Amazing political things have just happened...DOMA and filibustering.

[elionwyr]

Yesterday, I posted about gay rights, and said that there was hope regarding DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman).

Today, I am tearfully jubiliant.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional.  This means gay marriages are now allowed federal benefits.  This affects taxes and benefits and immigration laws.

California's Proposition 8 was also voted on today, and the decision was made that it's unconstitutional.  Today's vote means that gay marriage is again legal in California.  This fight has been going on for years - history here - but basically Proposition 8 sought to overrule the California Supreme Court ruling that supported same-sex marriage..but only for a window of years.  And the Supreme Court just said, in effect, "Nnnnnope."

These stories have received lots of media attention, and that's awesome. However, major media managed to miss another amazing story as it was happening in a western corner of our country last night.  Senator Wendy Davis stated her intent to use filibustering to block a very stringent anti-abortion bill in Texas that had strong support from the GOP.  Senator Davis went to Twitter to ask women to share their stories with her so that she would have enough on-topic material to successfully filibuster for a goal of just over 12 hours.  (She made it to 11 hours before the Republicans declared her discussion points as being off-topic.)

The stakes were very high.  Had this bill been passed, almost EVERY abortion clinic in Texas would be forced to close.  It would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy - regardless of health risks to the woman  .  Many clinics would have to be upgraded to 'ambulatory surgical centers' and doctors would have to have 'admitting privileges' at nearby hospitals.

Senator Davis stood and talked for 11 hours.  No bathroom breaks.  No food or drink.  No sitting or leaning.  She was not allowed to use her back brace.  She had an amazing amount of Twitter support throughout the night, and supporters that could be there in person were on site to cheer her on...literally, when the Republicans tried repeatedly to shut down the Senator's filibuster.  When the filibuster was finally stopped at the 11th hour, the protesters helped stop the bill from being passed.

How close did the bill come to being passed?  I'm going to quote from that above link:

Initially, Republicans insisted the vote started before the midnight deadline and passed the bill that Democrats spent the day trying to kill. But after official computer records and printouts of the voting record showed the vote took place Wednesday, and then were changed to read Tuesday, senators retreated into a private meeting to reach a conclusion.

At 3 a.m., Dewhurst emerged from the meeting still insisting the 19-10 vote was in time, but said, "with all the ruckus and noise going on, I couldn't sign the bill" and declared it dead.

You read that right.  The official record was changed so that it looked like the vote was passed within the deadline.

Thankfully, that lie was caught and corrected.

The fight isn't over.  It looks likely that Gov Rick Perry might call an emergency session to have this revisited.  For such a stringent bill to have gotten that far..it has a frightening amount of support.  It's all yet another horrible example of how we must keep watching the news. Be aware of what our representatives are trying to pass into law.  Be aware of how we can - and do - and are - fighting it.

More info about what happened last night:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/wendy-davis-abortion_n_3500359.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/26/wendy-davis-texas-abortion/2459135/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/06/26/key-moments-from-wendy-daviss-11-hour-filibuster/
http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Ex-teen-mom-heads-filibuster-versus-abortion-limit-4622978.php