Mar 11, 2005  |  By: EARTHA MELZE  | COMMENTS     

Four national gay rights groups have joined a growing coalition of organizations that oppose some of President Bush’s most conservative judicial nominees and a threatened GOP plan to rewrite Senate rules to keep Democrats from blocking those nominees.

President Bush has resubmitted the names of 20 judicial nominees that were rejected during his first term, including several judges that have issued anti-gay rulings.

“The battle for LGBT rights is moving through the courts right now,” said Eric Stern, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats. “The right wing wants to hand pick and install judges that will rule against the right to marry. … And while the rest of the country progresses on gay marriage and other issues, these conservative judges will be in place for a very long time.”

But supporters of Bush’s nominees argue that the president’s judicial picks deserve an up-or-down vote and shouldn’t be held in limbo because of a filibuster.

Gary Marx, former coalitions organizer for the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign, and Wendy E. Long, a former law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, are heading the Judicial Confirmation Network, a group seeking to bring Bush’s picks to a vote.

“Our message is simple, the people want the Senate to do its work and our petition will remind senators that they have an obligation to bring these nominations to the floor for a fair vote,” Marx said in a statement.

The Human Rights Campaign, Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Lesbian Rights are the four national gay groups to officially sign on to organized efforts to oppose Bush’s most conservative nominees. While Stern said his group supports the goals of the coalition, it has yet to officially join.

The HRC noted in a recent report on the judiciary that while the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence vs. Texas struck down sodomy laws, it did not address adoption, marriage and other rights, which will need to be interpreted by lower courts, making the current judicial fights critical to the gay rights movement.

During the first four years of Bush’s presidency the Senate confirmed 204 of his judicial nominees — 35 to the Appeals Court, 168 to the District Court, and one to the International Court of Appeals. Bush appointed more judges in his first term than Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton did in a single term. Already, about 20 percent of sitting judges on the federal level were appointed by Bush, according to media reports.

Of the 20 judges Bush has resubmitted during his second term, seven were previously filibustered by Senate Democrats and some of them have issued anti-gay rulings or statements.

Eleventh Circuit Court Justice William Pryor and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, in particular, have taken positions hostile to gay rights while on the bench.

Brown wrote that allowing gays and lesbians to legally adopt a partner’s biological child, “trivializes family bonds.”

Pryor, the former Alabama Attorney General was named by Bush to the 11th Circuit through a recess appointment. He was the swing justice in a ruling against allowing gay couples to adopt in Florida.

He also submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing against ending sodomy laws. In it, he wrote “Petitioners’ protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, a constitutional right that protects ‘the choice of one’s partner’ and ‘whether and how to connect sexually’ must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia (if the child should credibly claim to be ‘willing’).”

The other five Bush nominees derailed via Democratic filibuster were: Priscilla Owen, nominated to 5th Circuit Court of Appeals; Williams Myers III, nominated to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; David McKeague, nominated to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; Richard Griffin, nominated to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; and Henry Saad, nominated to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The gay community should look at the nominees as a group,” said Judith Schafer, Legal Director for People for the American Way. “These are people who want to turn back the clock — not only on gay and lesbian issues but on clean water and the environment and other issues everyone should care about.”

The ‘nuclear option’
The high stakes battle over who will fill lifetime positions on the federal judiciary has some Republicans threatening to restructure the Senate to override Democratic filibusters and Democrats promising to respond by shutting down all Senate business.

Because Democrats ...