tagged with epithets like "pussy" and the "mommy party". emotions, sympathy, empathy, etc. are supposed to be our weakness, which is why we're told the grown ups at the GOP should be in charge.

yes, everyone has prejudice. yes, some otherwise "liberals" didn't want gay marriage initially, based on religious grounds, or, like me, based on a conviction that marriage is a historically misogynist legal contract that the state should have no part in administering. or providing monetary incentives for. or that homosexuals should want anything to do with.

the exception does not disprove the rule. IN GENERAL, liberals do have more empathy for letting people do whatever the fuck they want, and conservatives (not libertarians, oh no - they're so cool) generally don't. conservatives GENERALLY don't give a shit about social justice till it affects someone they know.

You beat me to it twice, Max Solomon.