The judicial confirmation process has become a spectacle almost as comical as one of Al Franken’s (D-MN) jokes. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was not grilled on whether she believes Americans have a First Amendment right to oppose homosexuality — i.e., whether their religious and moral liberties are overridden by “sexual orientation” laws.

“Kagan did not deny that her application of Harvard’s ['sexual orientation' nondiscrimination] policy would have excluded the Catholic Church.” –CNSNews.com, reporting on Kagan’s confirmation hearing

By Peter LaBarbera

Solicitor General Elena Kagan has been confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 13-6 vote — after hypocritically dodging and weaving her way through the farce that now masquerades as the judicial confirmation process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) was the lone Republican to vote for her — despite the fact that South Carolina is conservative while Kagan is the ideological cousin of our elitist, far-left president. (Click HERE for the MassResistance report on Kagan’s pro-homosexual record at Harvard.)

Kagan’s future now rests with the Democrat-dominated Senate — where most pundits (betting on listless GOP opposition) expect her to win confirmation; the vote is expected to come in early August.

Americans now face the prospect of a radically pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality social Leftist-for-Life sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially  for 30 or more years. In just 105 days, on Election Day (Nov. 2), U.S. citizens will be able to cripple Barack Obama’s power — a day anticipated by millions of citizens outraged over his arrogant and reckless presidency. In two more years, Obama could be voted out of office a la Jimmy Carter.

Not so with Kagan. Unless Republicans summon up the guts to actually block her via filibuster (don’t bet on it), she likely will soon become Justice Kagan until she retires at an old age. There, if her past is any indication, one day she will vote to create a new “fundamental right” of “same-sex marriage” out of an “evolving” Constitution –  all the while protecting that old make-believe “constitutional right,” sacrosanct to liberals, of abortion-on-demand. (See this Omaha World-Herald story on Kagan’s manipulation of  expert testimony in the Clinton administration to fight legislative attempts to ban the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion.)

And why not? The same Supreme Court that upheld anti-sodomy laws as constitutional in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 struck them down as unconstitutional just 17 years later in Lawrence v. Texas. Will the same fate befall laws and state amendments banning “same-sex marriage”? Could a Justice Kagan be in the minority in a Court decision that rejects homosexual “marriage” (in its current conservative-vs.-liberal composition) — and then be in a majority that later overturns that decision, as happened with homosexual sodomy laws?

There hasn’t been ”rule of law” in America for decades, at least as it was understood by our Founding Fathers, and they knew a thing or two. The best evidence of that — and, indeed, of the folly of the U.S. legal system –  is our national difficulty in banning what is essentially legalized infanticide (partial-birth abortion; see description of this killing procedure HERE). How appropriate that Kagan herself played a central role in that — essentially the legal preservation of infant murder. (Perhaps she will find her ideological soulmate in current Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who strayed off the “pro-choice” talking points in a racist interview comment about Roe v. Wade:  ”I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”)

Rule of Law?

Without a foundation in transcendent moral truth and biblically-based (Judeo-Christian) justice, “constitutional law” becomes whatever liberals (or libertarians) interpret it to be, according to the whims of the age and as long as they can muster a one-vote majority. Remember the Boy Scouts of America — who came within a single vote of being forced to allow homosexuals as Scoutmasters despite the Scouts’ “morally straight” oath? These are the sorts of cases Kagan could be deciding for decades — subjectively applying her liberal “empathy” standard per Obama’s mandate.

(Whenever I hear a liberal like Obama talk about “empathy,” I wonder where it disappeared to regarding the protection of  the unborn – who are slaughtered in the womb in the name of adult “choice” because it would be inconvenient for them to be born. Never allow yourself to be intimidated by liberals pontificating on ”compassion” — they generally show greater “empathy” for the lives of death-row inmates guilty of committing heinous crimes than unwanted innocent babies in the womb. On the homosexuality issue, liberals are quite willing to encourage homosexual sex, which leads to “gay” men dying young, so great is their compassion.)

Solicitor General Elena Kagan

Given her long record of social radicalism — including harassing the U.S. military as Harvard dean because the latter would not allow homosexuals to serve — it’s not too difficult to predict how a Justice Kagan would behave on the Court. As Sen. Grassley states below, Kagan even wants to incorporate “international law” into America’s jurisprudence — and we know the result of ”sexual orientation” laws in countries like Britain and Canada. Both nations are becoming pro-homosexuality police states — arresting Christians for preaching publicly against sexual sin — even merely for expressing “anti-gay” ideas. Will America follow those laws? Will we honor and respect the European Union’s legal precedents? (See this European Parliament press release on “transgender” rights.)

The following is Sen. Charles Grassley’s (R-IA) statement of opposition to Kagan, followed by an article reprinted from CNSNews.com. The latter item illustrates the perils of pro-homosexuality “nondiscrimination” law. We wish Senators had demanded more answers from Elena Kagan on the “zero-sum” game between religious and First Amendment liberties and “gay rights” — because if she is confirmed she could become a leader on the court of Justices willing to impose their version of morality on Christians and others who refuse to lend legitimacy to homosexual practice.

Lastly, why is that Republicans so often fail to pull out all the stops in opposing a dangerous left-wing ideologue like Kagan. As Randy Thomasson writes HERE, the GOP could have upped the ante and refused to vote out Kagan — using a little-known provision that requires at least one minority member vote to approve a nominee out of committee after a member moves to block the vote. Maybe it would have only stalled the nomination further — but that’s what the Left would try to do were this a Republican-appointed nominee with a history of right-wing activism at a major university!

The Republican Party could do the nation a big favor by using the Kagan nomination to educate the nation on Obama’s extremist policies and goals. That way, even if she wins confirmation, they would undermine Obama’s potential to do further damage. But as is typical in these situations, the Democrats play hardball while the Republicans play wiffle ball. And unless they grow a backbone and quick, they’re about to strike out again by not doing everything possible to stop Kagan’s undeserved assent to the highest court in the land. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Sen. Grassley’s Opposition Statement on Kagan:

Senator Chuck Grassley released the following statement regarding his vote on Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court:

“Since the nomination hearing for Solicitor General Kagan ended, I have spent time reviewing the hearing record. Thorough consideration has led me to conclude that I cannot vote for Solicitor General Kagan to be the next Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

“In her hearing testimony, Solicitor General Kagan failed to answer directly many of the questions posed to her.  This was extremely disappointing, especially since she previously took the position that Supreme Court nominees should be forthcoming in their answers on substantive issues.  Because she has no previous judicial experience, candid answers were essential for us to ascertain whether she has the appropriate judicial philosophy.

“Solicitor General Kagan’s record shows that she allows her politics and personal views to steer her legal thinking and takes an outcome-based approach when analyzing cases. She also has praised jurists who endorse an activist judicial philosophy. At the hearing, she declined to fully commit to upholding the constitution when it came to the Second Amendment. She appeared reluctant to recognize any constitutional limits on federal power, and also indicated that she would use international law for ‘good ideas’ when making decisions on the bench.

“Solicitor General Kagan is an accomplished political lawyer, but my vote must be based on the nominee’s ability to be an impartial jurist who would exercise judicial restraint and strictly adhere to the Constitution. Based on the record and the nomination hearing, I am not convinced that Solicitor General Kagan will be able to shed her deeply held personal ideological beliefs, political views and experiences, and check those biases at the door of the Supreme Court. Therefore, I must vote against her nomination.”

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CNSNews story:

Kagan Dodges Question On Whether Catholic Recruiters Would Be Banned from Harvard
Friday, July 02, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/68904

(CNSNews.com) – Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, who banned military recruiters from Harvard Law School’s career services office when she was dean of the school, declined to say whether she would have also banned the Catholic Church from recruiting on campus….
While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Kagan was questioned several times about her decision to ban the U.S. military from Harvard Law School’s Office of Career Services. Kagan maintained that she was merely applying the school’s non-discrimination policy and was not targeting the U.S. military recruiters.

While at Harvard, Kagan prohibited the U.S. military from using school resources because she claimed the military’s ban against open homosexuals – the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” — violated the school’s policy. The policy says that prospective employers who would recruit on campus cannot discriminate based upon sexual orientation, among other criteria.

On Wednesday,  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Kagan whether she would have applied the same policy to the Catholic Church, if it were looking to recruit and hire lawyers on Harvard’s campus.

The Catholic Church does not allow women to become priests, Graham noted. Catholic teaching, incidentally, also says that homosexuality is a moral disorder and the practice thereof cannot be condoned.

Kagan did not deny that her application of Harvard’s policy would have excluded the Catholic Church. The exchange between Sen. Graham and Kagan occurred as follows:

Sen. Graham: “Would it [the Harvard policy] apply to the Catholic Church, if they wanted to come and recruit lawyers from the law school because they don’t have women priests?”

Kagan: “Well, the way we enforced this policy is if an employer comes, we give the employer a form, and the form basically says, ‘I comply with the following policy’ that says, ‘I will not discriminate on the basis of.’ And then it says something like race and creed and gender and sexual orientation and actually veterans’ status as well. And if the employer signs the form, the employer can get the services of the Office of Career Services. And if not, not [get them].”

The Office of Career Services is the office that coordinates between students and prospective employers, and was the office from which Kagan banned the U.S. military and its recruiters.

For the last few weeks I’ve been working with Mass Resistance’s Amy Contrada, who has pulled together a wealth of information about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s time at Harvard University, where she served as Dean of the Law School. Many will be shocked at just how extreme Harvard has become — and the radical sexual/gender policies advanced by Kagan. Kudos to Contrada and our friends at Mass Resistance for doing the reporting that most in the liberal media refuse to do (because too many agree with Kagan’s left-wing social agenda). And thanks to Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt of the Pray in Jesus Name Project for supporting this work. Please read the full report, which ends with questions that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should be asking Kagan.

TAKE ACTION: Fax and e-mail the Kagan report to Judiciary Committee members and request that they question Kagan on her full record at Harvard, which is way out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. Click on the names of the individual Committee members HERE and fax to their MULTIPLE offices (D.C. and local); request that the Senator ask Kagan the questions at the end of the report (reprinted below). Do the same to your own two U.S. Senators. (Congress switchboard: 202-224-3121.) – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Read our Mass Resistance report, “How Elena Kagan Helped “Queer” Harvard Law School (Will she now help “queer” the US Supreme Court’s decisions?)”

Read our Mass Resistance report, “How Elena Kagan Helped “Queer” Harvard Law School (Will she now help “queer” the US Supreme Court’s decisions?)”

“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”

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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.”

Permalink:
http://www.committeeforjustice.org/blog/2009/08/sotomayor-fight-is-conservative-victory.html

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.