Utah Special Attorney General Cites “Religious Duty” For Defending Anti-Gay Law

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This blog previously looked at the decision of Gene Schaerr, heretofore a Washington, D.C., partner at the law firm Winston & Strawn, to leave the prestigious law firm to represent the State of Utah in its effort to deprive same sex couples of equal marriage rights.  Now we find out that Schaerr's motivation was seemingly religious extremism and a desire to impose Mormon religious beliefs on every citizen of the State of Utah.  An copy of Schaerr's e-mail to individuals at Winston & Strawn explaining his decision is set out above.  Given Winston & Strawn's gay friendly policies, one has to now wonder whether the firm was relieved to see Schaerr depart the firm.  Sadly, Shaerr's mindset is all too typical of the Christofascists and their Mormon allies who would subvert the United States Constitution.  Here are highlights from HRC's response after learning of Schaerr's motivation:

Gene Schaerr, a Washington, D.C. partner at the law firm Winston & Strawn, is citing his personal religious beliefs as the rationale behind his decision to quit his job and become the lead counsel on the State of Utah’s case against marriage equality. In a copy of Schaerr’s departure email to colleagues at the firm, Schaerr writes that he’s taking the Utah case “so that I can fulfill what I have come to see as a religious and family duty: defending the constitutionality of traditional marriage in the state where my church is headquartered and where most of my family resides.”

“It’s alarming that the reason Gene Schaerr gives for  taking this position has nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution or the legal issues at play,” said Fred Sainz, HRC Vice President of Communications. “Schaerr’s entire motivation for taking this anti-equality case is to impose a certain religious viewpoint on all Utahns – and that’s wrong. When you become an attorney, you take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not any particular religious doctrine.”

Schaerr’s language in his departure e-mail places a heavy emphasis on religion, which is out-of-step with many of the arguments against marriage equality that have come out of the Utah Attorney General’s office.

“It’s interesting that his stated motivation for the new position is not one of the arguments made by the State of Utah,” added Sainz.  “It’s fair to question whether all of the arguments they have made are just an elaborate front for some other agenda.”

Schaerr’s departure from Winston & Strawn also indicates the growing momentum for equality in that it is no longer acceptable for a major law firm to take a patently anti-gay case.

Are Anti-Gay Clients Now Too Toxic For Big Law Firms To Take Them?

Law firms aren’t exactly lining up to kill these two men’s marriage.

I was forced out of a large local law firm because of a fear that I, as an openly gay partner, would "offend the sensibilities of conservative clients."  That statement was made separately from the meeting when I was told I was no longer wanted, but one did not need to be a rocket scientist to connect the dots.  That of course occurred in Hampton Roads - not a bright center of the progressive universe except when compared to Southwest Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Mississippi, etc.  But now large mega firms based elsewhere (perhaps even Richmond?) seem to be firing severe homophobes as clients.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the phenomenon.  Here are some excerpts:

On Thursday, Utah announced that it hired attorney Gene Schaerr to lead its effort to defend marriage discrimination in a case that is likely to wind up before the Supreme Court. Utah’s announcement was mildly surprising because Schaerr is not Paul Clement, the de facto Solicitor General of the Republican Party who defended the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act before the justices.
Schaerr and Clement do share another thing in common, however, beyond their representation of high-profile anti-gay clients. Both men left their jobs at large law firms shortly after taking on an anti-gay case.

Clement left behind a partnership at the firm of King and Spalding after gay rights groups and Coca Cola, one of King and Spalding’s top clients, pressured the firm to drop its defense of the anti-gay DOMA law. He went on to argue the DOMA cases at a small law firm founded by a former Bush Administration official.

Although the circumstances of Schaerr’s decision to leave his law firm are a bid more opaque — the firm, Winston & Strawn, released a vague statement saying that “Gene Schaerr, our former partner and formerly one of the co-leaders of our appellate and critical motions practice, has decided to resign from the firm in order to take a position as Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Utah” — it’s hard to miss the similarities between this resignation and Clement’s. Simply put, lawyers do not typically resign from law firms because they take on a new client — taking on new paying clients is exactly what makes a law firm’s partners valuable to the firm.

Beyond the risk that a major client may balk at the firm’s activities, there’s another obvious reason why large law firms may not want to take on major anti-gay cases. Firms compete for top graduates and recent law clerks in their hiring process, and most new lawyers come from an age group that overwhelmingly supports marriage equality.
[T]he fact that a firm is also engaged in anti-gay defense work can easily be enough to push clients and potential hires into another firm’s arms.

Indeed, both Winston & Strawn and King and Spalding profess to value diversity as, in King and Spalding’s words, “an integral part of our culture.” The firm Schaerr is leaving to become Utah’s top anti-gay counsel offers a generous domestic partner benefit to same-sex couples that effectively cancels out the negative federal tax treatment afforded to gay couples that are unable to marry.

A common defense offered by lawyers who take on unpopular clients is that every party to litigation deserves competent counsel — and this is normally a very good argument. In this case, however, Utah already has plenty of lawyers . . .