Posted on 08/04/2005 7:37:34 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts donated his time to work behind the scenes for gay rights activists – and helped win a decision that’s been hailed as the "single most important positive ruling” for the gay rights movement.
Roberts was a lawyer specializing in appellate work in 1995 when he agreed to help represent the gay rights activists as part of his law firm’s pro bono work.
He did not argue the case before the Supreme Court, but he was instrumental in reviewing filings and preparing oral arguments, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
"Roberts’ work on behalf of gay rights activists, whose cause is anathema to many conservatives, appears to illustrate his allegiance to the credo of the legal profession: to zealously represent the interests of the client, whoever it might be,” the newspaper reports.
Walter A. Smith, then head of the pro bono department at Roberts’ law firm, Hogan & Hartson, asked for Roberts’ help on the case and he agreed immediately. "It’s illustrative of his open-mindedness, his fair-mindedness,” said Smith. "He did a brilliant job.”
The case before the Supreme Court, Romer vs. Evans, dealt with a voter-approved 1992 Colorado initiative that would have allowed employers and landlords to exclude gays from jobs and housing.
A 6-3 ruling striking down the initiative was handed down in May 1996.
Jean Dubofsky, lead lawyer for the gay rights activists, said Roberts’ work in the case was "absolutely crucial.”
And Suzanne B. Goldberg, a lawyer with Lambda, a legal services group for gays and lesbians, called the Supreme Court ruling the "single most important positive ruling in the history of the gay rights movement.”
Antonin Scalia – who was joined in his dissent by Clarence Thomas and William H. Rehnquist – said: "Coloradans are entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct.”
Roberts did not mention the case in his 67-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire that was released Tuesday.
The committee had asked for specific instances in which he had performed pro bono work.
Smith said the omission was most likely an oversight because Roberts wasn’t the chief litigator in the case.
In another pro bono case, Roberts failed to overturn a Washington, D.C., measure that took welfare benefits away from homeless people.
Per Rush, what the SCOTUS did here was overule the vote of the people of Colorado. Of course, the good guys (Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia) dissented.
Do attorneys represent clients for FREE if they don't believe in the cause of the client?
The President and all politicians represent us. They should do what they promised and were elected to do. In this case, Bush promised a Scalia-like originalist. Breaking that promise with 55 Republican seats in the Senate, must result in severe consquences of the conservative movement wants to be remotely viable.
Stop drinking the Kool Aid. And, don't complain if this guy gets on the court and is another Souter or O'Connor because you turned a blind eye to some obvious red flags.
Thank you for doing the left's job and helping push for a justice that will maintain the present direction of the court in the far leftward direction.
The law in Colorado was perfectly Constitutional and the originalists on the court -- Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist -- ruled to uphold the law.
There is NO Constitutional right to rent someone else's property or work for a privately-owned business.
The ruling was yet another ruling of judicial activism and Roberts sided with the left-wing activists and against the originalists on the court in this case.
Given that those that WROTE the Constitution considered homosexuality a crime, why in the world do you think the Founders would have found the Colorado law unConstitutional?
Where in the Constitution does it prevent a private business over or landlord from hiring/firing or renting/not renting to whoever he or she chooses?
No, as I said, the point is to portray Roberts as such a staunch gay supporter that he would take his perspective to the court to overturn the people's vote. As such they create a figure, which I described previously, who would be forsaken by his own party
I would never frame the issue the way you have just framed it.
The way you have framed it assumes without evidence that homosexuality is fundamentally the same as race. Thus, in your mind there is this distinct human form called a "gay" that through no choice of its own has been bequeathed by God or genetics an obvious but passive, pervasive, unchangeable, morally neutral, and benign quality of gayness that defines its root existence.
If that's how you view homosexuality, then it's understandable that you would lump "gays" into the same category as blacks who had to fight for their civil rights in the 1950s and 60s. For you, the Romer decision makes sense.
The evidence as I see it is that there are males and there are females. There is no exotic male form called a gay, or female form called a lesbian. Homosexuality is a behavior choice that is practiced, sometimes abandoned, and sometimes resumed by some males and females. Indeed some males and females adopt a behavior choice called bisexuality that covers both bases.
Blacks cannot cease being black by ceasing to behave like blacks, whatever that might mean. Every physiological study will show them to be black regardless of how they behave. Not so with men who call themselves gay or women who call themselves lesbian, or either one that calls him or herself bisexual. Every physiological study will show them to be male or female, nothing more and nothing less.
Moreover, I do not view homosexuality as benign or morally neutral. The drastically shortened life expectancy of men who engage in the homosexual lifestyle is powerful evidence that it is not benign. The sterility and pointlessness of lesbian behavior as a reproductive strategy or adaptation is evidence that it has no "good" to offer. And homosexuality is not morally neutral because the more it is openly embraced by society and made morally equivalent to heterosexuality within the traditional family unit, the more it cheapens and weakens the traditional family unit (an ultimate "good" if ever there was one) the same way the value of money is cheapened by flooding the market with counterfeit money.
The majority in Romer placed homosexuality on the same physiological, legal, and moral footing as race. Their justification was based on emotionalism and crooked reasoning, not empirical evidence. To the extent that Roberts helped to stoke the fires of that emotionalism or contributed to twisting logic and reason to get the majority result, I believe conservatives are right to be concerned by his nomination.
If the "they" you're referring to are the liberals, then the only outcome of this gambit, if successful, would be a more conservative nominee. Bush certainly wouldn't nominate a more liberal nominee if Roberts is rejected for being too liberal. I think you need to think your theory over.
Insinuating that someone is gay based solely on their marrying late in life is ridiculous. A lawyer should know better than to make such statements.
But if a man marries late, he's potentially gay? Why the double standard?
"If I choose to rent out a floor of my home I damn well have a right to say no fags allowed."
Agreed!
By virtue of your opponent's position, said opponent should be cheerfully willing to rent out his barnyard to bestialists; perhaps in Washington State, that is already on the books.
Guess I should have donned asbestos suit and kevlar jacket before checking replies this evening. You have all made some very good points and if allowed I would change some of my comments written this morning.
This whole business of what is Constitutional and what is not has been clouded in many cases by listening to voices other than the voice of the Constitution itself. We listen to conservative radio commentary; we listen to lame stream media commentary; we become indoctrinated on various issues. We sometimes confuse in our minds legislated law vs the Constitution.
A case in point - the Civil Rights Act of 1964 established law against certain forms of discrimination that were not spelled out in the Constitution. The Constitution allows laws like this act to happen, as long as no portion of the Constitution is violated by the specifics of that law. If the law is challenged in the Judiciary and it goes to the Supreme Court, a Constitutional decision may be forthcoming. I think most of you to whom I am addressing these comments, as well as myself, would want it to be a 'Constitutional' decision based on the voice of the Constitution. We want 'Constitutionalists' on the Supreme Court who will listen to the voice of the Constitution in reaching a decision.
We are plagued with decisions based on what feels good to the Leftist Justices on the Court; we are plagued with decisions based on what the European Union says; we are plagued with decisions based on erronous interpretations of what they think they are hearing the voice of the Constitution say, or maybe even worse, they are making their decisions on what the want to hear the voice of the Constitution say.
With all that said, I think I agree with your points on the Constitutional issues in this case - that there is no Constitutional support for the decision of SCOTUS in overturning the result of the Colorado referendum.
Now, to the moral issues...this is where it gets sticky for some, maybe even for me. We as Christians too often set ourselves up as judge and jury on many issues. We have turned 'Church' into 'Dos and Don'ts'. We have made Church a man-ordained religious system, and I believe we have been called out of those systems.
God's Word says 'judge not lest you be judged'. Yet we judge and condemn. What example did Jesus give us? He judged and condemned the religious system (the Scribes and Pharisees) that had become a religious system of men, yet he did not condemn the ordinary sinner. He supped with sinners. Sinners were his friends. He chose 12 sinners as his closest comrades and confidants. We don't see evidence of any 'conversion' experience in these 'deciples' until we get to the book of Acts, after the Lord's ascension - maybe not until Pentecost.
Now, back to how Jesus treated sinners...the woman 'taken in the act of adultery'...she was judged and about to be condemned by the Pharisees who brought her to Jesus. Jesus listened to them, then said, 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' (I think they understood him, and I think what he meant was 'let him who is without THIS sin...' - then he stooped and wrote in the dust. What did he write? While he was writing those who would condemn the woman left, one by one. Was he writing the names of the men 'adulterating' with her, and each man, as his name was written, left, condemned? And when the woman answered him that her accusers were all departed, Jesus says, 'neither do I condemn you, go, and sin no more'. Jesus demonstrated the new law in this example - the law of love.
If there was any condemnation in the above account, it would be that Jesus judged the men who brought the woman to him. What sin(s) did each of us commit today? Are any of them any less a sin than that of the gays? God judges sin, then he restores us to Himself by grace...grace resulting in mercy made possible by Jesus dying on the cross. He operates in the law that he describes as Love. He expects us to do the same. Sin is to be judged, but it is not for us to judge the sinner. It is for us to love the sinner.
With that, I can say that I do judge the sin - any sin - but God does not allow me to judge the sinner, not even myself.
The portion of the Constitution that's violated by that law is the 10th amendment. It makes it clear that the federal government only has the powers granted to it by the Constitution, and it is not granted the power to legislate in that area.
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