Enemy Combatant
Monday, September 12, 2005
You Want The Chief's Seat? Then Show Us Your Griswold
Armando over at DailyKos has some outstanding questioning for Judge Roberts. Long story short: Roberts has to answer questions about Griswold, or he doesn't get on the Court:
The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. . . . Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.
A question for Judge Roberts - do you disagree with this? Do you disagree that police searches of the marital bedroom for contraceptives are repulsive? Do you disagree that marriage is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in prior SCOTUS decisions?
If Judge Roberts can not find himself in agreement with these passages, he is unfit for the Supreme Court.
Would not similar disagreement with Brown v. Board of Education, decided only 11 years earlier, not automatically disqualify him? Was not Judge Robert Bork voted down precisely because he did not agree with Griswold? Did not Arlen Specter vote AGAINST Bork precisely because of this? What justification would Arlen Specter have for voting NOW for Roberts if he held the same views as Bork? What justification would any Senator who voted against Bork have?
The great thing about Griswold, of course, is that it was written back in 1965, when the Supreme Court wrote with merciful brevity in English, instead of prodigious legalese. It makes the questioning much clearer to the average observer, and Armando has practically tossed the transcript over the transom to some enterprising Senator this week:
Senator: "Judge Roberts, do you agree with the reasoning of Griswold?"
Armando's already cut off all the detours, too:
Roberts: "It's settled law."
Senator: "I didn't ask you whether it was 'settled law,' Judge Roberts, I asked you if you agree with it?"
