Brian Brown Has The Ohio Sadz

"Though seemingly confined to how Ohio's death certificates treat so-called same-sex 'marriages' performed elsewhere, the ruling is utterly unlawful and violates the sovereignty of the people of Ohio. We call on the state to appeal the ruling of this activist judge. In the DOMA case, the US Supreme Court specifically ruled that it is the right of the states to define marriage. This activist judge is grossly twisting the Court's ruling in the DOMA case in order to justify a ruling that is completely at odds with the law. In the process, he has issued an open invitation for gay marriage activists to bring a wider lawsuit to redefine marriage entirely. This cannot be allowed to stand." - Hate group leader Brian Brown, in his fourth case of the sadz in the last five days.

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Posted in: Brian Brown,crackpots,hate groups,marriage equality,NOM,Ohio,religion,The Sadz

OHIO: Judge Rules State Must Recognize Gay Marriages On Death Certificates

Via the Associated Press:

A federal judge has declared in a ruling that applies only to death certificates that Ohio's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. In his decision Monday, Judge Timothy Black orders state officials to recognize such unions on death certificates. Although his ruling applies narrowly, his statements about Ohio's gay-marriage ban are sweeping and expected to incite further litigation challenging the law. In his lengthy decision, the Cincinnati-based judge says that "once you get married lawfully in one state, another state cannot summarily take your marriage away." He says the U.S. Constitution recognizes the right to remain married as a fundamental liberty.

Read the full ruling.

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Posted in: LGBT rights,marriage equality,Ohio

Valerie Spruill Raising GSA Awareness

Valerie Spruill, a woman I blogged about the other day because she unknowingly married her genetic father, continues to make the news. CNN picked up her story in this piece by Chelsea J. Carter…

It was a dark secret. The kind that destroys lives, devastates families and decimates faith.

That’s a bit negative and overly dramatic. He provided half of the genetic material that made her. And they loved each other.

Spruill met and married her husband-father in Akron and settled in Doylestown, a working class suburb of about 2,300.

It was her second marriage. Spruill was a nice man, a good provider. He was kind to her three children from her previous marriage.

"We had a good life," she said.

Isn’t that what is important???

In recent days, she has been in contact with a couple who found out after they were married that they were brother and sister.

They told her, she said, that her story is helping them deal with their own experience.

"They are trying to be friends now," Spruill said.

I wonder if they are people we already know about? It is unfortunate that they felt a need to end their marriage.

Others, though, have been less kind.

"They've said things like 'Some secrets should stay secrets,'" she said.

They’re hateful people who want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the truth.

Spruill, herself, has three children and eight grandchildren. She struggled with telling her children that the man they believed was their step-father was their grandfather.

A therapist "advised me to tell my kids," she said. "I told them about two years ago. They are remarkable. They are handling it better than I am."

In recent days, shortly before the news broke, she also told her grandchildren.

"They have been so supportive. They are telling me they love me, telling me they will do whatever I need," she said.

That’s as it should be. Good for them!

In her spare time, since retiring from the accounting department where she worked for 34 years at Goodyear, she has been writing down her story with the hopes of publishing it.

It could make a great book and a great movie. Whether or not this was a case of Genetic Sexual Attraction, I don’t know. I have not read anything about how she and her husband met and what her feelings were like then. This case involves some of the same issues as GSA either way. In none of the stories have I seen an example of why her marriage was a problematic, other than her feelings about consanguinamory. This indicates to me that if we change our attitude towards consanguinamory, there will be less suffering.

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Posted in: boundaries,coming out,consanguineous,family reaction,father-daughter,GSA,incest,love,Ohio,prejudice

Did Valerie Spruill Experience GSA?

Most people who experience Genetic Sexual Attraction are aware of their genetic relationship, or have reason to believe it is a possibility. Others, though, fall in love with a strong feeling of attraction, build a life together, even marry and have children only to discover their close genetic relation later.

I like to point out that what matters most is how the people in any relationship treat each other. If they are right for each other, if they love each other, if they treat each other well, what does it matter what their races, genders, ages (provided they are adults), or level of consanguinity are?

Bob Dyer, Akron Beacon Journal columnist (Ohio, USA), brings is the story of Valerie Spruill and the marriage she had. It starts off with a negative approach...

Valerie Spruill (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal)

The next time you think you’re having a bad day, image how Valerie Spruill felt when she discovered that her husband and her father are the same person.

And what exactly is the problem? I know there are people going "eew!" but why? They aren't attracted to their fathers or daughters because the Westermarck Effect has repelled them. Or they hate their father or daughter. But that wasn't the case here. They were attracted to each other and loved each other. So what is the problem?

It wasn't until after her husband died that a relative told her that her husband was her genetic father and Valerie was able to confirm with DNA evidence.

Not that her life had been a breeze four decades earlier when she found out at the age of 9 that the man she thought was her father was actually her grandfather, and that a person who had been identified as a “family friend” was actually her mother.

Spruill didn’t learn until later that her mom also was one of three “night ladies,” as she terms it, who testified in the infamous 1980 corruption trial of Summit County Probate Judge James Barbuto.

Why would anyone volunteer this kind of information?

Because Valerie Spruill wants to be an example. The 60-year-old Doylestown woman wants to show other folks born into miserable situations that they can still lead good, productive, fulfilling lives.

Good for her!

Now retired, she worked for 34 years in the accounting department at Goodyear. She has three kids and eight grandkids.

Again, good for her!

Fortunately, Spruill has been working with a therapist since she found out. She praises the therapist for helping her realize she did nothing wrong.

 Of course she didn't.

The man in question, Percy Spruill, died in April 1998 at the age of 60. Born in Mississippi, he worked in Akron as a truck driver and, later, as a parking-lot attendant at Morley Health Center.

He and Valerie’s mother hooked up when he was only 15.

We’re not sure how many offspring Percy Spruill helped produce, but at one point, apparently, he figured that one of them would be a suitable spouse.

Although Valerie says she is not 100 percent certain he knew, because he never talked about it, she strongly believes he was aware of the taboo he had committed but was simply afraid to tell her.

If they loved each other, why did it matter? The article does not mention him being a bad partner.

The article does not mention other marriages or relationships or how old they were when they were married, but I would think it would have mentioned that she had all or any of her three children with him if she had.

The story was picked up by dailymail.co.uk, which calls the story "horrifying." It was then picked up by inquisitr.com and huffintonpost.com, which brought up the case of our friends James and Maura.

Examiner.com's Yvonne Jessey cites this story to advise people to know their family history.

Not too many people know every single person or know of everyone in their family tree. I strongly suspect that this will become further complicated when all those babies conceived by artificial insemination grow up and go out into the world, not knowing who is their biological parent or if that parent had other children. The chances for committing incest are astronomical...

Everyone points and gawks. But what was the problem, really? It is all really unnecessary. As long as they enjoyed each other, which should some lingering, outdated taboo mar that memory? Other than the stigma, there isn't anything that was actually harmful about their relationship. The stigma serves no valid purpose, so the stigma shouldn't be perpetuated.

Finally, note that Ohio does not criminalize consanguinamory between consenting adults except when it comes to parents with their adult children. In other words, siblings, uncles & aunts with their nieces and nephews... that's legal, but parents with their adult children is still illegal, presumably because of Discredited Argument #20 (power differential). But he never functioned as her father and she didn't know he was her father, so he didn't have that power over her.

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Posted in: boundaries,coming out,consanguineous,family reaction,father-daughter,GSA,incest,lack of equality harms,love,media,Ohio,prejudice,reunion,stigma

Injury Lawyer's Fees May Get Him Disbarred

In 1977, a fire burned through a popular nightclub in Southgate, Kentucky, killing 165 people and horribly scarring 200 more.  A young lawyer, Stanley Chesley, filed a plaintiffs' lawsuit on behalf of the victims in that fire, advancing a novel theory of liability.

Rather than simply suing the Beverly Hills Supper Club for the insurance policy limits, Chesley fashioned a suit that included more than 1000 defendants; the entire aluminum electrical wire industry.  The tactic paid handsomely; over $50 million.

Thanks to this and other similar lawsuits, the mass-tort era was born.  But Chesley did not stop with the nightclub case.  Incredibily, he was involved in several other big hits: breast implant litigation, the tobacco settlement, drug manufacturing cases, even the Pan Am crash over Lockerbie Scotland.  The sky was indeed the limit.

Chesley, licensed in Ohio and Kentucky, makes our own Geoffrey Fieger look like a first year law student.  And like Feiger, Chesley is getting tangled-up in disciplinary actions with the state bar where he practices.

The problem arose for Chesley when, in 1998, he allegedly muscled his way into the Fen-Phen drug product litigation in Kentucky.  The Kentucky Bar Association investigated allegations that the attorneys involved in the case were misrepresenting the parameters of the settlement to their clients.  Eventually, two of the lawyers involved went to prison and the judge on the case was forced off the Boone County Circuit Court bench.

The Kentucky Bar Association, having concluded a series of hearings, recommended this week that Chesley get disbarred and that he pay back more than $7.5 million in fees that it says were not within the scope of his fee agreement and therefore belongs to Chesney's Fen-Phen clients.

Allegedly, Chesney paid himself a multi-million dollar bonus after sweetening the lawyer fee portion of the drug settlement in an off-the-record meeting with the disgraced judge who presided over the case at the time.

The lawyer is appealing the recommendation to the Kentucky Supreme Court.  Looks like whatever the outcome, greed apparently tainted a lot of talented legal professionals in the underlying product liability case.

Sad that this is a tale that is oft re-told in our time.

http://www.clarkstonlegal.com/

info@clarkstonlegal.com

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Posted in: Fen-Phen,Kentucky,Kentucky Supreme Court,Ohio,personal injury lawyer,plaintiff lawyer,product liability,Stanley Chesley