Alito is Schizo?
If you've been reading up on scary Supreme (Straight Old Boys Club) Court nominee Sam Alito, you know that he has a schizophrenic record when it comes to privacy rights. He wanted to uphold a machine gun owner's right to sell arms, but not a married woman's right to get an abortion without notifying her husband. He supported a homophobic bully's right to harass a gay kid, but did not support a ten-year-old girl's right not to be strip searched by police when they entered her home in a drug bust.
See the pattern? If the state's power, or an individual male person's power, is threatened, Alito stands up for the long arm of the law. If a woman or child's power - over her own body, say - is threatened, Alito says she should defer to men.
Whether you're male or female and you're queer, Alito's nomination should give you pause. I take that back. It should inspire your outrage and dissent... especially when the American Family Association is getting their panties in a wad over his confirmation. The AFA are the folks who are currently protesting Mattel for their American Girl doll subsidiary partnering with Girls Inc., which AFA calls a "pro-abortion, pro-lesbian group."
Thanks AFA, I know what I'm getting my nieces for Christmas this year! Girls Inc. "I Can" bands and maybe an American Girl doll to boot. (For more info, visit click here)
Written by Meg Daly
Meg is a freelance writer, newly transplanted to San Francisco. She is the former features editor at Just Out, Portland's queer newsmagazine. Her articles have appeared in national and regional press, including Tikkun, Grist online magazine, Punk Planet, Portland Monthly, Oregon Business, and Willamette Week. She is the editor of two anthologies on women's friendships, including Surface Tension: Love, Sex, and Politics Between Lesbians and Straight Women.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, November 02, 2005 at 4:54 PM.
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ByThere is some hope here - I think we should give some consideration to what HRC noted today:
WASHINGTON — Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese made the following statement today as The Boston Globe reported that as a senior at Princeton University, Samuel Alito chaired a task force that recommended decriminalizing sodomy and saying discrimination against gays in hiring “should be forbidden.”
“This is a hopeful sign that may provide insight into his philosophy,” said Solmonese. “There were very few people standing up for gay Americans 34 years ago and most who did have evolved even more since.”
Solmonese continued, “We will continue to learn more between now and the hearings. It’s crucial that we find out more about his views on the right to privacy and other constitutional issues.”
President Bush nominated Alito on Monday to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. The far right reacted praising the nomination.
According to The Boston Globe, “The report, issued in 1971 by Alito and 16 other Princeton students, stemmed from a class assignment to study the ‘boundaries of privacy in American society’ and to recommend ways to protect individual rights.” Alito wrote in the report’s forward, “We sense a great threat to privacy in modern America. … We all believe that privacy is too often sacrificed to other values; we all believe that the threat to privacy is steadily and rapidly mounting; we all believe that action must be taken on many fronts now to preserve privacy.”
By
I remain dubious. Just because Alito had idealistic libertarian leanings in his youth does not mean he hasn't morphed into a rightwing idealogue that the Christian conservatives are salivating over. I firmly believe queers and women must stand together and not partition out our issues -- rather, we can use Roe v. Wade as a litmus test on the extent to which any judicial nominee or elected official values the full humanity and rights of individual citizens. It is only logical that if judge feels it is within his power to rule against an individual's sovereignty over her own body in one case, he most certainly can and will do so in another. I don't see any hope to be found in Alito's nomination. HRC is sadly not as hardline as they should be when supporting candidates/nominees -- see an excellent blog on the Washington Blade's website by Chris Cain, www.washingtonblade.com/blog.
By
Meg, excellent point about youthful ideology, we should be skeptical and women's issues are closely connected to our issues and do make an excellent litmus test when supporting judges as you say.
It sounds too like we are in the same place when it comes to HRC as well. It's a real drag to see leading organizations which don't seem to want to listen to our community and do not provide real leadership. Thank goodness we have Chris Cain and the Washington Blade - I cannot imagine what HRC would be like without the professional journalism as comes from their paper.
By
It is the job of HRC to do what they did... I think it's absolutely ridiculous that you would say 'censored by gay rights watch'. I was sent two different emails from HRC about their press release and subsequent AP coverage--a personal email from someone at HRC.
So... it is their job to do this. If they went on saying 'he is a right-wing convservative' over and over, then when it came time, the right would bring it up and say, well look at all these things he did that were more moderate. This way, HRC has positioned themselves for Alito to now need to bring more evenidence when requested. It's actually a good way to do it. It's called 'public positioning'.
We should also take into consideration that there are many other GLBT organizations other than HRC. How about Lambda Legal?
The a statement they say, "Alito Nomination Raises Red Flags for Lambda Legal. In 2001, Samuel Alito authored a decision striking down a school district’s policy that prohibited harassment against students based on their sexual orientation. Alito claimed the policy was unconstitutional because it could cover what he called “simple acts of teasing and name-calling.”
In a subsequent decision, he found that a school violated federal law for not protecting a disabled student from harassment that included antigay name-calling. Where does he stand today?
Senators need consider this and other issues of importance to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-affected people before giving Alito a seat on the highest court in our country.
By
Bryan - you seem to be on a hair trigger there, which makes it difficult for a discussion.
I did not say that Gay Rights Watch censored the item from HRC, how ridiculous. But rather, in the 'Name' field for comments I wrote 'Censored by Gay Rights Watch' because you have deleted all my postings from this site. (Yup, it's me - start deleting!)
I'm censored by Gay Rights Watch.
It's frustrating to be censored by your own community - but for some reason Gay Rights Watch is pretty comfortable doing it though. I haven't been sensored on Republican web sites (where I disagree almost always), or Blue Oregon.
So, I agree with you - all those things you brought up about Alito are important; extremely important. With Meg I merely raised what HRC was saying, and responded to her thoughtful comments saying I largely agreed with her.
Okay, please - go ahead and delete this if you think I'm such a dangerous influence - I'm apparently more controversial than even the christian fundamentalists who've posted here, and whose posts remain.
b*kurth
By
Are you kidding me? I have "deleted all your comments"? We have not touched them.
You are one of those people that does not cease aren't you? You always want a fight, even when it is in our own community. Today is a somewhat shitty day for our community so please cut the fucking bullshit unless you have something intelligent to say.
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