“Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of ‘moral retreat.’  ‘It’s not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family’s moral retreat on the issue,’ Glenn argues. ‘[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a Biblical standard.’”

It's hard to imagine former longtime Focus on the Family leader James Dobson saying that pro-family groups should not consider a homosexual judge's "sexual orientation" as a factor in evaluating that judge.

The issue of openly homosexual judges is back in the news, providing us the opportunity to publish this 2009 One News Now piece and agree with our friend Gary Glenn of AFA-Michigan on a very significant “moral retreat” by Focus on the Family.  Back when there was talk of President Obama possibly nominating a lesbian judge to the Supreme Court, two Focus analysts asserted that a judge’s homosexual “sexual orientation” would not be a major consideration for Focus in evaluating such a judge. It is precisely this sort of naïveté that helps explain why aggressive homosexual lobby groups are winning major battles against their pro-family opponents.

I’ll issue the same challenge to Focus that I have made to Grove City College’s wayward, “gay”-affirming prof Warren Throckmorton: show me where you can find (benign) “sexual orientation” or (in Throckmorton’s case)  “sexual identity” in the Bible, and I’ll change my tune that you are selling out Christian, biblical principles. After all, Focus launched a “Truth Project” that teaches believers how to have a “biblical worldview” — and it’s a huge leap from “abomination” to “sexual orientation.” Surely committed Christians should understand how the latter term has been used to strip morality out of the homosexuality equation. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Related AFTAH article: “Prop 8 Trial Judge is Homosexual (‘Gay’) — and It Shows: NRO”

_________________________________

OneNewsNow reported:

ONE NEWS NOW, May 29, 2009

Should homosexuality be a ‘litmus test’ for high court?

by Jim Brown

Conservative political activists are divided over whether homosexual behavior should disqualify a judicial nominee from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Focus on the Family’s judicial analyst, Bruce Hausknecht, recently told liberal (Washington Post) blogger Greg Sargent that Focus would not oppose a Supreme Court nominee solely because of their homosexual behavior. “Our concern at the Supreme Court is judicial philosophy,” Hausknecht said. “Sexual orientation only becomes an issue if it effects their judging.”

(See original Greg Sargent report: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-party/top-religious-right-group-we-wont-oppose-gay-scotus-pick/) [Editor's note: Sargent also quotes Focus' Hausknecht as saying that a judge's sexual orientation "'should never come up...It’s not even pertinent to the equation.”]

Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at Focus, says just like a nominee’s ethnicity and life experience, homosexuality should not be a litmus test.

“Someone’s sexual orientation or their preferences, none of these things should come into consideration when we’re talking about evaluating someone who will make decisions based on precedent under the law [and who will] practice judicial restraint,” Horne explains. “Those are the things we look at for whether or not someone would make a fit justice on the Supreme Court.”

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of “moral retreat.”

“It’s not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family’s moral retreat on the issue,” Glenn argues. “[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a biblical standard.”

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council agrees with Focus on the Family that homosexuality should not be an absolute litmus test for a Supreme Court nominee. He argues in blog comments that “even Supreme Court nominees deserve some zone of privacy, and…there is at least a hypothetical possibility that somewhere in the country there is a judge who has experienced same-sex attractions, but who also respects judicial restraint and the original intent of the Constitution.

“In the real world, however, the chances of finding a highly-qualified judge who fits both of those descriptions are probably about equal to the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle,” Sprigg concludes. “So don’t hold your breath waiting for social conservatives to ’support’ a ‘gay’ judicial nominee.”

Committee For Justice (CFJ) Executive Director Curt Levey writes on today’s vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor:

“Although the numbers in the Senate ensured that the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor was never in doubt, those of us committed to restoring the rule of law to the federal judiciary have many things to be happy about in how Sotomayor’s confirmation battle played out.  Those include Republican senators’ courage in mounting a strong opposition; the repudiation of the living Constitution philosophy that has been so fashionable in recent decades; the multi-edged defeat of identity politics; the strong signals sent to the White House about future Supreme Court picks; and the profound change in the politics of judicial confirmations wrought by the explosion of the Second Amendment issue.

“The engagement of the Second Amendment community will long be remembered as the most significant aspect of this confirmation battle.  Although the NRA’s decision to oppose Judge Sotomayor and score her confirmation vote got the most attention, the grassroots mobilization of gun owners from the bottom up is probably the biggest story.  As a result, gun rights emerged as the most influential issue in this and probably future Supreme Court confirmation battles.

“By adding a large and influential constituency to the coalition opposing the nomination of judicial activists, the Second Amendment issue has forever changed the political dynamics of the judicial confirmation process.  It is no coincidence that most of the GOP senators from states with both large Hispanic and gun-owning populations decided to vote against Sotomayor, or that the 30-plus Republican votes against confirmation far exceeded the expectations of liberals and conservatives alike.  By all reports, the White House was very surprised at how big the gun issue turned out to be, and it is unlikely that a President will ever again choose a Supreme Court nominee with a record that can be characterized as hostile to the Second Amendment.

“One need only recall the mere three GOP votes against the elevation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court to know that the Republican leadership — Sens. McConnell, Kyl, Thune, Cornyn, and on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Sessions — and most of the party’s other senators deserve tremendous credit for refusing to be cowed by the ‘you better vote for the first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee’ attitude of the White House and Senate Democrats.

“Republican senators should be proud not only of their votes today, but also of the tough but fair questions they asked Sotomayor during her hearings and of the powerful floor statements they made in opposing her.  As a result, Americans got the teaching moment they deserved.  For the first time since the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, the confirmation battle saw a serious debate about judicial philosophy and the proper role of judges, rather than just an argument about case outcomes.

“It could have been an even grander debate if Judge Sotomayor and her White House handlers had not chosen to run away from, rather than defend, the philosophy of empathy and ethnicity-based judging espoused by the President and by his nominee in her many speeches.  Perhaps the most memorable moment of Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings was her explicit and complete repudiation of President’s Obama’s call for judges who rule from the heart in the most difficult cases.

“I share the frustration of liberal legal commentators over Sotomayor’s refusal to stand and fight for the concept of a living Constitution, but there’s a huge silver lining: the living Constitution is now dead as a defensible judicial philosophy outside academia.  There is no doubt that judicial activism will live on surreptitiously in the courts, but it is doubtful we will ever again see a Supreme Court nominee who has openly espoused it, no less one willing to defend it during his or her confirmation hearings.

“Finally, it has been a bad summer for the purveyors of identity politics. Not only was the President forced to beat a hasty retreat from his old-school, victim-based take on last month’s incident in Cambridge, but his Supreme Court nominee denied any knowledge of the race-base theories of judging she and other liberals have long championed.  Meanwhile, Democrats failed miserably in their attempt to convince Republican senators that they opposed a Hispanic nominee at their ‘own peril’ (quoting Sen. Schumer).  Polls showing that Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites shared the same unimpressive levels of support for Sotomayor generally, as well as the same levels of specific concern about her Second Amendment record, dealt a further blow to identity politics.  Those of us who believe that racial favoritism has no place in law or politics should celebrate.”

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Will Obama Nominate a “Gay” Supreme Court Justice? Liberal opinion-makers like Mark Halperin of MSNBC (left) now treat homosexuality as an element of “diversity” that should be celebrated by society. See YouTube video and interview transcript below. TAKE ACTION: Urge Sen. Sessions (202-224-4124) to oppose the confirmation of pro-homosexuality (activist) justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and all federal courts.

By Peter LaBarbera

Welcome to the new “Sexual Diversity” landscape created by decades of homosexual activism — with its essentially anti-Christian, anti-Biblical ethos. Liberal opinion-making elites like MSNBC’s Mark Halperin below now treat homosexual perversion (oops, sorry, “sexual orientation”) as part of America’s “minority” tapestry — eligible for all the “diversity” demands — read: quotas — of other (genuine) minority groups. Identity politics and affirmative action are bad enough with real minorities; they will become unbearable once expanded to include advocates and practitioners of changeable sexual sin — which is what an open and proudly “gay” Supreme Court justice would be.

Please watch the YouTube video clip below of an interview yesterday morning (May 7) between Halperin and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the new highest ranking Republican in the Senate Judiciary Committee following the party switch of Sen. Arlen Specter. Note how Halperin eagerly pushes the “homosexuality-as-diversity” line — which Sen. Sessions attempts to fend off with his “gay tendencies” remark. With all due respect to the senator, if that’s the best that conservatives can do, we will be squashed by liberal and libertarian advocates of proud homosexuality in this debate.

Imagine: what Senator is going to have the guts to challenge the idea that it is “wrong for a justice to be disqualified because of ‘who he is’” — to quote the now widely accepted but biblically false homosexual-activist cliché? There is a deeply personal and emotional level of activism in anyone who self-identifies as “openly gay” — as opposed to one who struggles against the unwanted pull of homosexuality — because that person flips timeless morality on its head. The unapologetic “gay” person has his or her whole life and, indeed, eternal destiny invested in the idea that Judeo-Christian teachings against homosexual behavior as sinful should be discarded. An openly homosexual judge “not promoting any agenda personal, religious or moral” — how absurd and naive!  A transcript of the MSNBC exchange between Halperin and Sessions follows the video:

Transcript of MSNBC “Morning Joe” interview between Mark Halperin and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), May 7, 2009:

MARK HALPERIN: Senator, big opportunity for you here in the national spotlight coming up when these hearings get underway.  You told Neil Cavuto — we just saw just now — that you could vote for a pro-choice nominee, in theory. A couple of people at least supposedly under consideration are openly gay. Could you vote for an openly gay justice, which we’ve never had before?

SEN. SESSIONS:  Well, … it depends on their personal ethics and standards, and their legal skill and ability. I don’t think a person who acknowledges that they have gay tendencies is disqualified per se [from] the job. We’ll just have to see–

HALPERIN: Would you welcome that as a diverse thing that we haven’t had in American history?

SESSIONS: Well, I don’t think that we should be thinking like that for the United States Supreme Court. We need to be looking for a person that can gain full respect of the American people, who can apply the law fairly, when they put on that robe will be non-partisan and non-biased — not promoting any agenda personal, religious or moral, and follow the law faithfully. Those are critical components in this magnificent rule of law we have in the Supreme Court.