{"id":8889,"date":"2006-10-27T14:09:05","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T18:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8889.html"},"modified":"2006-10-27T14:09:05","modified_gmt":"2006-10-27T18:09:05","slug":"sam-brownbacks-obstructionism-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/sam-brownbacks-obstructionism-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Brownback’s obstructionism — redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently mentioned<\/a> that Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has decided to block one of the Bush White House’s judicial nominees because she attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple four years ago. The president’s nominee has gone out of her way to satisfy Brownback’s concerns — but he still won’t budge.<\/p>\n

If you’re just joining us, Brownback — who, up until quite recently, insisted that every judicial nominee, without exception, deserves an up-or-down vote — learned that Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet T. Neff was on hand for a public ceremony in which two lesbians pledged their commitment to one another in Massachusetts. It was not a marriage ceremony and, despite some rumors<\/a> to the contrary, Judge Neff was in the audience and did not officiate.<\/p>\n

Brownback, in one of his less-sane moves, asked the Justice Department to investigate the ceremony (it’s not quite clear why), and suggested that Neff may have engaged in “judicial activism.”<\/p>\n

Over the last few weeks, Neff has explained in some detail that she simply attended the perfectly legal event as a friend, and did not give any legal sanction to the gay relationship. Brownback isn’t satisfied<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The nomination of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet T. Neff to be a US District judge is on hold because Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, is not satisfied with her response to questions about her views on same-sex marriage, a spokesman for the senator said yesterday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bigotry is always ugly and unnecessary, but at a certain point, a person’s hatred becomes ridiculous, especially for those in positions of governmental power.
\n
\nIn an Oct. 12 letter to Brownback, released yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Neff said a minister presided over the ceremony, and she insisted her attendance would not affect her ability to act fairly as a federal judge.<\/p>\n

“The ceremony, which was entirely private, took place in Massachusetts, where I had no authority to act in any official capacity and where, in any event, the ceremony had no legal effect,” Neff wrote. She went on to explain that her family lived next door to one of the women for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

It apparently doesn’t matter. As of now, Brownback seems to sincerely believe that being friends with a gay neighbor necessarily disqualifies<\/a> a person for the federal bench, even if you’re nominated by the Bush White House.<\/p>\n

Keeping Judge Neff off the federal bench over such a matter is perilously close to declaring her unfit to serve because she has lesbian friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brownback is engaging an almost McCarthy-like guilt by association. If he were capable of feeling shame, now would be a good time for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently mentioned that Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has decided to block one of the Bush White House’s judicial nominees because she attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple four years ago. The president’s nominee has gone out of her way to satisfy Brownback’s concerns — but he still won’t budge. If you’re just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}