ConfirmThem

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That is the title of this excellent post by Paul over at the Right Side of the Rainbow, a very good blog (I obviously don't agree with Paul on every issue, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for his abilities as a blogger). Here's a snippet of the post:

Log Cabin's other objection to William Pryor is that he does his work. As Alabama's attorney general, Judge Pryor filed a brief in support of Texas in Lawrence v. Texas, the case the U.S. Supreme Court used to overturn sodomy laws in the states where they still existed. But there's nothing unusual about a state attorney general filing an amicus brief in a case where the law of his own state is implicated. That's part of his job.

In that brief, Judge Pryor wrote:

[A] constitutional right that protects 'the choice of one's partner' and 'whether and how to connect sexually' must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia.

If gays and lesbians find that statement offensive, it's because they don't like having their own conduct compared to other conduct that they, like most Americans, view as immoral. But Judge Pryor wasn't making a comparison; he was making a legal argument . . . .

As much as we might approve of the outcome in Lawrence, we'd be hard pressed to identity the logical limits of its holding. And that's what Judge Pryor was saying in his brief. He was arguing that the court could distinguish homosexual conduct from other forms of sexual conduct only by judicial fiat . . . .

Judge Pryor would not require the states to prohibit homosexual conduct or abortion; rather, he would leave them at liberty to decide for themselves public policy questions about which the Constitution is silent. This is known in the vernacular as democracy, and deference to it is a staple of Republican jurisprudence. But Log Cabin, which protests its fealty to Republican governance, describes Judge Pryor's respect for democratically-enacted law as a "pre-formed, inflexible ideal;" it seeks to bypass the people's elected representatives and have the courts produce outcomes with which the group agrees. Judge Pryor is, quite properly, unwilling to do that.

Log Cabin instructs us to "Call your Republican senator today" and express a view on William Pryor's confirmation.

Indeed I will.

Well said, Paul.

(cross-posted at Southern Appeal)