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The New York Times reports today that Alito has not built a large record on gay rights cases. According to the newspaper:
"While he has given the legal status of marriage a great deal of thought and has seemed to endorse a traditional understanding of it, he has not participated in any significant cases involving gay rights. People on both sides of the gay marriage debate will be reading many of Judge Alito's abortion opinions with intense interest.
But the Boston Globe said today that Alito appeared to stand for gay rights while a student and Princeton and produced a report with classmates calling for an abolition of sodomy laws.
The report, issued in 1971 by Alito and 16 other Princeton students, stemmed from a class assignment to study the 'boundaries of privacy in American society' and to recommend ways to protect individual rights. Alito wrote in the report's forward, "We sense a great threat to privacy in modern America. ...We all believe that privacy is too often sacrificed to other values; we all believe that the threat to privacy is steadily and rapidly mounting; we all believe that action must be taken on many fronts now to preserve privacy."
If this is true and indicative of how Alito feels today, it puts the right wing in a bind. Having sabotaged Harriet Miers, they are in no position to demand another litmus test for the Court. If Alito, by some fluke, turns out to be pro-gay, conservatives are screwed.
Stay tuned, as we learn more about the nomination.
9 Comments:
He might not have a big record. But the right wing's celebrations tell me exactly where he shtands, He is well known in conservative circles and they surely have a clue where his heart is.
Yep, the fact that he comes from a very liberal court jurisdiction in New Jersey where he was known for his very conservative opinions, this man bodes badly for us. There is no way he will be confirmed if he is ambivalent on gay rights or women's pro-choice issues. The right wing fundies will see to that after Miers' recent withdrawal. Bush is not going to go through that again.
Alito's nomination disturbs me also, but his father was one of my high school English teachers in the early 70s at Hamilton High West. This was about the same time that young Alito was writing his pro privacy paper vis-a-vis the sodomy laws. His father was very nice and a good teacher, I hope a lot of that rubbed off on his son, but who knows. As an interesting aside, his 90 year old mother goes to my mother's church and my mom told me she was a bit of a sour puss (laugh). (But who wouldnt be at 90!!) It was reported in one of the local Trenton papers that when he was first nominated the reporters swooped in on her house and she told them "of course my son's anti-abortion". When she called him later that day, he reportedly told her not to talk to the press and to ask them to leave the house. You never know what yo mama's gonna say! Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
11/02/2005 2:46 PM
Yea, we always fight so hard to get the gay right, however, nothing in the world is perfect, nothing in the world is equal... In a word, we are just a samll group people in the society. Many people still can not accept us, maybe that is life with no complain! But the most important thing is we need to know who we are and what we are looking for, try our best to live a better life and to serve our community.
I always dream of the romantic relationship and hope that the same sex marriage will totally come true in the USA. Even though nobody knows when that day will come, we still need to work hard on it and cherish the people who we are loving... Even though our marriages have no protection and approval by law, but we still have love and passionate by our heart!
My English sucks... however that is really what I am thinking...
Well now my head is spinning with conflicting reports on Alito. The latest news from the past 24 hours seems to show he's much more moderate, or to put it better, an old-fashioned conservative, than he is an extremist ideologue. Let's hope so - if he will consider cases on a case by case basis rather than as part of an evangelical agenda, we're far better off with him than, probably, with Miers, or someone more like Scalia. I hope the newer reports are correct!
When I contacted my senators to oppose Alito a couple days ago, I was reacting to the fact that all the hate groups were cheering for him. TVC anyone? So I reacted, and immediately started opposing Alito before I did much research about him. Now that I've done more research, I think he might not be so "evil."
OT to Gary - we probably used to be neighbors. I grew up in NJ, in East Windsor to be specific. But am way out west now.
We're in the same boat. When the Hallelujah Chorus began singing his praises I just knew something was rotten in Denmark. I immediately went into attack mode - writing emails, letters, making calls and campaigning for a rejection.
Now - what with his Early 70s writings come out - it clearly shows a young man much more to Left than you would expect of the darling of the right-wing neocons.
But I can't get Winston Churchill's famous Quote out of my head on this one:
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." - Sir Winston Churchill
Now I'm searching for the right answer on this one.
The latest news this morning is that Alito's collegues think he wont overturn Roe since he has a deep respect for precedent. May Jimmy Dobson and the rest of the fascist right shit in their pants!
posted by Anonymous, at
11/03/2005 7:21 AM
Make no mistake, Alito has changed his views drastically since his student days. Remember that Harriet Miers was a democrat years ago and then something happened to her to cause her to switch affiliation to the republican party and now is a born again christian. Alito, though probably not born again is a conservative. I don't see him being the swing voter, or John Roberts either. The Supreme Court will be truly stacked against us once Alito is confirmed. Don't forget, there are some democrats who will vote for his confirmation.
