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Reagan Aides Foresaw Kennedy Gay-Rights Views That Conservatives Now Lament
Roll Call ^ | 6-26-15 | Todd Ruger

Posted on 06/27/2015 5:43:53 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic

The origins of Friday's landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage can be traced back almost 30 years to the Senate's confirmation process for justices.

Officials in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, reeling after two failed nominees to the court, were looking for a reliable conservative who could get Senate confirmation. They found him in U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony Kennedy.

But CQ's review of documents in the Reagan Library in California found the president's aides identified "disturbing aspects" in Kennedy's record. Foremost among them: Kennedy's actions in a gay rights case.

Kennedy on Friday cast the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion in the same-sex marriage case, an opinion that vindicates both the fears of Reagan’s advisers about Kennedy and the liberal forces that opened the path to his nomination all those years ago.

Kennedy’s opinion ends with a description of same-sex couples seeking the profound union of marriage like love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family.

“Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions,” Kennedy wrote. “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” Settling on Kennedy The Senate had rejected the conservative legal intellectual powerhouse, Circuit Judge Robert Bork, in October 1987. Two weeks later, Reagan’s next pick, solidly conservative Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew from consideration after admitting he had smoked marijuana. Reagan then turned to Kennedy.

“One of the benefits—significant benefits—of defeating Robert Bork was the confirmation of Anthony Kennedy,” Nan Aron, the president of Alliance For Justice, who fought against Bork’s nomination, told CQ this week. “There’s no question that the Robert Bork defeat paved the way for the Supreme Court decision in the same-sex marriage case.”

(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bork; kennedy; reagan; scotus
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1 posted on 06/27/2015 5:43:53 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic

I begin to wonder about Kennedy’s own proclivities. And how the hell is it that 2% of the population rules the nation?


2 posted on 06/27/2015 5:52:08 AM PDT by arthurus (It's true!)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Slouching Toward Gomorrah


3 posted on 06/27/2015 5:52:50 AM PDT by Tzfat
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To: Tzfat

They effectively borked Bork.....

And I clearly remember when they tried to bork Clarence Thomas


4 posted on 06/27/2015 5:54:53 AM PDT by Guenevere (If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do........Psalms 11:3)
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To: Tzfat

indeed

one of Bork’s great lines


5 posted on 06/27/2015 5:56:00 AM PDT by Nifster
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Like ObamaCARE, and ObamaTRADE, this rests in its origin
(and in the latter its passage) on the GOP.
Those who cannot see the Truth will simply repeat it,
as the GOP has shown over and over and over and over.


6 posted on 06/27/2015 5:56:42 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: Tzfat
Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and America's Decline by Robert Bork (New York: Regan, 1996)
7 posted on 06/27/2015 5:58:43 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: afraidfortherepublic

He blatantly lied when being vetted. Had he told the truth he would never have been nominated. (per Mark Levin)

There are more homosexuals on SCOTUS than there are African Americans. Where is the outrage on that?


8 posted on 06/27/2015 6:04:42 AM PDT by Nifster
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To: arthurus

well he had his initial practice in San Francisco

and he has no wife (at least not yet)


9 posted on 06/27/2015 6:06:20 AM PDT by Nifster
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To: afraidfortherepublic

All of these “stealth” justices were nominated by republicans. Democrat presidents are allowed to nominate and get affirmed hardcore leftists like Ginsberg but the right has to nominate unknowns like Souter to have any chance of Senate approval.

We need a Constitutional Amendment, either Article V or otherwise, that limits the power and/or terms of SCOTUS.


10 posted on 06/27/2015 6:07:39 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: Nifster
There are more homosexuals on SCOTUS than there are African Americans. Where is the outrage on that?

The appointment of AA African American homosexuals wouldn't make the court better. /S

11 posted on 06/27/2015 6:11:53 AM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Reagan could have appointed a solid conservative - J. Harvie Wilkinson, but didn’t. It seems even conservatives must appoint judges educated in the Ivy League, particularly Harvard and Yale, where the living constitution is taught Kennedy was, like Obama, a Harvard Law grad.

Earl Warren, Harry Blackman, John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, and John Roberts were all Republican Supreme Court appointees and have all been involved in decisions expanding the intrusion of government, loss of individual freedom, and destruction of the culture. A GOP win for the White House does not ensure conservative justices will be appointed. A President Jeb Bush or President Mitt Romney would not replace Scalia with a strict constructionist any more than a President Hillary Clinton. Moderate Republicans will appoint moderate to left justices who will turn hard left once on the court. In contrast Democrats will appoint progressive judges who never “evolve”.

When Scalia retires, there will be a brutal campaign by the left to replace him with a moderate to left leaning judge. Even with a Republican President and Republican Congress, a Senate led by Chuck Schumer will give any remotely conservative judge the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas treatment with the help of the national media. Likely a President Jeb Bush would simply fold to avoid the fight and appoint a “moderate”. President Barack Obama or President Hillary Clinton will appoint a female, gay, minority with extreme left wing views and dare the Republicans in Congress to fight. Immediately John McCain, Orin Hatch, Lisa Murkowski, Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, and Lindsay Graham will announce support for President Clinton’s nominee saying the President should be able to appoint whoever she wishes.

Game over. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito will be the last conservative justices on the Supreme Court. From here on the Constitution is a living document to be interpreted by left wing presidents and affirmed by a progressive Supreme Court. Congress, in the new order, is simply a rubber stamp.


12 posted on 06/27/2015 6:12:23 AM PDT by Soul of the South (Yesterday is gone. Today will be what we make of it.)
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To: Nifster

Kennedy is married with three children.


13 posted on 06/27/2015 6:13:01 AM PDT by mac_truck (Aide toi et dieu t aidera)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Officials in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, reeling after two failed nominees to the court,

...

I guess that means Reagan didn’t have much choice.

If only we could count on the GOP to put up as much as opposition as the democrats did when the didn’t hold the executive branch.


14 posted on 06/27/2015 6:15:48 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Guenevere

Unless we fight to win, just like we did with Thomas, we’ll end up like this again. The harder the Left attacks, the better the nominee.


15 posted on 06/27/2015 6:16:47 AM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

We cannot win because we are not united, like the left. We are not willing to take partial victories or compromise our principles.

Well, where has purity gotten us?


16 posted on 06/27/2015 6:17:45 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (Scott Walker - a more conservative governor than Ronald Reagan)
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To: Diogenesis

Like ObamaCARE, and ObamaTRADE, this rests in its origin
(and in the latter its passage) on the GOP.
Those who cannot see the Truth will simply repeat it,
as the GOP has shown over and over and over and over.

...

Yep. I think the biggest mistake Conservatives ever made was to trust the GOP.

And get ready for all the coming insults if we don’t vote for the GOP’s selected candidate.


17 posted on 06/27/2015 6:17:51 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

AnPhoney Kennedy is the swinging rainbow chameleon on the court.Some Catholic too ay? His friends there as..
Ruth Buzzard-—the atheist gargoyle missing from top of an old building facade.
Burglarized Breyer-—hairless leftist old woman posing as a wimpy de-balled man. No locks on head but he better have on his doors.
So NY Soda Made her-— head housekeeper of the Ritz hotel got a promotion to the SCOTUS building in DC.
She Leans a Hag— Mama Cass incarnated redux of no talent.
John RobsUS— nuanced chief Injustice utterly ObamaScarred bribed.


18 posted on 06/27/2015 6:21:11 AM PDT by tflabo (Truth or tyranny)
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To: Nifster

Bifurcated Kennedy isn’t fit to lick the soles of the shoes of the late, great Robert Bork. Somehow I feel in Heaven the Lord will have him in an honorable, exalted Judge-ship position.


19 posted on 06/27/2015 6:28:30 AM PDT by tflabo (Truth or tyranny)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

One of the revealing areas of David Brock’s book The real Anita Hill” is that the same people who tried to take down Clarence Thomas are the ones who did take down Robert Bork. I had no idea how vast the lobbying effort was until I read that book.

I know Brock tried to disavow much of that book. That book shows HOW the left operates. And it is so evident even today.

The take down of Robert Bork was one of the biggest disasters for America’s future.


20 posted on 06/27/2015 6:29:08 AM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
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