Posted on 08/16/2005 11:59:10 AM PDT by TBP
A conservative lobby group announced Tuesday that it is withdrawing its support from Judge John G. Roberts Jr.- President Bush's nominee to the US Supreme Court.
Public Advocate, a Virginia-based "national pro-family group", said in a statement that the more comes "as a result of Roberts' support for the radical homosexual lobby in the 1996 Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans."
Last week it was reported that Roberts had worked behind the scenes for a coalition of gay-rights groups, helping them prepare their arguments to present to the court. (story)
The groups were attempting to have the court strike down a voter-approved 1992 Colorado initiative allowing employers and landlords to exclude gays from jobs and housing.
The coalition won the case in a 6-3 decision.
At the time gay rights leaders activists described it as the movement's most important legal victory.
Public Advocate President Eugene Delgaudio will hold a news conference Wednesday on the steps of the Supreme Court to call for careful scrutiny of Roberts.
In the hours before President Bush publicly announced Roberts' nomination the President called leading fundamentalist Christians assuring them of Roberts conservative background. Indeed he was once a member of a right wing legal group in Washington - an organization that Roberts says he does not remember ever belonging to.
Roberts involvement in Romer v. Evans came while he was working at the prestigious Hogan & Hartson law firm and was part of its pro bono caseload.
Roberts was not paid for his work and he did not argue the case.
Following reports outlining the work he had done on the case several of the conservative groups that had been supportive of Roberts nomination expressed reservations, but Public Advocate is the first of the groups to officially pull its support.
Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group fighting LGBT rights in several states, said Roberts' involvement in the gay case is "something to certainly be concerned about." Focus on the Family also is "raising alarm bells."
In 2003 Public Advocate was instrumental in getting the Attorney General John Ashcroft to bar gay employees from holding their annual Pride event at DOJ headquarters.
The group a year later, after same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, in a letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark W. Everson asked the IRS to investigate same-sex couples who submit any tax form filed as "married - filing jointly". The IRS later issued a statement that submitting joint returns was illegal under the Federal Marriage Act.
Delgaudio attacked Vice President Dick Cheney last year after the vice president, when asked about gay marriage, said, "Freedom means freedom for everyone."
ROFL. How true. I actually get a kick out of these daily press releases opposing Roberts. Such melodrama. As if there's a snowball's chance that he won't be confirmed.
Bueller? Bueller?
It's old news, but worth remembering.
Delgaudio will do anything for publicity
I know that; both brothers will. I discovered that in my YAF days. However, despite this, he is often right on the issues.
It used to be before a change in the law, and a change in the attitude about the enforcement, that millions experienced humiliating discriminating, disenfranchising discrimination, every day of their lives on this mortal coil. Laws animated by the right moral spirit can and do make a difference, a big difference, in a civil society.
My state doesn't have sexual-orientation anti-discrimination laws. Is that unconstitutional? Of course not. Yet by the Court's logic, it becomes unconstitutional as soon as we state in our constitution that we won't have those laws. We don't have the laws, and that's okay. Declaring via legislation that we won't have such laws, that would be okay too. But declaring in the constitution that we won't have the laws, that's forbidden. It's quite absurd really.
The Supreme Court doesn't declare laws unconstitutional just because they don't do anything or are unnecessary. They declared this law unconstitutional, though, so they obviously don't agree with your conclusion that businesses have the absolute right to discriminate against gays in hiring and renting.
I never claimed that the amendment didn't do anything. In fact I specifically said that the amendment forbid sexual-orientation anti-discrimination laws.
so they obviously don't agree with your conclusion that businesses have the absolute right to discriminate against gays in hiring and renting.
Conclusion? I'm not making conclusions. I'm explaining the amendment to you. I'm *not* explaining (nor making conclusions about) the case to you. If you had answered the question that I asked you earlier, you would have understood my point (I think).
Here, let's recap and start over, leaving out the fluff:
You: It was a law that AUTHORIZED discrimination. It said that you CAN discriminate against gays.
Me: That's not exactly correct . . . The people of Colorado were "authorized" to discriminate both before and after that amendment was passed.
You: Just because you say so doesn't make it so.
Me: My state doesn't have sexual-orientation anti-discrimination laws. Am I therefore "authorized" to do something that is normally forbidden?
Not THESE idiots, AGAIN......
The mathematical exercise illustrates how irrational it is to base laws on pure fantasy. Believing that discrimination is rampant in U.S. business is a fantasy. By your own testimony, you have witnessed only several examples of discrimination. This is significant, considering that you are probably hyper-vigilant in trying to spot discrimination. Despite that, you can only think of a couple examples. Whether those examples did in fact happen is another issue.
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