Potential Circulator Cuts and Reallocation Looms: The District Department of Transportation is considering whether to cut the Smithsonian-National Gallery of Art Circulator bus route in order to provide more service on the Union Station-Capitol Hill line. While it's too bad we can't have endless transit funding to do both, cutting the Mall route wouldn't drastically impact D.C. residents—and might get tourists to walk more! Exercise is good. +1

Mr. Postman: Kwame Brown has a new set of wheels these days: Mike DeBonis reports that the D.C. Council chairman is rolling up to the Wilson Building in a vintage mail truck. Of course, the lease on the much-maligned Navigator is presumably still costing taxpayers some money. No word on whether the mail truck is "fully loaded," but since it dates to the early 1980s, it's probably safe to assume there's no DVD player in the backseat. -1

Food Truck Furor: Like brick-and-mortar restaurants, D.C.'s food trucks can capitalize on foot traffic, which is why there's often more than one hanging out during lunch at Franklin Park or Farragut Square. This afternoon, U.S. Park Police—agents of the National Park Service, who control and manage the majority of D.C.'s parkland—shut down and threatened to arrest several mobile vendors gathered at the square. Food Truck Fiesta, which organizes and promotes when food trucks gather, indicated that there's no clear reason why the U.S. Park Police took action. -2

Marryland: Despite Del. Sam Arora's bewildering flip-flop-flip earlier this afternoon, the Maryland House of Delegates' Judiciary Committee approved the state's same-sex marriage legislation. The bill has been beleaguered by elected representatives who have gone absent in order to gain support for pet projects, and by an amendment that would have allowed for same-sex civil unions, rather than marriages. Still, it's progress for Maryland. Not so much for the first-term lawmaker, who has essentially lost any political capital he once had with the gay community. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 36 Today's score: 0 Friday Bonus Points: +2 Today's Needle rating: 38

“The return is invalid because it has come to the attention of the court that the subject contracting parties to the marriage and you, the officiant, did not all personally participate in a marriage ceremony performed within the jurisdictional and territorial limits of the District of Columbia,” the letter read.

After receiving the letter, the couple looked into legal options to challenge the decision, Alexander-Reid said. They were told they didn't have a strong case and will try to fly back to D.C. this weekend to be legally married.

The full letter:

The gay marriage law may not have brought much in the way of new revenue for the city or the wedding industry here. But as a step toward equality and justice, it's pretty significant. Now the law has survived both a threatened challenge from conservatives in Congress and a lawsuit—looks like it may be here to stay.

Earlier today, the D.C. Court of Appeals declined to stay the impending legalization of same-sex marriages in Washington.

In a terse opinion [PDF] today, the appeals court refused to overturn a Superior Court judge's decision not to postpone the District's same-sex marriage from going into effect. Which means, barring some unlikely congressional intervention, come next Wednesday, March 3, gay couples can start lining up at the courthouse. (Pursuant to District law, they''ll have to wait three business days to actually do the deed, so no weddings till Tuesday.)

Over at the Sexist, Amanda Hess has everything you need to know about tying the knot, starting with your trip to the H. Carl Moultrie I District of Columbia Courthouse. You'll need to bring $35 and avoid Fred Phelps & Co.

UPDATE, 5:15 P.M.: Download your new, gender-neutral marriage license application form [PDF] if you want (via GLAA Forum).

Photo via nerdcoregirl, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

But what is a legislative day? It means days when at last one house of Congress is in session, and while most business days are legislative days and vice versa, that's not necessarily the case. (Note the Saturday sessions held in both houses to push the health care bill through.)

According to an informal count done yesterday by D.C. Council's chief attorney, Brian Flowers, gay marriages are projected to be legal in the District come March 2.

That counts last Tuesday as a legislative day, and it assumes that Congress takes Martin Luther King Day and all of the week following Presidents' Day off and stays out of session on weekends. That may be a pessimistic assumption, given the goal to have health care done by the State of the Union address.

Unknown to LL: Whether you have to wait until March 2 to take the vows, or whether you can start hitchin' as soon as business is gaveled to a close on March 1. Anyone know?

From: "Flowers, Brian (COUNCIL)"
To: "Flowers, Brian (COUNCIL)"
Sent: Mon, January 11, 2010 4:56:11 PM
Subject: March 2, 2010 – projected law date for Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009

FYI – The date has slipped because Congress was out on the Jan. 6,7,8 and 11. As of today, the projected law date fore the marriage equality bill would be March 2, 2010. The count includes 14 days in January, 15 days in February and one day in March, making March 2 the 31st day as follows. This count excludes the MLK holiday and the week including the President’s Day week.

January (14 days)
5, 12, 13, 14, 15
19, 20, 21, 22
25, 26, 27, 28, 29

February (15 days)
1,2,3,4,5
8,9,10,11,12
22,23,24,25,26

March (1 day)
1

Brian K. Flowers
General Counsel
Council of the District of Columbia

"I am a politician who is moral."

—Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry, April 28

That quote came from a pivotal April rally of conservative clergy to protest gay marriage. And that’s all you need to know about how this coalition fared in 2009. Events later in the year would tamp down Barry's moralizing, but his anti-marriage stance would persist sans sermons. As the marriage debate continued through the year, Barry's earth-shattering irony gave way to plain-old political pandering; he eventually explained his vote to a reporter as such: "Politically you can't keep going against your community or they'll put you out of office." Never mind that he possibly holds the safest seat in all of D.C.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

More from LL's Quotes of 2009

A signing ceremony is set for 10:30 a.m. 10:45 a.m. tomorrow at All Souls Church, at 16th Street and Harvard Street NW, LL has learned. The bill will then be transmitted to Congress for 30 legislative days of review—a period expected to expire sometime in March.

Big political question: Are all the councilmembers who passed the bill—including Chairman Vincent C. Gray—invited? Will they show up? Will they speak/shake hand/slap backs with the mayor? Will they all say nice things about each other?

"This is the most contentious issue of the 21st century," he says. Even accounting for "the fact we have two wars, a struggling economy, health-care reform, 13 percent unemployment rate, 50 percent dropout rate, African-American kids, Latino kids dying in the streets at an alarming rate—this is still the most contentious issue of the 21st century, and the registered voters are demanding to be heard."

Yikes. With emotions running that deep and many options for same-sex marriage opponents hoping to derail the D.C. Council's vote today, expect much drama to come. In fact, the process up to this point has been rather predictable. What will follow is anyone's guess.

Bishop Harry Jackson, the face of the anti-gay-marriage movement here, says: "We are simply going to try every available opportunity politically and legally to make this happen."

OK, let's start with the political options: King et al. are making the rounds of congressional offices hoping to drum up interest in Capitoll Hill intervention into the council vote. King boasts a full schedule of meetings, and says the refrain he's hearing is this: "Let the people vote!"

At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, prime supporter of the marriage bill, says he's got strategy of his own. "I was on the Hill last week," he says. "I'm not going to telegraph to the world what our plans are....Rest assured we are working very diligently to defend this victory on the Hill. in the worst case scenario....we'll get up the next day and begin pushing the boulder up the hill."

As for the legal side, King and Jackson put a lot of faith in their attorneys, from the Alliance Defense Fund: "I believe that we have the best legal team in America," King says. A hearing is set for Jan. 6 before a Superior Court judge on one suit to force a popular vote on marriage.

For his part, Catania notes that anti-marriage forces have already been dealt an early loss in Superior Court, and that the lawyers tasked with defending the city's decision are no slouches. "You never know when you go before an independent judiciary; nothing is assured," he says. "But I think our arguments are sound, and we're working were hard to put an architecture in place of legal justifications for our actions. We've had a good track record so far, and I expect that to continue."

In fact, Catania says he's less scared of the lawsuits than of the prospect of a "nongermane amendment" getting added to some random congressional measure—and that's a threat that will continue indefinitely. "There's no question were going to be defending this, and defending it and defending it, until the other side realizes it's costing them more votes than gaining them," he says.

In the best-case scenario, same-sex couples can expect to get married by early-to-mid-March, after Congress' 30-legislative-day review period expires. Or it might take much longer. In any case, expect a surfeit of quasi-apocalyptic rhetoric as the debate proceeds.

"I'm going to use the full power of the black church to kill this bill," says the Rev. Anthony Evans of Mount Zion Baptist Church. "I feel pity for those who voted for this because they have defied the will of God. We have warned them."

Adds King: "The battle may have been won here today, but the war is on, and we intend to win God's war."

"Today is the final step in a long march toward equality in the District of Columbia," said At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who shepherded the bill through the D.C. Council.

The council now will present the bill for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's signature, which is likely to come Thursday. Once the bill is signed, it will be transmitted to Congress, where it will await the end of a 30-legislative-day review period.

The 11-2 final vote brings to a close a legislative process whose outcome has never been in doubt. Prior to the marriage bill's introduction in September, gay-marriage proponents had secured the support of a supermajority of councilmembers and, in a test vote of sorts, passed a measure recognizing same-sex marriages from other states and countries. More than that, the vote—supported by all except Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette M. Alexander and Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry—is the result of decades of work by the District's gay community in amassing and wielding political power, electing supportive officials who have over the course of nearly two decades, systematically dismantled the mechanics of discrimination against gays and lesbians here in Washington. And the timing of today's vote is a strategic one, set to avoid to the greatest degree meddling from Capitol Hill and other forces.

Despite the foregone conclusion, dozens on both sides of the debate gather at the John A. Wilson Building to witness the vote—not to mention lots of cameras and unfamiliar reporters. Bishop Harry Jackson and other clergy who opposed the measure were sitting in the front row in the council chambers, but many more seats were filled by supporters of the council's action today.

Over 40 minutes of discussion ahead of the vote, each of the council's 13 members spoke. Most thanked At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, the author and prime mover behind the bill. Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells issued a warning: "There will be attacks, there will be an effort to undo this....I know that we will fight back." Barry and Alexander both declared their support for the gay community on other issues.

The D.C. Council follows the legislatures of California, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut in passing same-sex marriage legislation. Only the laws in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut now stand, and Connecticut's lawmakers only voted through the measure after its Supreme Court ruled that it must. (California passed gay marriage measures in 2005 and 2007, only to have them vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Maine had its gay marriage law overturned by a referendum last month.)

Overturning the measure during 30-day congressional review period would require majority votes from both houses of Congress, plus the signature of President Barack Obama. That outcome is unlikely. A congressional challenge to the District's vote is more likely through other avenues: First off, lawmakers could place a restriction on the city's spending that would effectively nullify the law, but the earliest that would happen is approximately a year from now. Alternately, a gay-marriage rider could be added to any other congressional provision—much as restrictions on city gun laws were added to the bill that would have granted the District a vote in the House of Representatives.

More immediately threatening may be the prospect of judicial intervention. Lawyers financed by national conservative organizations have vowed to challenge the gay marriage measure on a variety of grounds, including whether the District's home rule charter requires elections officials to allow a public vote on the issue and also whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act applied to local laws in the District of Columbia.

But today's victory will be sweet nonetheless to marriage supporters. A celebratory gathering is scheduled for tonight at the Long View Gallery in Shaw, starting at 7:30. And LL has learned that a signing ceremony is in the works, which would mark the first time in many, many months that Fenty has stood with councilmembers to finalize a piece of legislation. That event is expected to happen Thursday.

UPDATE, 3:20 P.M.: LL mistakenly reported that if Fenty and councilmembers gather for a signing ceremony, that would mark the first time such an event had happened. Not true: There's at least two occasions where Fenty has held a public bill-signing, with council participation: The mayoral school takeover in April 2007, and a Darfur divestment measure passed in November 2007.

The archdiocese's issue seems to come down to two issues: adoptions to same-sex couples (which are already legal, as it happens), and mandated employee benefits for same-sex spouses of archdiocese employees.

As WaPo's Tim Craig reports, neither of the bill main sponsors, Phil Mendelson or David Catania, are budging on the issue. Said Mendo: "The way this issue has been approached by the archdiocese in the past week was tantamount to drawing a line in the sand and it may be hard for them to show some flexibility." Catania went on to ask how the archdiocese could give employee benefits to "fornicators and adulterers" but not gay couples.

LL's quick thought: Isn't this yet another argument for abandoning the already problematic employer-based health insurance model? Why should the institutional policies of an employer, subject to religious/moral/political dealings, affect the well-being of employees and their families?

Discuss.

At-Large Councilmember David Catania today posted a letter to Robin Fretwell Wilson, law professor at Washington & Lee University, who has made it her job, as of late, to join the public debate in jurisdictions considering same-sex marriage, stumping for broad exemptions to discrimination laws for those who have religious objections to the practice.

Recently, she testified at a D.C. Council hearing on gay marriage and also wrote a Washington Post op-ed advocating for stronger protections against religious discrimination. In her council testimony, Wilson cited a flurry of federal case law to support her positions. Catania proceeded to actually look up the cases. If you come at Catania, you best come correct. Wilson, it seems, did not.

You can read the letter in full [PDF]. In fact, please do. Text is also pasted after the jump.

Here's some key lines:

—'In order to justify your position – that public employees should be exempted from the District of Columbia's Human Rights Act when it conflicts with their deeply held religious beliefs -you inappropriately misconstrued the holdings of these cases.'

—'Your misunderstanding apparently led you to claim that "circuit after federal circuit" has found that Title VII requires that police departments allow police officers to refuse to guard places that violate their religious beliefs such as abortion clinics and casinos. You even told Councilmember Jim Graham that this result "may be absurd, but it is the law under Title VII." Professor Wilson, this is clearly not the law in the Seventh Circuit, the only circuit on which your testimony at the hearing relied. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has made clear that the "undue burden" test you cite is a "de minimus" standard. I find it outrageous that you would claim otherwise.'

—'I am disturbed that you may use your misunderstanding of these cases in future testimony before legislative bodies. I am respectfully asking that you cease these misrepresentations in order to allow an honest discussion of the merits of present and future legislation.'

Catania goes on to question Wilson's political motivations, given the funding and affiliation of some of the groups she's associated with. "I am further concerned that your misrepresentations may not have been accidental or inadvertent," he writes. "Rather, your purported legal analysis and ethical judgment appear to be clouded by your political agenda."

His closing: "I am concerned about the ethical implications of your behavior and strongly caution you to consider your professional obligations of competency and candor. The democratic process depends upon an honest dialogue and open disclosure. As a professor of law, you should know better."

Catania copied the letter to the president and law dean of Washington & Lee, as well as bar discipline authorities in Texas, where Wilson is licensed.

Wilson tells the Post's Tim Craig that she thought the letter was "kind of nasty." (Professor, meet David Catania.) And her defense as to the merits of the letter? "They talked to me 45 minutes, it's possible I misstated something."

The letter in full (optical-scanned, so might contain some typos):

COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
THE JOHN A. WILSON BUILDING
1350 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20004

DAVID A. CATANIA
Council member, At – Large
Chair, Committee on Health

November 12, 2009

Professor Robin F. Wilson
Washington & Lee University School of Law
486 Sydney Lewis Hall
Lexington, VA 24450

Dear Professor Wilson:

I am writing to express my concern about mischaracterizations and misstatements you made during your testimony before the Council of the District of Columbia (Council) on November 2, 2009. You addressed religious accommodations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 19641 as they relate to the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009. In your testimony before the Council, you discussed two cases: Rodriguez v. City of Chicago (Rodriguez).2 a case dealing with a police officer who refused to guard an abortion clinic, and Endres v. Indiana State Police (Endres),3 a case dealing with a police officer who refused to protect a casino. In order to justify your position – that public employees should be exempted from the District of Columbia's Human Rights Act when it conflicts with their deeply held religious beliefs -you inappropriately misconstrued the holdings of these cases.

Although you made several misstatements, what is most shocking to me was your blatant mischaracterization of Endres. At the hearing you stated that, "police officers and firefighters under Title VII have been exempted from two things, in specific cases, one is standing guard at casinos against their conscience. In one case called Endres. the person was actually a Baptist and I guess didn't like gambling."4 In fact, the court in Endres reached the exact opposite conclusion.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Seventh Circuit) held that police officers and firefighters "cannot choose which crimes they will investigate andwhich potential victims they will protect." The plaintiff refused to work at a casino because of his sincerely held religious beliefs. The court upheld the city's decision to fire the officer.7 The court stated, in pertinent part:

Law-enforcement agencies need the cooperation of all members. Even if it proves possible to swap assignments on one occasion, another may arise when personnel are not available to cover for selective objectors, or when . . . seniority systems or limits on overtime curtail the options for shuffling personnel. Beyond all this is the need to hold police officers to their promise to enforce the law without favoritism—as judges take an oath to enforce all laws, without regard to their (or the litigants') social, political, or religious beliefs. Firefighters must extinguish all fires, even those in places of worship that the firefighter regards as heretical. Just so with police.8

The court then noted:

The public knows that its protectors have a private agenda; everyone does. But it would like to think that they leave that agenda at home when they are on duty—that Jewish policeman protect neo-Nazi demonstrators, that Roman Catholic policemen protect abortion clinics, that Black Muslim policemen protect Christians and Jews, that fundamentalist Christian policeman protect noisy atheists and white-hating Rastafarians, that Mormon policemen protect Scientologists, and that Greek-Orthodox policemen of Serbian ethnicity protect Roman Catholic Croats. We judges certainly want to think that U.S. Marshals protect us from assaults and threats without regard to whether, for example, we vote for or against the pro-life position in abortion cases. . . . And, we add, Baptist policemen protect gamblers from theft and fraud (and casino operators from sticky-fingered gamblers and employees with falsified credentials).

I am also troubled by your incorrect application of Rodriguez. In that case a police officer, Angelo Rodriguez, alleged that the City of Chicago discriminated against him by refusing to exempt him from an assignment to stand guard outside an abortion clinic. You indicated that the court upheld Rodriguez's ability to exempt himself from clinic duty,10 when in fact the court specifically rejected Rodriguez's claim of discrimination under Title VII, The court did not find that a police officer can refuse to guard an abortion clinic if it violates their deeply held religious belief. Indeed, the Seventh Circuit held that the pre-existence of a transfer option under the employee's collective bargaining agreement permitted the employee to transfer to another police district without an abortion clinic.12 Thus, the court never addressed the issues of "reasonable accommodation" and "undue burden" in the manner in which you represented. And it is inexcusable that you failed to mention that the discussions of these issues in Rodriguez are not reflective of the current state of the law in light of the Seventh Circuit's holding in Endres. which is discussed above.13

Your misunderstanding apparently led you to claim that "circuit after federal circuit" has found that Title VII requires that police departments allow police officers to refuse to guard places that violate their religious beliefs such as abortion clinics and casinos. You even told Councilmember Jim Graham that this result "may be absurd, but it is the law under Title VII."15 Professor Wilson, this is clearly not the law in the Seventh Circuit, the only circuit on which your testimony at the hearing relied. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has made clear that the "undue burden" test you cite is a "de minimus" standard.16 I find it outrageous that you would claim otherwise.

Your Curriculum Vitae states that you have previously participated in the legislative process regarding marriage equality in both New Hampshire and Connecticut. I am disturbed that you may use your misunderstanding of these cases in future testimony before legislative bodies. I am respectfully asking that you cease these misrepresentations in order to allow an honest discussion of the merits of present and future legislation.

I am further concerned that your misrepresentations may not have been accidental or inadvertent. Rather, your purported legal analysis and ethical judgment appear to be clouded by your political agenda. You are a member of the Virginia Marriage Commission, an organ of the Family Foundation of Virginia. The Family Foundation's stated goal is to promote the ideal that marriage "is the union between one man and one woman, [and] is an institution of God and a foundation of civil society."19 One of your colleagues at the Foundation is Maggie Gallagher, one of this country's most virulent opponents of marriage equality.20 The Foundation's partners include other well known right-wing organizations including the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and the Alliance Defense Fund. In addition to opposing marriage equality, the Foundation opposes embryonic stem cell research, opposes the use of emergency contraceptives, and promotes the defending of Planned Parenthood. Your failure to disclose your involvement with this organization, combined with your blatant misrepresentations before the Council, leads me to question the independence of your analysis.

In closing, I am concerned about the ethical implications of your behavior and strongly caution you to consider your professional obligations of competency and candor. The democratic process depends upon an honest dialogue and open disclosure. As a professor of law, you should know better.

Sincerely,

David A. Catania
Councilmember, At-Large
Chair, Committee on Health

cc: Kenneth P. Ruscio, President, Washington & Lee University
Rodney A. Smolla, Dean, Washington & Lee University School of Law
Chief Disciplinary Counsel, State Bar of Texas

1 Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e (2006)).
2 Rodriguez v. City of Chicago (Rodriguez). 156F.3d771 (7th Cir. 1999).
3 Endres v. Ind. State Police (Endres), 349 F.3d 922 (7th Cir. 2003).
4 Hearing on Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 on Nov. 2, 2009 [hereinafter Hearing] at 7:14.
5 Endres. 349 F.3d at 925.
6 Id. at 924.
7 Id at 927.
8 Id at 927 (emphasis added).
9 Id. (quoting Rodriguez. 156 F.3d at 779 (Posner, C.J., concurring)).
10 Hearing at 6:56.
11 Rodriguez. 156 F.3d at 778.
12 Id. In fact, the court in Endres stated that even the offer to transfer to another precinct was not required, holding that, "Certainly nothing in Ryan or Rodriguez implies that there must be such an offer...Here, where no accommodation was attempted, we must decide whether the statute requires one, and we hold that it does not." Endres, 349 F.3d at 926 (emphasis in original).
13 This year, the Seventh Circuit further extended the rule articulated in Endres in 2003, stating that even in private employment with no public safety implications, "Title VII does not require employers to deny shift preferences of some employees in order to favor the religious needs of others." Kevin Adams v. Retail Ventures. Inc.. 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 9222, **6 (7th Cir. 2009). UI(L
15 Hearing at 7:15.
1642 U.S.C. § 2000e(j) (2006); Trans World Airlines. Inc. v. Hardison. 432 U.S. 63, 84 (1977) (emphasis
added): see Ansonia Bd. of Educ. v. Philbrook. 479 U.S. 60, 67 (1986): see also 29 C.F.R. § 1605.2(e)
(2009).
17 Curriculum Vitae of Professor Robin F. Wilson at 19, available at

http://law.wlu.edu/faculty/links/wilsonrfcv.pdf.

18 Family Foundation of Virginia, Information Alert: Seek Solutions to Divorce, available at
http://www.famiiy foundation.org/alert%207_ 12_07.htm.
19 Family Foundation of Virginia, Virginia Policy Issues, available at

http://www.familyfoundation.org/issues.html.

20 Family Foundation of Virginia, Information Alert: Seek Solutions to Divorce, available at http://www.familyfoundation.org/alert%207 12_07.htm.

Of all the romantic locales in the world, or in the District of Columbia even, the John A. Wilson Building does not approach the top of LL's personal list.

But it was good enough today for D.C. residents Andrew Hertzberg and Andy Rollman.

During this morning's D.C. Council hearing on the same-sex marriage bill, Hertzberg, 49, proposed to Rollman while before the dais at the close of his testimony. Rollman accepted.

Why pick the council chamber? Says Hertzberg: "This is such important legislation and such an important forum."

Rollman, 47, says the proposal didn't come as a complete surprise. "He told me he was going to do something as a surprise at the end," he says. "I was hoping this was it."

"Someone is missing." Anyone else think the latest Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, Shutter Island, has the worst tagline ever?

A senior at George Washington University was reported missing last weekend—prompting a Facebook group, a front-page GW Hatchet article, and a citywide police search. The girl who reported his absence said: “I could possibly see him [skipping their event] and sleeping in—but I couldn’t see him not texting me and apologizing.” The student turned up safe and sound Monday morning, having gone with another girl to Virginia. Draw your own conclusions.

On Monday, the National Capital Planning Commission approved a new security plan for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial – so construction can now begin. According to the Associated Press, the memorial—which consists of an island and two elm trees—will have fewer metal posts than initially proposed. Expect to see the memorial (missing security posts) in 2011.

Help the Metropolitan Police find a missing 12-year-old. She was last seen at the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station on Friday.

Central Intelligence Agency funds missing? Say, maybe for the last eight years? Try checking the pockets of the Afghan president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai. Or just ask the opium dealers.

The D.C. Council started its same-sex marriage hearings on Monday—and the committee taking up David A. Catania's legislation is most definitely not missing testifiers. It already was scheduled to hear from 100 people, and 150 more will have their say on Nov. 2.

As part of a future exhibit at Nevin Kelly Gallery, local artists ask: "What's important to you?" Everyone gets just 10 words to answer. How about "Missing students, Leo, and people who don't care about gay marriage"? Whoops, that's 11.

Georgetown University has just released the schedule of community meetings to discuss its  10-year campus plan. In other words, if you are interested in neighborhood zoning issues, best pencil them in. If you are still annoyed about loud, drunken kids eating pizza—bummer. They are still there.

Photo by Doug, Creative Commons Attribution License

In testimony before the D.C. Council today, Bishop Harry Jackson namechecked Martin Luther King and his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in talking about his opposition to gay marriage. Jackson quoted King: "A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a people, that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, have no part in enacting or devising the law."

That, of course, was a reference to Jackson's quest to have a citywide vote on gay marriage. He said, "I believe the people of the District of Columbia have suffered an injustice by being ignored already, and you're about to do that again....There is an advisory referendum that you could endorse—why don't you do it?"

At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, author and lead introducer of the bill, was ready to pounce.

"I want to thank you for bringing our history to this chamber, the history of voting rights in the city," he began. "Bishop, are you aware of the last time an 'advisory referendum' was placed on the ballot in the District that attempted to diminish the rights of a minority?"

Jackson said he was not.

Catania went on to fill him in on the events of Dec. 21, 1865, after then Mayor Richard Wallach 'fearing what the radical Republicans wanted to do in Congress, which is extend the vote to freed African-American males in the city,' held a vote on that issue. It lost, 712 to 1 in Georgetown, then independent, and 6,591 to 35 in the remainder of the city.

Concluded Catania, "There is an opportunity, from time to time, to have tyranny at a ballot box that would take away the rights of some because a majority thinks differently."

And then the coup de grâce: Catania asked Jackson how many times he'd voted in city elections in the past decade.

Jackson, who recently moved from the Maryland suburbs, said none: "I am recent resident of the District of Columbia."

Later in the hearing, another historical analogue came up: the pre-Civil War "Bleeding Kansas" struggle over whether that state would be admitted slave or free.

That conflict, Catania pointed out, was exacerbated by meddling interlopers from neighboring Missouri.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery