This Day in Liberal Judicial ActivismMay 14 – National Review

1970President Richard M. Nixon, in one of the misdeeds for which he most deserves infamy, appoints Harry A. Blackmun to the Supreme Court. Blackmun, a boyhood friend of Chief Justice Warren Burger, had served on the Eighth Circuit since 1959. Before that, he had been in-house counsel for the Mayo Clinic. His appreciation for the outstanding work done by the fine doctors at the Mayo Clinic is said to have led him to regret that he himself did not become a doctor. Those with a proper appreciation of Blackmuns Supreme Court decisionmakingincluding, but by no means limited to, his notorious opinion in Roe v. Wade (see This Day for January 22)might fairly observe that the medical professions loss was the nationsloss.

2009Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and (per its website) the individual responsible for all phases of the organizations programs, including litigation, takes part in a confidential strategy meeting with counsel planning to file a federal lawsuit against Proposition 8. After counsel files the complaint in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Ripstons organization will file pre-trial and post-trial amicus briefs in support of plaintiffs, and Ripston will publicly rejoice over Judge Vaughn Walkers August 2010 ruling against Proposition 8.

But when Ripstons husband, arch-activist Stephen Reinhardt, is assigned to the Ninth Circuit panel charged with reviewing Walkers ruling, Reinhardt somehow will decline to recuse himself from the case.

2017Happy Mothers Day! No thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in 1974 co-authored a report proposing that Congress abolish Mothers Day and Fathers Day and replace them with an androgynous Parents Day. Observing Parents Day would, she explained, be more consistent with a policy of minimizing traditional sex-based differences in parental roles.

In that same report, the oh-so-moderate Ginsburg stated her strong sympathy for the proposition that there is a constitutional right to prostitution and a constitutional right to bigamy; criticized the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts for perpetuating stereotyped sex roles; and urged that prisons be co-ed rather than single sex. (See relevant excerpts from the report.)

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This Day in Liberal Judicial ActivismMay 14 - National Review