“So if a judge is a constructionalist and happens to be gay, that disqualifies him/her from the bench? Personally I would take a gay constructionalist judge over a straight liberal judge any day of the week.”
Your dancing on the head of a pin aside, the judge Romney appointed was a left-wing homosexual activist from the board of the Gay & Lesbian Bar Association who had been active in promoting homosexual “marriage” in Mass.
I am, am I? Let me put things into perspective for you. The judge in question was at the district court level and not the highest state court. Once the nomination was made by Romney, it had to be approved by the Governor's Council, where 8 of the 9 seats were Democrats and were elected, not appointed by Romney--in an overwhelmingly liberal state like MA, that's not hard to figure. Furthermore, a Boston Glove article in 2005 had this to say about the appointment in question:
"Romney won praise in the legal community when he replaced regional judicial nominating committees that were viewed as politically tainted with a centralized Judicial Nominating Commission. The commission considers applicants using a ”blind” first phase of the selection process that removes names from applications in an attempt to ensure the candidates will be judged on their merits. In addition, all of Romney’s nominees have been submitted to a Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Nominations, which rates candidates as qualified, well-qualified, or unqualified — and each has been found to be either qualified or well-qualified."
So do you disqualify an openly gay judge at the district court level who proves that he is tough on crime and is well-qualified for the job?
Lets look at the gay appointee judge a little more closely, shall we? Stephen S. Abany was appointed as an “Associate Justice,” the lowest rung at the district court level and guess what? He was not even a registered Democrat (despite the false claim I've seen here at FR saying otherwise). An associate justice at the district court level is going to have little if any influence whatsoever on the gay marriage issue.
So the issue then becomes what Romney would do at the higher court level where issues of activism have a much more significant impact. The same Boston Globe article had a very interesting quote on the matter:
"Peter Vickery, one of the Democrats on the Governor’s Council, says he believes Romney and Moore would seek far more conservative jurists if a vacancy were to pop up on the Supreme Judicial Court, which delivered the gay marriage decision that Romney has routinely blasted.
Some of Romney’s nominees do have stellar Republican or conservative bona fides. For example, Romney’s pick for Peabody clerk magistrate, Kevin L. Finnegan, is a former two-term Republican state representative. Another choice was Bruce R. Henry, the son-in-law of former SJC Justice Joseph Nolan — whom Romney wanted to represent his administration in seeking a stay of the court’s gay marriage ruling."
Hmm, very interesting. It sounds pretty likely that Romney knows where the real battle lies when it comes to protecting traditional marriage (i.e. the higher courts).
I would also suggest that you take a look at the following article:
http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Br&article_code=2486&PHPSESSID=9f36894422768feb9d0
It seems that Romney has a record of booting out gay activist judges, would it not? After all, that's your main concern, right? Let's take a look at a couple more Romney quotes on the matter:
Romney: ”Beware of activist judges. The Legislature is our lawmaking body, and it is the Legislature’s job to pass laws. . . . While the law protects states from being forced to recognize gay marriage, activist state courts could reach a different conclusion, just as ours did. It would be disruptive and confusing to have a patchwork of inconsistent marriage laws between states. Amending the Constitution may be the best and most reliable way to prevent such confusion and preserve the institution of marriage.” (Wall Street Journal op-ed, Feb. 5, 2004)
Romney: ”The real threat to the states is not the constitutional amendment process, in which the states participate, but activist judges who disregard the law and redefine marriage in order to impose their will on the states, and on the whole nation. At this point, the only way to reestablish the status quo ante is to preserve the definition of marriage in the federal Constitution before courts redefine it out of existence.” (Testimony to Senate Judiciary Committee, June 22, 2004)
Romney knows where the real dangers lie in the court system. He has a law degree from Harvard. He gets it.
I also would add this to the fray...I find it extremely interesting that Romney’s been pretty open and straightforward, both in words and actions, that he is against discrimination—even against gays—is staunchly against judicial activism, and is against gay marriage, yet the Mass Resistance people and certain posters here on FR are more than willing to continue providing the reader with falacies and half-truths (such as the ones I pointed out to you) about Romney’s judicial appointments in order to portray him as part of some vast gay advocacy agenda.
To that, I would simply ask who the real deceivers are here.