Monday, July 16, 2007

Court Threatens to Burn Fragile Gay Protections


I found a good column by Deb Price (pictured at left) who writes for the Detroit News (See: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070716/OPINION03/707160320/1272) that in my view correctly assesses what is at with the new Roberts U. S. Supreme Court. Every gay should be praying that (1) none of the remaining justices die or decide to retire while Chimperator Bush is in office and (2) that the Dems win the White House in 2008. Here are high lights of Deb's column:


The Roberts court -- whose votes in nongay cases strongly signaled that Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito can be expected to join Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in opposing almost any imaginable gay-rights plea -- is moving frighteningly close to having the five votes it would need to weaken the groundbreaking rulings of 1996 and 2003 acknowledging that gay Americans are protected by the Constitution.


Gone is tenuous supporter Sandra Day O'Connor, who before retiring sided with gay Americans in Romer v. Evans in 1996 and Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 -- both 6-3 decisions.
Five gay-rights allies remain: Anthony Kennedy, who penned the pair of legal aces; John Paul Stevens, now 87; David Souter; Stephen Breyer; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And no one can be certain just how far any of the five -- especially Kennedy, who has become the court's conservative swing vote -- would go to protect gays in cases less outrageously extreme: In Romer, Colorado had tried to fence its gay citizens out of the normal political process. In Lawrence, a gay Texas couple was arrested for having sex at the home of one of the men.


What alarmed gay rights litigators? A string of 5-4 decisions against the powerless or minorities: Rulings blocking workers from suing over sex discrimination if it's not discovered immediately; ignoring public school students' free-speech rights, and hampering efforts to create racially diverse schools. "The U.S. Supreme Court was for a long time a protector of minority groups, and it has become less so over time," notes James Esseks, a gay litigator at the American Civil Liberties Union. "I'm worried that a future Supreme Court would narrowly interpret or even cut back Romer and Lawrence."


I definitely share Mr. Esseks' concerns. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito believe that the Constitution only protects white Protestants or Catholics and their religious and social institutions. Thomas is the one who most disappoints me since he has betrayed minority groups of all kinds. I guess being a Justice and having a white wife, he believes he is untouchable, so to Hell with everyone else.

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