So...President
Bush indicated lately that part of the reason he chose
Harriet Miers to sit on the Court is because she's a born-again
Christian; and that right-wing religious mouthpiece, Dobson, assures us
that Miers is a member of an ultra conservative church somewhere in
Texas.Every time a Republican is interviewed about the Miers nomination, they begin by saying that they don't have a litmus test for Supreme Court justices, while at the same time claiming that Democrats do.
Well, if it walks like a litmus test and squawks like a litmus test, I conclude that it is. Of Course the Republicans want to fill O'Conner's seat with a conservative, who is against abortion, who has "traditional values." They do not want a swing voter to fill the seat. They want a conservative. They want another Thomas, another Scalia.
But it appears that President Bush has created a quagmire by admitting that part of the reason he chose Miers is because she is a religious conservative. Does it surprise anyone that, behind all the rhetoric to the contrary, Bush is towing the line to appeal to his base supporters? And despite protestations to the contrary, even those Republicans who are upset with this nominee really would like to have a justice that is born again, ultra conservative, and a strict constructionist. So why are they upset? Because Miers hasn't left a paper trail that assures them she passes their unadmitted litmus test, and like John Roberts, there's this icky indication that she supports equal rights for gays.
Still, I don't feel too comfortable with this nominee, either. I don't trust her when she says she supports equal rights for everyone. Bush says the same thing, and then in the next breath he calls for a Constitutional Amendment to codify discrimination into the Constitution.
I really hope there are enough voters out there who realize that having all three branches of government controlled by one party is a dangerous thing. With a Republican controlled legislative and executive branch, we've already got the Republican Mess: a badly executed war, record deficits, and an economy in retreat; and now comes the judicial branch about to be remade in the right-wing image. A hell of a lot is at stake.
There will be those who disagree with me on this. They may find it absolutely fine that we may be jerked back to a court with a mentality that is pre-Brown, pre-Roe, pre-civil rights. In state after state, we see that amendments to the state constitutions have been passed to ban gay marriage...oops...I mean protect the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. But in many of those same states, we've seen that those amendments also ban any possible legal standing for same-sex partnerships and have endangered health benefits and other protections that heterosexuals routinely get by birthright, I suppose.
If we get an ultra-conservative who is beholden to Bush for the appointment on the Supreme Court (and it appears that Miers is starry-eyed when it comes to Bush), it can virtually be decades before gays have a shot at equal rights.