Several gay civil rights groups voiced concerns this week over SAMUEL
ALITO (right), President Bush’s pick for the Supreme Court. Matt
Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said
Alito’s confirmation “would spell disaster” for gay Americans.
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By LOU CHIBBARO J
Friday, December 16, 2005
Seven national gay civil rights organizations announced their opposition on
Dec. 6 to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, saying he has put his conservative
political agenda ahead of constitutional principles.
The groups were challenged by the head of the national gay group Log Cabin
Republicans, who said the gay rights organizations were seeking to impose an
ideological “litmus test” on Alito that they did not impose on the
two Supreme Court justices nominated by President Clinton.
President Bush nominated Alito to the Supreme Court on Oct. 29 as the replacement
for retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The nomination came shortly
after the Senate confirmed Bush’s nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts,
whom the same seven gay organizations also opposed.
“Judge Alito’s appointment would spell disaster for LGBT Americans
for decades to come,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National
Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
“His record fully reflects his embrace in the 1980s of the right wing
agenda and is completely antithetical to the constitutional principles and values
on which our rights and equal protection guarantees rest,” Foreman said.
Joining NGLTF in opposing the Alito nomination were the Human Rights Campaign;
the National Black Justice Coalition; Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund;
the National Center for Lesbian Rights; the National Stonewall Democrats; and
Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays.
Last month, the New York-based Gay Men’s Health Crisis, which provides
services to people with HIV, and the Sliver Spring, Md. based National Association
of People With AIDS announced their opposition to the Alito nomination. The
two groups point to Alito’s dissenting opinions on civil rights and disabilities
cases, which they say would have greatly restricted or overturned civil rights
protections in general and for people with disabilities – including people
with HIV – had the Third Circuit appeals court sided with Alito on such
cases.
Alito has served since 1990 as a judge on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
“This nomination is a direct threat to the hard won gains by the LGBT
and HIV/AIDS communities over the years,” said GMHC executive director
Ana Oliveira.
Patrick Guerriero, Log Cabin’s executive director, said the gay and
AIDS groups and their liberal advocacy group allies are opposing Alito on ideological
grounds, despite his recognized skills as a lawyer and his demonstrated knowledge
of constitutional law.
Guerriero noted that many of the gay and non-gay groups opposing Alito on
ideological grounds called on Senate Republicans to put aside ideological issues
when President Clinton nominated Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburb
in 1993 and Stephen G. Breyer in 1994. Ginsburg and Breyer were considered liberal
to moderate jurists with records of support on civil rights cases.
“Our angle on this is the rules applied for justices nominated by Republican
presidents should not be any different than those nominated by Democratic presidents,”
Guerriero said. “It’s unfair not to apply the Ginsburg-Breyer ground
rules to Alito.”
Gay rights attorneys familiar with Alito’s record have said Alito would
likely vote to scale back or possibly overturn key decisions that have advanced
gay rights.
They note that his opinions as a judge and his legal writings as a deputy
assistant attorney general during the Reagan administration show that he strongly
disagrees with past court decisions upholding a woman’s right to an abortion
based on the constitutional doctrine of privacy rights. The Supreme Court cited
similar privacy rights rulings in its landmark 2003 decision of Lawrence v.
Texas, which overturned state sodomy laws that criminalized gay sex.
However, in more than 800 opinions in which Alito participated on the appeals
court, only two addressed gay-related issues directly. He voted in favor of
gay rights in one of the cases and against gay interests in the other.
The gay groups opposing Alito said they have studied his record on a wide
range of issues of importance to gays, including civil rights in general, abortion
rights and free-speech rights.
“For African Americans there has been no more important institution
in the nation than the Supreme Court,” said Alexander Robinson, executive
director of the National Black Justice Coalition. “In his 15 years as
a dissenter on the federal appeals court, Judge Alito has been hostile to race
discrimination cases and sought to narrow individual rights.”
Robinson said Alito’s overall record points to a judge whose views are
“well out of the judicial mainstream” on issues of concern to African
Americans, gays, and other minorities.
Lambda Legal, which represents clients in gay rights and AIDS related cases,
including Supreme Court cases, prepared a detailed analysis of Alito’s
record, which it posted on its website.
“Unfortunately, what our analysis reveals is that Judge Alito has a
political agenda different from that required of members of the judiciary,”
said Kevin Cathcart, the gay litigation group’s executive director.
“We do not believe that Judge Alito has the necessary commitment to
liberty and equality for all Americans,” Cathcart said. “Put differently,
his political agenda leads him to write judicial decisions to make the law conform
to his politics. Then he applies legal craftsmanship and precedent to justify
the law he is making.”
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