We cats are always sad to admit that folks often need an economic incentive to do the right thing. But, what the heck.
The Atlanta-based law firm of King & Spalding, hired by John Boehner to defend the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," has changed its mind. Of course, the King & Spalding attorney who had been anointed to lead the defense, Paul Clement, has declared his allegiance to DOMA and has left the firm in a mincing huff. (But since Clement was a solicitor general for the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, we can't say we're surprised.)
Nevertheless, we cats are thrilled. First, the news that King & Spalding was hired in the first place made us want to hack up a hairball. After all, this is a law firm with a lot of ties to one of our admired Presidents and Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jimmy Carter. (It sent Griffin Bell to Washington as Attorney General.) So we found it unseemly that folks with Carter associations would agree to defend institutionalized discrimination.
But perhaps more important, King & Spalding may have decided that the literal price of defending DOMA was just too high to pay.
Yes, there clearly must have been some vociferous pushback — from partners, clients, the gay community (both in Atlanta and nationwide) — and from fair-minded, clear-thinking people and cats across America. But the money guys at King & Spalding must have wondered what kind of reception they'd receive at Ivy League recruitment fairs this spring. (No, they'd probably not get much grief at Dartmouth. But at Harvard? Yale? Penn? Michigan? Hm!)
The arc of history just bent a little tiny bit more toward justice today. We cats PURR.
(PHOTO: Paul Clement. We cats know nuzzink, we say nuzzink.)
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