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National Organization For Marriage Calls On Christie To Withdraw Harris Nomination To Supreme Court

Controversial Traditional Marriage Advocate Says Christie’s Supreme Court Nominee Lacks Judicial Temperment

Bob Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, sent an email blast this evening asking the recipients to contact New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and ask him to withdraw Chatham Mayor Bruce Harris, an African-American, openly gay Republican, as a nominee to the State Supreme Court.

Brown said the Harris nomination appeared to be failure a vetting, “not a deliberate backhand betrayal by New Jersey’s governor.”

The email, which directs readers to the organization’s website where they are prompted to send a pre-written email to Christie, reads as follows:

I need your help right now to stop Gov. Christie from making a horrible mistake-appointing a radically pro-gay marriage anti-Christian judge to the state supreme court.

Gov. Chris Christie has been the hope of millions of Americans across the country looking for honest conservative leadership.

Last week we asked you to thank Gov. Christie for saying he will follow through on his campaign promise to veto same-sex marriage.

This week, we have urgent and terrible news to report-Gov. Chris Christie’s nominee to the New Jersey Supreme Court is not only an outspoken advocate for gay marriage, he has extreme and hateful views equating traditional Christian views on sex and marriage with slavery.

This kind of intemperate and extreme view should be totally unacceptable in a GOP judicial nominee.

Yet Gov. Christie’s proposed supreme court nominee Bruce Harris sent this email in 2009 to State Senator Joe Pennacchio urging him to vote for gay marriage:

“When I hear someone say that they believe marriage is only between a man and a woman because that’s the way it’s always been, I think of the many “traditions” that deprived people of their civil rights for centuries: prohibitions on interracial marriage, slavery, (which is even provided for in the Bible), segregation, the subservience of women, to name just a few of these “traditions.”

I hope that you consider my request that you re-evaluate your position and, if after viewing the videos, reading Governor Whitman’s letter and thinking again about this issue of civil rights you still oppose same-sex marriage on grounds other than religion I would appreciate it if you you’d explain your position to me. And, if the basis of your opposition is religious, then I suggest that you do what the US Constitution mandates-and that is to maintain a separation between the state and religion.”

Governor Christie says that Harris has promised to recuse himself when the same-sex marriage comes before the court, but even this unenforceable promise misses the bigger issue: a man who cannot tell the difference between supporting our traditional understanding of marriage and wanting to enslave a people lacks common sense and judicial temperament.

And to suggest that legislators should ignore the views of religious constituents, that moral views grounded in the Bible are somehow illegitimate in the public square, seriously compounds the offense.

These are not the words of a judicial conservative, a man who believes in common sense, strict construction of the state constitution-the kind of judge Gov. Christie promised to appoint to the court.

How did this happen?

When Assemblyman Mike Carroll was sent a copy of that email by a reporter, he had one word in response: “Yikes.”

Gov. Christie’s nomination of Bruce Harris appears to be a result of a failure in the vetting process, not a deliberate backhanded backroom betrayal by New Jersey’s governor. If so, the Governor can and must honorably withdraw the nomination.

The next generation of GOP leadership on the national level have to understand: knowingly appointing radical anti-religious justices is unacceptable.

Please, right now, send Gov. Christie a message keep him from making a terrible mistake marring his record. Tell Christie: Withdraw the Bruce Harris nomination today. Protect our judiciary from radically unconservative judges with extremist views pushing gay marriage and equating Christianity with slavery.

Posted: January 31st, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Marriage Equality | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off on National Organization For Marriage Calls On Christie To Withdraw Harris Nomination To Supreme Court

Christie’s Supreme Court Nominees Under Scrutiny

The press is vetting Govenor Chris Christie’s nominees to the State Supreme Court.

NJ.com, The Star Ledger’s website, posted an article this morning about the family business of nominee Phillip Kwon. Kwon’s mother owns a  liquor store in Mt. Vernon, NY that made a $160,000 settlement with the New York U.S. Attorney’s office over $2,000,000 in allegedly “structured” cash bank deposits.  “Structuring” is the practice of spreading out cash deposits in order to avoid the $10,000 trigger that requires the bank to report the deposit to the IRS.

There is no evidence or allegation that Kwon had anything to do with the business or the transactions.  There was no admission of liablity in the settlement.

Star Ledger columnist/blogger Paul Mulshine reports that Bruce Harris, the African-American gay Mayor of Chatham that Christie nominatied to the Court along with Kwon this week, wrote an email to state senators, including Joe Pennacchio,  asking that they support the same sex marriage bill that was before the Senate during the lame duck session of 2009.

Harris’s email said, in part (with emphasis added):

The New Jersey Supreme court has determined that our relationship is entitled to the equal protection guarantees of the State Constitution. The New jersey Civil Union Review Commission determined that civil unions do not provide the equality the State Constitution mandates.(Please take a few moments and visit www.gardenstateequality.org. which has two short videos that provide sad examples of the failures of the civil union law.)

Mulshine points out that there is no equal protection clause in the State Constitution.   Mulshine quotes conservative Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll regarding “originalists” interpretations of the State Constitution:

“No originalist can tell me there’s an equal protection clause in the constitution. No originalist can tell me there’s a right to a thorough and efficient education or a right to affordable housing.”

As much as Christie has done, and is attempting to do, to reform New Jersey’s government, there is nothing more important he can do that make sure conservatives, “orignalists,” are seated on the Supreme Court.  The State Supreme Court will be his legacy.

I hope that Christie is not using the same standard that former Governor Christine Todd Whitman used to populate the Court, i.e., appointing friends and senior staffers or making “diversity” appointments for political gain.

The activist State Supreme Court, with the consent of the Legislature and six governors/acting governors, have destroyed New Jersey’s economy over the two decades. 

Governor Christie needs to make sure his nominees have the “right stuff.”   Hopefully Kwon and Harris do. 

Harris said we would recuse himself from cases involving gay marriage.  Now that he is going to be a Justice, if confirmed, he needs to brush up on the State Constitution.

As for Kwon, the news of his mother’s business with the feds is interesting but does not qualify him. 

The question the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the press, should ask, is what does qualify Kwon and Harris.  

Is being the Governor’s long term trusted colleague enough?  Is being Black and gay enough?

Maybe it is.  But similar standards did not serve us well with Whitman’s Court.

Posted: January 29th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: NJ Judiciary, NJ Supreme Court | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »
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