Posted on 08/03/2005 9:46:32 PM PDT by RWR8189
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for a coalition of gay-rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people against discrimination because of their sexual orientation.
Then a lawyer specializing in appellate work, the conservative Roberts helped represent the gay activists as part of his law firm's pro bono work. While he did not write the legal briefs or argue the case before the Supreme court, he was instrumental in reviewing the filings and preparing oral arguments, according to several lawyers intimately involved in the case.
The coalition won its case, 6-3, in what gay activists described at the time as the movement's most important legal victory. The three dissenting justices were those to whom Roberts is frequently likened for their conservative ideology -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Roberts' role working on behalf of gay activists, whose cause is anathema to many conservatives, appears to illustrate his allegiance to the credo of the legal profession: to zealously represent the interests of the client, whoever it might be.
There is no other record of Roberts being involved in gay-rights cases that would suggest his position on such issues. He has stressed, however, that a client's views are not necessarily shared by the lawyer who argues on his or her behalf.
The lawyer who asked for his help on the case, Walter A. Smith Jr., then-head of the pro bono department at Hogan & Hartson, said Roberts didn't hesitate.
"He said, `Let's do it.' And it's illustrative of his open-mindedness, his fair-mindedness. He did a brilliant job," Smith said.
Roberts did not mention his work on the gay-rights case in his 67-page response to a Senate
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Awe Geez, not this $#!+ again ...
The question is, why did he take the case? I'm not going to read to much into it as yet, considering it's from the MSM. But if the facts are true, it does make me think Ann Coulter was on to something about him being a closet liberal.
Why would a conservative do work to advance leftism?
Then he's sure spent a lot of time clerking for conservative justices, and working in Republican administrations for much of his adult life hiding that fact.
This is it!!!! EXPLOSIVE!!!!! His firm was required to do pro bono work, and (choke!) did it! And as an employee of the firm, Roberts worked for a client!
I LOVE how the left uses the word GAY as a weapon to try to split GOP support for a judge who, when employed as a lawyer, worked as a lawyer. The hypocrisy of those who are always bitching about gays being stigmatized using gays to stigmatize is just beautiful.
next, he'll be bunking with Souter ... (/sarcasm)
So what?
This is bad news. The issue was too important to treat as a purely professional matter. Unless the story is badly wrong, we now have our first piece of genuinely disturbing news about Roberts. When the Rats praise a Republican, there's almost always a reason.
We still have to support the guy, and we can still hope that he'll be with us 90 percent of the time. But even a justice who is 10 percent wrong can do a lot of damage.
Don't worry, doing his job this once is enough for the Ann Coulter Was Right! crowd.
Exactly.
Oh my..... You mean to to;ll me that John Roberts did what he was told when his boss's told him to do some pro bono work.... I'm Shocked... Shocked I tell ya
This is nothing but an attempt by the left to discredit him among the Conservative Base
It's one thing to be hired to represent a client. It's another to do volunteer work for free. That infers you believe the client's cause is worthy.
Weren't there any conservative organizations that needed free legal representation?
I think it's a good thing that a lawyer defends zeaously his client. But I also think that lawyers should have ethics and not take cases they don't believe in. In my opinion, we all have to do what we can and use our abilities in all order of things to make this society a better place. Not doing so is lack of ethics.
That's exactly what it is. As you can see from some of the posts here, it is working.
Where do you get that from? The job had to be done, he did it.
Weren't there any conservative organizations that needed free legal representation?
Apparently not. I haven't seen anything stating he passed up working on some conservative group's case for this. And I imagine it is just what a good employee does--work on a pro bono job.
I am suspicious but not enough to reject roberts.
When it comes to this type of work, you do not HAVE to do something that objects your conscience. If he worked for a megafirm with hundreds of lawyers this does not mean much but do not underestimate the value of collaberation.
If this is an indication of how he would rule on homosexual marriage, then it is a dealbreaker. As a lawyer he should already KNOW that homosexuals already have access to cohabitation and estate planning. (even just making a deed "tenancy by the entireties" produces right now what homosexuals claim they don't have)
If this article is true, why are the Lefty 'RATS working so hard to keep Roberts from being confirmed? The MSM wants Republicans to start whining about Roberts so they can use Republicans whining about Roberts in their ads and on talk shows.
Maybe he believes gays shouldn't be discriminated against. I don't think that's some radical out there concept that means he's unfit for the court. I don't know the full details of the case so I can't say how I feel about this particular situation, but I feel better about him doing this than fighting FOR discrimination against gays. I can hate their agenda, fight against their trying to indoctrinate kids in schools, and all that, without calling for them to be fired just because they do something in their own homes. Oh, right, that makes me a liberal to some around here.
lol.......the way they tell it.....yes.
The lefties have gone mad. I must go check out their site for a good laugh.
If you didn't know the news you are not important.
She said a lot; but never said he was a closet Liberal. . .or perhaps I just missed that observation.
If you have read Robert's statements. . .his philosophy; re the Law and the Constitution; you cannot attribute his decisions; to 'closet Liberalism' but rather to a committed interpretation of our Constitution.
Anne Coulter is good; but she is not political guru. . .and regardless of her interpretations; there is more than enough information re Roberts, to make a fair decision.
IMHO. ..we could not hope for a better Supreme Court Justice.
Reading the article again I find this is the one such case he's worked on, and he was a minor figure in it. If that makes him unsuitable as a Republican's choice for the court, then I give up. Ronald Reagan himself signed a law liberalizing abortion law in California when governor, and he's rightly considered a conservative icon; Roberts does research on a single pro-bono case and now he's under suspicion?
Very well stated. If this is how far the left has to dig for SOMEthing on him, he's aces with me. (And Levin, who's my go-to guy on this, as opposed to Coulter. I love her, but she's swerving into Savage territory on this one.)
Quoting from the article:
"Roberts helped represent the gay activists as part of his law firm's pro bono work."
Man, I hope Ann isn't right.
I'd like all his records and papers released. This drip, drip, drip is ridiculous.
Yeah...he apparently fought for the WRONG client.
The reasoning was he didn't support some sort of Lani Guinar type majority vote nullification to entitle certain designated populations to have extra votes.
What if it had been an abortionist? Would he still have taken the case? Why or why not? Does he consider the homosexual agenda any less dangerous to our moral fiber than abortion? I'm not withdrawing support from the guy yet, but these are some questions I'd like answers to.
I don't think that makes you a liberal. I agree with you. I fight against their agenda to be advanced, but we cannot fire them because they are gays. It's true that everybody has the right to do in their bedrooms what they want. The problem is when it goes OUT of their bedrooms and get to the public (including children and schools). At this point I don't think there is any discrimination. At this point they are advancing their agenda. They already won a lot of ground. I have no idea how I will raise my child to balance it out. That's why, without reading this specific case, I suspect it was not against discrimation. You know how consider everything discriminatory (like a woman saying "I am married to a wonderful man". She should say "I am married to a wonderful person". You know what happened to Will Smith's wife, right?).
Pro bono ( prō bō ' nō ) adj. Done without compensation for the public good
Roberts and his firm were a believer in the cause.
Let's stop the idiotic denial and admit this guy quite possibly isn't an originalist and potentially another David Souter or Sandra Day O'Connor.
There is nothing originalist about overturning sodomy laws which the originalists all supported.
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV... but I do have 2 lawyers in the family, and my impression is that you do not get to pick all your own clients as an associate, or even as a junior partner. The article says he was asked to help, and he did. He did not actively seek the client, but when given the assignment, he devoted himself fully to representing the client. That makes him a man of integrity. The fact that they won the case is just another testament to the man's intellect and legal brilliance.
This is a non-sequiter. His firm may have believed in the cause - there is nothing to indicate his beliefs on the matter one way or another.
Let's stop the idiotic denial and admit this guy quite possibly isn't an originalist and potentially another David Souter or Sandra Day O'Connor.
I'm sure you have been spouting the same line even before you knew who the nominee would be, so I won't waste effort trying to convince you otherwise. You'd better get back under the bed, the sky is falling again!
(( ping ))
Why, yes, he was.
Why are you speaking as if it was his decision to take the case?
My question is how do gay activists qualify for pro bono assistance? I'm always told that gays are affluent and that advertisers are always targeting them, etc. because of their money. Here they got free legal help from a big time Washington DC law firm.
"The generally accepted notion that the court can only hear roughly 150 cases each term gives the same sense of reassurance as the adjournment of the court in July, when we know the Constitution is safe for the summer," he quipped. John Roberts circa April 1983
16 posted on 07/27/2005 6:38:17 PM CDT by jwalsh07
Some conservative commentators are not smart enough to believe about something this complicated. But I think Mark Levin is. However, I'm still disturbed by the fact that Roberts took this gay-rights case. It doesn't tell us what he really believes about the issue, or even the courts' role in it. But it does suggest that he's very cautious, at best, about drawing lines in the sand if he thinks it would hurt his career.
Oh shit!
Don't tell Anne.
Next he'll be looking to build a "legacy" as one of the "philosopher kings". I think Coulter has him pegged as another Souter.
Beats me. Why don't you ask him?
Divide and conquer???
MSM is blowing things out of proportion again.
IF you read the rest of the article, you find he gave them a couple of pieces of general advice and did a dry run with them, in preparation. That's it.
The lead attorney in the case went to Roberts, and she is recounting what he said and did:
"He said you have to be able to count and know where your votes are coming from. And the other was that you absolutely have to be on top of why and where and how the state court had ruled in this case," Dubofsky said.
She said Roberts served on a moot court panel as they prepared for oral arguments in the case, taking the role of a Scalia-like justice in peppering her with tough questions. And when Dubofsky appeared before the justices, Scalia did indeed demand specific legal citations from the lower court ruling. "I had it right there at my fingertips," she said.
Dubofsky said Roberts helped her form the argument that the initiative was illegal because it violated the "equal protections" clause of the Constitution."
Hi tame. So it comes to this, it seems. "Conservatives" supporting the homoactivist agenda..
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