It’s the day after Election Day! Granted, this year’s election cycle wasn’t nearly as exciting as last year — when Obama ended racism in America.

Still, there are many winners to congratulate. Republicans Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell are new governors. People can now point to the North Country on a map of New York State. Michael Bloomberg secured a third term as New York City Mayor. And the New York Post (predictably) managed to ignore it all and plastered of picture of Pedro Martinez in a diaper on its front page.

But for our purposes, the biggest winners were the voters of Maine. They successfully defeated the efforts of gays and lesbians to be treated fairly, thus making sure that all of those rugged and earthy Mainers will not be tempted to have the gay sex they secretly desire.

Obviously the tactics of BC Law professor Scott Fitzgibbon — and other defenders of traditional marriages between drunken woodsmen and the girls they knock up — won the day. Do gay marriage advocates have any more tricks stashed in their closets?

Kash says yes, after the jump.

Warning: The penis-to-vagina ratio in this week’s column is quite high. If you’re already on the mailing list for Rick Santorum 2012, you may want to avert your eyes — or go make fun of sissy-boy John Kerry for helping plan his daughter’s wedding.

Our fabulous finalist couples:

1. Sebastian Dungan and Lavi Soloway

2. Adam Levine and Janson Wu

3. Alisha Bhagat and Mark Egerman

Read more about these newlyweds, after the jump.

Keith Bardwell — justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana — is receiving a lot of criticism today. I don’t know why. All he did was deny marriage license to people he didn’t think should be married. Sure, he has a traditional view of marriage that is not shared by everybody, but what is the problem with that? Bardwell explains his case to the Associated Press:

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

See, Bardwell isn’t a bigot. Oh no, he’s got “piles and piles” of friends! He’s just defending a traditional view of marriage that most people believed in centuries ago. I’m sure other defenders of outmoded conceptions of marriage will rush to Mr. Bardwell’s defense.

Let’s check out the reaction after the jump.

* Bank of America’s board votes to waive privilege and disclose the legal advice it received on the Merrill Lynch merger, which could spell trouble for B of A’s outside counsel at Wachtell (depending on the advice given). [New York Times]

* Meanwhile, B of A expands its team for the SEC litigation in the S.D.N.Y. by hiring Paul Weiss (which, along with Cleary Gottlieb, urged the bank to waive privilege with respect to the Merrill merger advice). [Dealbook / New York Times]

* Tort reform, in the form of limitations upon medical malpractice suits, could save up to $54 billion over the next 10 years. [CNN]

* Jon and Kate arbitrate… [People]

In a speech last night before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Ronald M. George, criticized his state’s reliance on the initiative process. His remarks focused on how that process, direct democracy taken to the extreme, has paralyzed state government, especially when it comes to fiscal matters.

When we first reported on Boston College Law professor Scott Fitzgibbon’s anti-gay marriage advertisement in Maine, we noted that the classes he taught were not germane to his views on gay marriage:

According to his bio, Professor Fitzgibbon teaches jurisprudence, corporations, securities regulation, and contracts. Are gay and lesbian BC Law students comfortable learning about these subjects from an anti-gay marriage professor?

But the Boston College Law School website Eagleonline has done some fantastic investigative journalism and revealed that Fitzgibbon teaches what he preaches:

In the Spring of 2008, a group of Boston College Law School students enrolled in Professor Scott T. Fitzgibbon’s “Marriage: Law and Theory” seminar formally approached Dean of Students Norah Wylie to express concern over Fitzgibbon’s allegedly improper conduct in class.

Can the law school claim that it is “welcoming” to gays and lesbians when it had an anti-gay marriage professor teaching its marriage and the law class?

Let’s look at the students’ complaints after the jump.

It’s too early to take nominations for this year’s law revue contest. But an early contender will surely be a video we received from students at Boston College Law School. It’s a spoof of BC law professor Scott Fitzgibbon’s anti-gay marriage commercial. Here’s the set-up, from the BC Student Bar Review (that’s a social organization, for 1Ls still wondering what happens outside of the library):

Dear all,

The next bar review will begin at 8pm this Thursday, October 1 at The Kells…. We can hear some of you already: “but guyssssss, The Kells is full of meatheads in Red Sox hats.” Well, we’ve got a news flash for you, Little Lord Fauntleroy: every bar in Boston is full of meatheads in Red Sox hats, and very few of them have dance floors as spirited or drinks as reasonably priced as The Kells. We find it to be a great place to blow off some steam, get weird on the dance floor, and accost your TA from LLRW and force him to do shots of Jameson with you.

However, as Dean Garvey reminded us in his memo, we must be respectful of those who disagree with us, no matter their beliefs. In the spirit of providing equal time, we have included a brief video message from the opposition:

The Kells is the kind of place that makes you want to bathe yourself in lye when you wake up the next morning afternoon. Here’s what the loyal opposition has to say:

After the jump, would the real Professor Fitzgibbon please stand up?

We’ve been waiting for this. We’ve been covering Boston College Law Professor Scott Fitzgibbon and his commercial against gay-marriage. That commercial is now being shown on national television (I caught it being discussed on Dylan Ratigan’s show this morning). I can’t imagine how proud the BC Law community is to have their law school prominently featured in an ad that — as one legal blogger put it: “relies on inflammatory and unfounded rhetoric.”

Today, a group of BC Law professors put out a statement that tries to soothe the feelings of gays and lesbians that may feel the university as a whole doesn’t think they should be given equal treatment.

Read it after the jump.

Yesterday, we talked about a Boston College Law professor, Scott Fitzgibbon, who went up to Maine to shoot an anti-gay marriage commercial. John Garvey, Dean of Boston College Law, didn’t respond to us, but he did send around an email to the BC Law community. As many predicted, Dean Garvey defended Professor Fitzgibbon. Here is the pertinent part of Dean Garvey’s letter:

Professor Fitzgibbon, as a member of our faculty, is free to express his views. His public statements represent his own opinions, as the advertisement makes clear, and do not state any official position of Boston College Law School. We also have faculty members who hold a contrary view, which they too are free to express publicly. Many have done so while referring to themselves as BC Law professors. One of them has publicly led the fight to oppose the Solomon Amendment on the grounds that it is an affront to gay and lesbian students and prospective members of the U.S. military. Others have taken controversial positions on such subjects as abortion, euthanasia, and the treatment of detainees.

I believe that free expression is central to our mission as a law school committed to public
discourse and the free exchange of ideas and opinions. We have faculty and students from many different backgrounds, and with many different points of view. It is our expectation that they will continue to engage in public discourse, and argue their positions with passion and civility, with the intellectual freedom that an academic institution affords to us all.

Dean Garvey is clearly right insofar as academic institutions must be grounded on the free exchange of thoughts and ideas, even when those ideas are controversial.

But as NYU Law Dean Richard Revesz found out, the gay marriage issue isn’t always as simple as a mere intellectual debate. If you believe that marriage is a basic civil right, then the issue can transcend the normal bounds of academic discourse.

Not surprisingly, Above the Law readers have some opinions on whether Dean Garvey is taking the correct stance here. We present Dean Garvery’s full letter and some of the best comments and emails, after the jump.

The gay marriage debate continues to rage in New England, and now a Boston College Law Professor wants to weigh in. The state of Maine has a ballot proposition about gay marriage this fall, and BC Law Professor Scott T. Fitzgibbon decided to shoot an anti-gay marriage ad.

Just to be clear, this is not a Dr. Li-ann Thio situation. Thio was invited to teach at NYU Law this fall and later declined the invitation under a hail of student protests. But Thio seemed to go out of her way to disparage gays and lesbians and the very practice of homosexual sex.

Fitzgibbon at least tries to stick to the legal issues surrounding the systematic denial of civil rights to gays and lesbians.

After the jump, check out the ad for yourself.

* Legal hiring binge? We like the sound of that! [Washington Post via ABA Journal]

* What were the odds? The Third Circuit upholds the U.S. ban on Internet gambling. [Wall Street Journal (subscription) and Las Vegas Review-Journal]

* Marijuana can make you do dumb things. [Gothamist]

* …But Maryland is kind of okay with it. [Washington Post]

* This guy looks like the type to slap a stranger’s child. He looks like Tom Wilkinson’s evil doppelganger. [CNN]

* Maine voters will get to weigh in on same-sex marriage. [Associated Press]

* Polls close tonight in the ATL Douche Madness Final Four. [Above The Law]

We’ve covered the legislative twists and turns of same-sex marriage fairly closely here at ATL. But there was one notable court case we missed back in March.

We thought Dr. Li-Ann Thio’s description of anal sex as “shoving a straw up your nose to drink” was graphic, but this article by the Register on attempted same-sex female marital rape is even more explicit:

A Massachusetts woman has appeared in court on a domestic assault and battery rap after allegedly attempting to impregnate her wife with a plastic syringe containing her brother’s sperm.

Stephanie K Lighten, 26, of Pittsfield, was reportedly “all liquored up” when she made unwelcome advances towards her other half, 33-year-old Jennifer Lighten. Jennifer explained to officers that Stephanie “had been talking about trying to impregnate her for some time”, and that she’d accordingly armed herself with a “turkey baster and her brother’s semen in a sealed container”.

According to Lez Get Real, there were no rape charges per Jennifer’s request, just a domestic assault and battery charge.

Apparently these lovebirds were able to put the turkey baster incident behind them. We checked in with the Central Berkshire District Court and found out the case was dismissed in April.

US woman attacks missus with sperm-filled syringe [Register]

Above the Law’s commitment to bring you all of the latest details about the crazy saga of Dr. Li-ann Thio is unmatched. On Wednesday night, we broke the news that Dr. Thio decided against teaching at NYU Law School this fall.

Now we have Dr. Thio’s official statement explaining her decision to withdraw as a visiting professor. According to the resignation letter she sent to NYU Law Dean Richard Revesz, a lack of tolerance changed Dr. Thio’s mind about NYU Law:

As an Asian woman whose legal training has spanned the finest institutions in both East and West, I believe I would have something of value to offer your students. However, the conditions no longer exist to proceed with the visit, given the animus fuelled by irresponsible misrepresentation/distortions and/or concerted invective from certain parties. Friends and colleagues have also expressed serious concerns about my safety and well-being.

I am convinced that a primary condition for learning and teaching, especially in my chosen fields (which are rife with contested concepts) - human rights and constitutional law - is a tolerant, serene environment where different viewpoints emanating from a variety of worldviews are heard with mutual respect and carefully evaluated, in a civilised fashion. I have always striven to ensure my classroom would exemplify such conditions and had planned to bring this practice to my NYU classroom.

Dr. Thio Li-ann appears to be arguing that NYU Law students should respect her beliefs. But some of her beliefs sound pretty disrespectful to gays and lesbians in the NYU Law community. Unless “shoving a straw up your nose to drink” counts as a respectful way of discussing sexual practices.

Of course, since we are dealing with Dr. Thio, the letter goes on. Brevity is not her strong suit. Read more after the jump.

We sometimes like to think of the figures we write about in these pages as characters in a novel. Viewed in this way, Dr. Li-ann Thio, the visiting NYU law professor who apparently isn’t a fan of gay rights, is one of the most compelling we’ve come across recently.

We have a weakness for strong, outspoken Asian women — hi Mom! — and this description fits Dr. Thio to a T. Our only disappointment: Dr. Thio was whiny when attacked. (We agree with Professor Brian Leiter — playing the victim card was weak, Dr. Thio.)

Now, meet an even more compelling character — one who wouldn’t have responded to a random IT guy by playing victim, but by treating him like Obama treated that fly. She’s the original Dr. Thio: Li-ann Thio’s mother, Dr. Su Mien Thio (pictured), who taught Thio the Younger everything she knows (e.g., that gay sex is evil).

From a tipster:

It looks like Dr. Thio’s mother — a former judge who inspired Li-ann Thio’s own rise in politics — was involved in some serious anti-gay drama this year, after battling what she saw as a conspiracy to generate a “generation of lesbians.”

It all started with unrest over a screening of Spider Lilies, a lusty Taiwanese movie about an Internet cam girl [Ed. note: A cam girl? Like SexyLexus?] falling in love with another girl. The elder Dr. Thio, filled with the same heroic indignation as her daughter, filled with the same heroic indignation as her daughter, ended up locked out of a building after a failed takeover of a feminist organization.

And the trailer for the movie is totally hot!

Update: Not surprisingly, given her staunch opposition to homosexuality, Dr. Thio Su Mien is also against abortion. A headline from Roll on Friday: “Leading Singaporean lawyer blames abortion for SARS.”

More about the Spider Lilies controversy and Dr. Su Mien Thio’s impressive résumé, after the jump.

Or close to nothing. That’s the likely enrollment in Human Rights Law in Asia, the course that Dr. Li-ann Thio, the visiting professor from Singapore with controversial views on gay rights, is scheduled to teach at NYU Law School this fall.

An NYU law student reports:

I think there’s a point everyone is missing about this story, and it is this:

We just had to submit our bids for fall courses. A grand total of five people applied for Dr. Thio’s class. It is totally going to get canceled. In comparison, Kenji Yoshino’s Con Law classes got 230 primary bids PER SECTION. NYU Law voted with its feet.

It’s not clear whether the student is referring to Human Rights Law in Asia (3 credits) or Constitutionalism in Asia (2 credits). Other sources tell us, however, that both courses are severely undersubscribed. NYU Law alumna Jill Filipovic, who over at Feministe expressed the hope that nobody would sign up for Dr. Thio’s classes, must be pleased.

(In case you’re not familiar with him, Kenji Yoshino is the openly gay law professor that NYU hired away from Yale last year. He is a leading scholar of gay rights and queer theory.)

Update: We now have greater clarity, from our original tipster:

She’s teaching 2 courses. Human Rights got 9 bids, 5 primary and 4 alternates, and Constitutionalism got 5 bids, just 1 primary and 4 alternates. The results of bidding will be available next week so we’ll know more about how many people actually end up in the class then. But I think it’s pretty safe to assume NYU is not going to run two seminars with just a handful of people in them.

We contacted the law school, to confirm the registration numbers and to see if Dr. Thio’s classes were in danger of being canceled.

Read their response, plus additional discussion, after the jump.

When last we checked in on the saga of Dr. Li-ann Thio, the incoming NYU Law visiting professor who equated anal sex to drinking by shoving a straw up your nose, Dean Richard Revesz was defending the invitation extended to her.

But over the weekend, an information technology professional who works for NYU law (and who is also an NYU student) asked the dean to reconsider. Here’s part of the letter from Malik Graves-Pryor:

While I can understand your position and reasoning in displaying solidarity to the larger NYU School of Law community regarding Hauser Global’s decision to bring in Professor Li-Ann Thio … I must state my strong objection to her appointment and the official NYU Law defense of said appointment.

As an African-American man working in the LawITS department, and simultaneously a student at NYU, I could never imagine the day would come when NYU would allow the appointment of a legal scholar who held the opinion that African-Americans practice acts of “gross indecency”, that African-Americans who strive for diversity should be rebuffed because “diversity is not a license for perversity”, describing the private intimate acts between African-Americans as trying to “shove a straw up your nose to drink”, among other intellectually and morally shallow absurdities.

In response, Dr. Thio unleashed an 18-point defense that she sent to the entire NYU Law faculty. Apparently, she feels unfairly maligned:

1. I am a little tired of the torrent of abuse and defamation that I have been receiving, and blatant emotive misrepresentations of my position. I was going to stay above the fray but given this insidious attack on my academic reputation (aside from many ad hominem insults), I feel I must cast some clarity on certain issues.

More fighting after the jump.

NYU Law gays, consider yourselves warned: Dr. Li-ann Thio is not afraid of you. The outspoken professor, who vehemently opposed decriminalizing gay sex as a member of the Singapore parliament, is ready to rumble:

We can be united in commitment to this principle [of academic freedom], without slavishly bowing to a demanded uniformity or dogma of political correctness set by elite diktat. I cannot say I am impressed by this ugly brand of politicking which I hope is not endemic….

I am disappointed at the intolerant animosity directed at me by strangers who do not know me and have decided to act on their own prejudices, forged from whatever sources, I am nonetheless glad that there are still some at NYU, who uphold a commitment to academic freedom and who entertain dissent with respect. As a recent NYU graduate, a Muslim friend of mine said, one must have courage in the face of bullying.

Dr. Thio can’t be prejudiced. Some of her best friends are Muslim!

Although her defense of the Singaporean statute against gay sex has been dismissed by one prominent American law professor as “dumb” and “embarrassing[],” Dr. Thio is not unaware of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in this area:

[C]ertain Americans have to realize the fact that there are a diversity of views on the subject and it is not a settled matter; there is no universal norm and it is nothing short of moral imperialism to suggest there is. Correct me if I am wrong, but there is no consensus on this even within the U.S. Supreme Court and American society at large, even post Lawrence v. Texas.

Dr. Thio is fighting political correctness with political correctness, accusing LGBT activists of cultural imperialism. Yikes! Find something to bite down on, kids, ‘cause she’s not planning to use lube pull her punches.

Meanwhile, the NYU Law School administration has (finally) issued a public statement on L’Affaire Thio.

Read the statement, after the jump.

Time for a quick follow-up on Monday’s post about NYU Law School’s controversial decision to invite Dr. Li-ann Thio, an outspoken proponent of criminalizing gay sex, to teach a course on human rights in the fall. The post generated almost 300 comments, many of them quite thoughtful — like this one:

I am a gay man living in Singapore. I have lived in Asia (including Singapore) for over 15 years. So, I have firsthand knowledge of the discriminatory environment for gay men and lesbians living in Singapore.

I am not sure what the administrators of NYU Law School were thinking when they hired Dr. Thio to teach “human rights” in Asia. Asking a Singaporean tenured at a Singapore government-funded university to teach about human rights in Asia is like asking a Ku Klux Klan grandmaster to teach about racial equality. She will simply be a mouthpiece for the Singapore government’s positions on human rights issues. If Dr. Thio espoused views opposed to the Singapore government’s - trust me - she would not be teaching at the National University of Singapore. As everyone in the international human rights community knows, the Singapore government is not a “model” example for upholding human rights.

So Dr. Thio may not have been the best person in the galaxy to pick as a visiting professor of human rights. On the other hand, her views — definitely unorthodox in the American legal academy — could generate healthy and informative debate (like what we saw in our comments).

In our reader poll, which attracted over 3,000 votes, over 55 percent of you supported NYU’s decision to host Dr. Li-ann Thio. Not surprisingly, given the freewheeling, irreverent comments on this site, ATL readers are pro-free speech.

And so is the NYU OUTLaw Board, to its credit. In the wake of our coverage, the board issued a statement criticizing Li-ann Thio’s views, but simultaneously observing that it is “best to fight Dr. Thio’s offensive views not by silencing her but by engaging in a respectful and productive dialogue about the boundaries of human rights.”

The full OUTLaw statement — plus an adult-themed reader poll, by popular request — after the jump.

Academic freedom is a beautiful thing, essential to our nation’s celebrated system of higher education. And, to borrow the words of Dick Cheney on gay marriage, “freedom means freedom for everyone” — including people whose ideas we might not like, or even find repugnant.

How far should academic freedom extend? That’s an issue being faced right now at NYU Law School. The following message went out to the law student community last week:

Dear Student,

We are writing on behalf of OUTLaw, NYU Law’s LGBT student group, to raise awareness of anti-gay statements made by a NYU visiting professor. Dr. Li-ann Thio, a professor at the National University of Singapore, will be teaching Human Rights Law in Asia during the Fall 2009 semester as a Global Visiting Professor of Law at NYU.

In 2007, the Singaporean Parliament was considering repealing 377A - the statute criminalizing consensual sex between men in Singapore. Dr. Thio, a Nominated Member of Parliament, gave a speech before Parliament arguing against the repeal. In her speech supporting the continued criminalization of “acts of gross indecency” between two males, she made such statements as, “You cannot make a human wrong a human right,” “Diversity is not a license for perversity,” and that anal sex is like “shoving a straw up your nose to drink” (http://theonlinecitizen.com/2007/10/377a-serves-public-morality-nmp-thio-li-ann). The efforts to repeal 377A failed, and consensual sex between men is still illegal in Singapore.

While respecting Dr. Thio’s right to her opinion and without questioning her teaching abilities, OUTLaw believes it is important for LGBT students and allies to be aware of her views in order to make fully informed decisions regarding class registration. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the OUTLaw Board at nyu.outlaw@gmail.com.

The NYU OUTLaw Board

Links to videos of her speech to the Parliament: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWqp3mLz4ko (part 1), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUDYo29gNNg (part 2), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPIdp0qXZy4 (part 3)”

The videos are worth checking out (especially if you’re a high school debater wanting to relive your glory days). Dr. Thio speaks persuasively and with conviction, supporting her argument against gay sex with an impressively broad range of sources, from the Bible to Immanuel Kant to contemporary bloggers. One would expect nothing less from someone with her dazzling educational pedigree: a BA from Oxford, an LLM from Harvard Law School, and a PhD from Cambridge. Don’t call her Dr. TTThio!

Additional discussion, plus a reader poll, after the jump.

The AP is reporting that the New Hampshire state legislature has passed a gay marriage law that the governor will likely sign:

Gov. John Lynch is expected to sign [the proposed legislation] into law later Wednesday. It would make New Hampshire the sixth state to allow gays to marry. The bill would expand religious protections that Lynch says are needed to win his signature.

Lynch said he would veto gay marriage if the law didn’t clearly spell out that churches and religious groups would not be forced to officiate or provide other services.

So, soon you can add New Hampshire to the list of states that allow gay marriage. The current members are: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and Iowa.

Is there a warm weather state willing to take the plunge? C’mon Florida. C’mon moderate Governor Charlie Crist. You know you want to.

Update: Okay, so Florida has a constitutional amendment explicitly prohibiting gay marriage. Can anyone nominate a different warm weather state? Somehow I don’t think Mississippi will be leading the charge here.

New Hampshire Legislature advances gay marriage [AP]