The False Outrage Against "Liberal" Judges

The usual suspects among the blowhards and demagogues of the Christianists and professional Christian set have already been hyperventilating and going into near convulsions over yesterdays ruling in Perry v. Schwazenegger "outrage" of liberal judges subverting "the will of the voters." Obviously, these shrieks and overly dramatic hysterics are disingenuous - everything these folks do or say is disingenuous - but all the more so when one looks at the history of some of the federal judges who have recently handed the Christianist religious extremists major set backs. Why, because all of these judges, including Vaughan Walker, were REPUBLICAN APPOINTEES. Yep, that's right. Not a one of them was appointed to the bench by some "liberal Democrat" president. Needless to say, the Christianists don't share this reality with the sheeple who they are endeavoring to incite - and more importantly, shake down for contributions. Take Judge Walker. Here are highlights from the Cato Institute that look at Walker's appointment to the federal benech which demolish the screed of the Christianist snake oil merchants:
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Judge Walker was first appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, at the recommendation of Attorney General Edwin Meese III (now the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation). Democratic opposition led by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-CA) prevented the nomination from coming to a vote during Reagan’s term. Walker was renominated by President George H. W. Bush in February 1989. Again the Democratic Senate refused to act on the nomination. Finally Bush renominated Walker in August, and the Senate confirmed him in December.
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What was the hold-up? Two issues, basically. Like many accomplished men of the time, he was a member of an all-male club, the Olympic Club. Many so-called liberals said that should disqualify him for the federal bench. People for the American Way, for instance, said in a letter to Judiciary Committee chair Joe Biden, “The time has come to send a clear signal that there is no place on the federal bench for an individual who has, for years maintained membership in a discriminatory club and taken no meaningful steps to change the club’s practices.”
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The second issue was that as a lawyer in private practice he had represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in a suit that prevented a Bay Area group from calling its athletic competition the Gay Olympics.
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Because of those issues, coalitions including such groups as the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, the Human Rights Campaign, the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force worked to block the [Walker] nomination.
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You can be pretty sure that you will not see Maggie Gallagher or Tony Perkins admitting the reality that Walker is not some screaming liberal. Better to lie and obscufaite - the usual "godlt Christian" approach when the facts inconveniently don't support their propaganda. As for other federal judges who have slammed Christianist idols? It's pretty much the same story. This from Andrew Sulllivan's blog:
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The Prop 8 case now makes three consecutive judicial opinions holding that laws prohibiting same-sex marriages have no rational basis. Interestingly, all three were authored by judges who were nominated or appointed by Republicans. Today’s Northern District of California opinion was authored by Judge Vaughn Walker, who was nominated by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Last month’s District of Massachusetts opinion was authored by Judge Joseph Tauro, who was nominated by Richard Nixon. The Iowa Supreme Court (unanimous) opinion was authored by Justice Mark Cady, who was appointed by Republican Governor Terry E. Branstad.
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Would that the mainstream media would call these Christianist demagogues on their lies in this regard. Sadly, it won't happen because (1) the MSM reporters are too lazy to feret out the facts and (2) the MSM is more worried about offending religious extremists than reporting the truth.