Gay
civil
rights
groups
issued
ominous
warnings
in
response
to
news
of
Supreme
Court
Justice
Sandra
Day
O’Connor’s
retirement
last
week.
O’Connor,
a
moderate
conservative
appointed
by
President
Ronald
Reagan
and
the
nation’s
first
female
Supreme
Court
justice,
has
been
a
key
swing
vote
on
the
court
since
1981.
Her
record
on
gay
rights
is
no
different.
She
voted
with
the
5-4
majority
in
1986
to
uphold
Georgia’s
sodomy
law
in
Bowers
vs.
Hardwick,
then
voted
with
the
6-3
majority
17
years
later
in
Lawrence
vs.
Texas
to
strike
down
that
state’s
sodomy
law.
Even
then,
O’Connor
refused
to
join
the
five
other
justices
in
striking
down
the
Bowers
ruling.
She
voted
with
the
majority
in
the
5-4
ruling
in
Dale
vs.
Boy
Scouts
to
protect
that
organization’s
First
Amendment
right
to
bar
gays
from
the
organization,
and
joined
a
unanimous
court
in
Hurley
vs.
Irish-American
Gay,
Lesbian
&
Bisexual
Group
of
Boston,
upholding
parade
organizers’
First
Amendment
right
to
exclude
a
gay
group
from
participating.
In
the
first
landmark
gay
civil
rights
win
before
the
high
court,
O’Connor
voted
with
the
6-3
majority
in
Romer
vs.
Evans,
which
overturned
Colorado’s
constitutional
amendment
against
protecting
gay
men
and
lesbians
from
discrimination.
But
she
disappointed
gay
rights
activists
just
two
years
later
when
again
voted
with
a
6-3
majority
not
to
even
review
an
appellate
court
ruling
that
upheld
a
similar
ordinance
in
the
city
of
Cincinnati.
In
a
rare
split
decision
with
O’Connor
in
the
dissent,
she
voted
in
1998
with
the
court’s
three
most
predictably
conservative
justices
—
William
Rehnquist,
Antonin
Scalia
and
Clarence
Thomas
—
in
Bragdon
vs.
Abbott
disagreeing
with
the
majority’s
decision
that
HIV
even
without
symptoms
qualifies
a
person
for
protection
under
the
Americans
with
Disabilities
Act.
O’Connor’s
vote
was
also
critical
in
cases
involving
church/state
separation,
affirmative
action
and
women’s
rights.
The
judicial
nomination
process
has
been
much
in
the
news
during
recent
months
as
Democrats
and
Republicans
battled
over
controversial
nominees
to
the
federal
bench.
Many
said
those
battles
were
test
runs
for
a
larger
fight
that
would
take
place
should
President
Bush
have
the
chance
to
appoint
a
Supreme
Court
justice.
Until
last
week,
most
pundits
predicted
that
Rehnquist,
the
conservative
chief
justice,
who
is
80
and
ill
with
thyroid
cancer,
would
be
first
to
retire.
The
resignation
of
O’Connor,
a
key
swing
vote
in
the
closely
divided
court,
makes
certain
that
significant
and
long-term
changes
are
close
at
hand
for
the
Supreme
Court.
President
Bush
could
announce
a
nominee
to
replace
O’Connor
as
soon
as
next
week
or
as
late
as
early
August,
but
has
said
he
will
take
his
time
in
choosing
a
successor.
Hearings
are
likely
in
September,
with
a
replacement
ready
to
take
a
seat
on
the
court
by
the
beginning
of
its
next
term,
in
October.
Political
action
groups
across
the
political
spectrum
have
stepped
up
organizing
efforts
to
influence
the
judicial
selection
process.
Many
expect
that
the
issue
of
judicial
filibusters
will
be
revisited
during
the
Supreme
Court
nomination
process.
A
deal
struck
by
a
group
of
seven
Republican
and
seven
Democratic
senators
allowed
three
of
Bush’s
most
controversial
federal
court
nominees
to
be
put
to
a
vote.
The
group,
known
as
the
“gang
of
14”
agreed
that
the
Republicans
would
not
eliminate
the
Democrats’
right
to
filibuster
and
that
the
Democrats
would
not
filibuster
judicial
nominees
except
under
extraordinary
circumstances.
The
filibuster
compromise
did
not
define
what
would
constitute
extraordinary
circumstances,
and
this
week
several
member
of
the
“gang”
indicated
that
only
a
nominee’s
character
or
fitness,
and
not
their
judicial
philosophy,
could
justify
a
filibuster.
“In
the
wake
of
O’Connor’s
announced
retirement,
the
specter
of
a
sharp
U-turn
looms
large,”
warned
Kate
Kendell
of
the
National
Center
for
Lesbian
Rights,
a
view
echoed
by
many
other
gay
rights
groups.
The
Lawrence
vs.
Texas
decision
illustrates
how
powerfully
a
Supreme
Court
decision
can
affect
civil
rights,
she
said.
“One
day
our
sexual
intimacy
was
criminal
in
13
states,
and
the
next
day
that
badge
of
inferiority
was
erased,”
Kendell
said.
“The
Lawrence
decision
served
as
a
lightning
rod,
initiating
a
necessary
national
discussion
about
gay
rights.”
Kendell
said
that
she
is
worried
that
the
national
dialogue
on
gay
rights
could
be
cut
short
if
O’Connor
is
replaced
by
a
conservative,
and
the
court
hands
down
rulings
rejecting
gay
rights.
“It
is
not
likely
that
Lawrence,
for
example,
would
be
overruled
next
year
or
even
in
the
next
five
years,”
Kendell
said.
“But
it
is
possible
that
issues
like
adoption,
other
parenting
rights,
relationship
recognition,
including
not
just
marriage
but
domestic
partner
recognition
could
all
be
imperiled
if
O’Connor’s
replacement
possesses
an
agenda
hostile
to
lesbians
and
gay
men.”
O’Connor
herself
might
not
have
provided
a
welcome
vote
on
those
issues.
Even
in
the
Lawrence
case,
she
made
a
point
of
distinguishing
sodomy
laws,
which
criminalize
homosexual
sex,
and
marriage
laws,
which
validate
gay
relationships.
“Texas
cannot
assert
any
legitimate
state
interest
[to
criminalize
sodomy],”
she
wrote
in
the
Lawrence
case,
“such
as
national
security
or
preserving
the
traditional
institution
of
marriage.
“Unlike
the
moral
disapproval
of
same-sex
relations
—
the
asserted
state
interest
in
this
case
—
other
reasons
exist
to
promote
the
institution
of
marriage
beyond
mere
moral
disapproval
of
an
excluded
group,”
O’Connor
wrote.
Several
state
supreme
courts
that
have
already
struck
down
heterosexual-only
marriage
laws
have
concluded
the
opposite:
that
only
...
