ROBERTS AND GAY RIGHTS….Richard Serrano of the LA Times reports today that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts was a key player in a 1996 pro bono case involving gay rights:
Gay rights activists at the time described the court’s 6-3 ruling as the movement’s most important legal victory. The dissenting justices were those to whom Roberts is frequently likened for their conservative ideology: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Roberts’ work on behalf of gay rights 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.
It’s probably a sign of my slow deterioration into political senility that I’m less interested in the actual story here than I am in the meta-story. Why did Serrano write this piece? Who suggested it to him? And why did they suggest it?
Was it to make Roberts look less doctrinaire and therefore more palatable to liberals? Or was it designed to plant seeds of doubt about his doctrinal trustworthiness among conservatives? Or to insinuate that maybe Roberts is gay after all? Or what?
Deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole we go…..
