Same-Sex Unions Supplant Abortion As Social Priority for Conservatives In Fight Over High Court Pick
As President Obama prepares to name his first Supreme Court justice, conservatives in Washington are making clear that his nominee will face plenty of questions during the confirmation process on the legal underpinnings of same-sex marriage.
In addition to shedding more light on the nation’s most contentious unfolding social drama and legal frontier, Senate Republicans say the debate could provide a road map to an Obama nominee’s judicial philosophy.
“It may reflect the degree to which they think that they’re not bound by the classical meaning of the Constitution, and that they may want to let a personal agenda go beyond what the law said,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Questions on social issues in confirmation hearings have tended for the past 30 years to focus squarely on abortion, with partisans from both sides poring over a nominee’s writings and rulings and presidents typically denying that any “litmus test” was employed in the selection.
Same-sex marriage carries the same freighted potential to dominate a hearing, conservatives say.
“It is now the flash point where politics and law meet. That flash point used to be abortion. I don’t think anybody thinks that’s going to be the flash point in this nomination,” said William A. Jacobson, a Cornell University law professor and conservative blogger.
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), another GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, said conservatives are particularly eager to avoid a Supreme Court ruling akin to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide and has divided the country ever since. “I don’t think members of the court, or any of us, ever want to see a decision like that again,” Hatch said. Obama assured the senator in a recent meeting that he will not pick a “radical” to replace Souter, but Hatch added: “Presidents always say that. That’s why we have the hearing process.”
Same-sex marriage gained national resonance in the wake of last month’s Iowa Supreme Court ruling that legalized the practice in that state. And in the two weeks since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement, Maine also legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the fifth state to do so; the New Hampshire legislature sent a marriage-equality bill to the governor; the New York State Assembly approved gay-marriage legislation; and the District of Columbia voted to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
Those actions, in so short a time, have outstripped the ability of Democrats in Washington to stake out their public position on the issue. MORE at Washington Post
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/same-sex-unio…
Fury Over Obama’s Gay-Affirming Justice Picks
Social conservatives are calling on Congress to reject several of President Obama’s picks to the Department of Justice, including the No. 2 position of deputy attorney general, because they support gay and lesbian equality and the right of a woman to have an abortion.
Republicans on Capital Hill grilled David Ogden, nominated to be the deputy attorney general, at length about those issues at his Thursday confirmation hearing, reports The Associated Press.
Ogden filed a brief in support of the gay defendants at the center of the 2004 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas which declared sodomy laws unconstitutional. Ogden has also defended organizations that support the right of a woman to seek an abortion.
“You’ve taken some very extraordinary positions, some left-leaning and unorthodox positions,” Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, told Ogden.
Evangelical groups, including the ardently anti-gay Focus on the Family and the American Family Association, have objected to Ogden’s nomination.
Similar concerns are being expressed over the nomination of Elena Kagan to Solicitor General. Kagan, who is openly gay, is being denounced for her support of open service for gay military personnel.
See Fury Over Obama’s Gay-Affirming Justice Picks
On Top Magazine, OH
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/fury-over-oba…
Sutley appears at confirmation hearing
(Washington) Two top members of President-elect Barack Obama’s environmental team face questions from a Senate committee about the new administration’s plans to deal with global warming, water and air pollution and coal ash.
Lisa Jackson, picked to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and Nancy Sutley, tapped to chair the White House …
