BREAKING: President Trump’s Pick for SUPREME COURT Has Just Been Revealed… Meet Neil Gorsuch

[Lando Lincoln]

What is the correct pronunciation of his last name.  The Neil part I think I am good.

From what I have read, I like the choice.  A lot.

[jmyrlefuller]

Red flag:



Source: The New York Times

[Applewood]

Red flag:



Source: The New York Times

Well, Roberts I can understand.  Apparently, he fooled a lot of people.  Don't know about Garland. 

[jmyrlefuller]

Well, Roberts I can understand.  Apparently, he fooled a lot of people.  Don't know about Garland.

If Obama trusted him, and if the Democrats are so upset that he didn't get it, he couldn't possibly be good.

[skeeter]

@skeeter  @INVAR

I may be wrong,but I think that is the point skeeter was making.

Yes it is.

It may be wishful thinking, but I think a great many rank and file have very little tolerance anymore for the kind of flaky sh*t the republicans party has pulled in the past. They need to sack up and fight. Finally.

[geronl]

There are 2 episcopal churches in Boulder, one of them is and has long been a hotbed of liberal activism, pro-gay, pro-abortion, extremely anti-gun while the other is more traditional and conservative. Gorsuch attends the liberal one, it even has a female Reverend, Susan W Springer.

The church even encourages members to join its anti-gun lobbying campaign, last year it had the 49 Bells Project to 'bring attention to gun violence'.



Her Facebook feed does not mention the March for Life - which was huge, but she proudly attended the Women's VaJajay March.

Somewhere in that glorious, unified, peaceful, friendly law-abiding crowd of 200k was a contingent from St John's in Boulder. I carried a sign that read "Episcopalian women marching for the dignity of every human being." I had some extra, and gave four away. Some people came over to say hello, including three folks whose relatives are Episcopal priests. We met an Episcopalian from Grand Junction, and one from Golden. We even saw a number of our own parishioners, marching with friends and family. I have never felt so connected to humanity as I did yesterday. Members of our contingent are joining www.indivisible.us to keep the work for justice and equality moving forward.

[SirLinksALot]

He attends a pro-abortion, anti-gun church


Gorsuch's Episcopalian church has declared its "unequivocal opposition" to pro-life laws and he has said nothing publicly pro-life. In addition, his church has a rapid response team to lobby against guns when the state legislature has hearings on gun bills.

A St. John’s Episcopal Church newsletter said the Gorsuch daughters were both “lay servers” called acolytes.

See here: http://heavy.com/news/2017/01/louise-gorsuch-neil-wife-children-family-boulder-mary-marie-colorado-spouse-married-supreme-court-nominee/

Here is the website of the St. Johns Episcopal Church:

http://www.stjohnsboulder.org/index.php

There is no mention of abortion, gay marriage or guns in the website. The page on weddings do not mention anything about gays. In fact it insists that the bride and groom have to go through pre-marital counseling. It reads thusly: "You are also encouraged to use this time to explore your relationship with your future spouse, your patterns of communication as a couple, and what Christian marriage entails."

It also states that In order to be married in the Episcopal Church either the bride or the groom must be a baptized Christian. This is a sign that this church takes matrimony seriously.

See here:

http://www.stjohnsboulder.org/index.php/parish-life/wedding-info

The sad thing is this -- The Anglican ( and Episcopalian ) Church and many Methodist Churches are NOT HOMOGENEOUS.

There are liberal Bishops and there are local churches that do not necessarily agree with the bishops.

UNless we know the specific stance of St. Johns Episcopal Church, I will not be too quick to taint this church with the liberal pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-gay marriage label.

[geronl]

This is on their front page:

Help Colorado Stay Gun Safe: Join our Rapid Response NetworkGun violence photo

With a new State House of Representatives and a new State Senate preparing to convene for the 2017 session in early January, we are developing a list of parishioners who are interested in being part of our Congregation’s Rapid Response Network. This network would be activated as significant bills are introduced that relate to guns. Talking points will be provided and you will be asked to contact either your legislator or members of the committee hearing the bill by letter, phone, e-mail or in person. We will also use this mailing list to keep you informed of events and activities dealing with this issue that we think you will find of interest.

So if you would like to be contacted each time a gun bill is being heard at the 2017 session of the CO State House, please send an email to Kathy Ashworth: kathleen687@comcast.net .   We hope you will consider joining our network and being part of our witness on this important public health issue. We suspect we will need the help of every single one of you in the coming year.   (This list will be maintained and used solely by our congregation’s Gun Violence Rapid Response Network and will not be shared with any other groups or individuals.)

Thank you,
St. John’s Working Group for Gun Violence Prevention

---

Like I said Rev Susan W Springer very proudly marched with the Vagina hats and never mentions the March for Life.

Somewhere in that glorious, unified, peaceful, friendly law-abiding crowd of 200k was a contingent from St John's in Boulder. I carried a sign that read "Episcopalian women marching for the dignity of every human being." I had some extra, and gave four away. Some people came over to say hello, including three folks whose relatives are Episcopal priests. We met an Episcopalian from Grand Junction, and one from Golden. We even saw a number of our own parishioners, marching with friends and family. I have never felt so connected to humanity as I did yesterday. Members of our contingent are joining www.indivisible.us to keep the work for justice and equality moving forward.

There are 2 episcopal churches in Boulder, why does he choose the leftist one to attend??

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/31/14461468/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-trump-nominee-abortion

Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch as his Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday night. Gorsuch is, without a doubt, a respected conservative jurist. But when it comes to abortion rights, specifically, Gorsuch’s record is minimal. He’s never ruled on a case hinging on the constitutionality of abortion restriction. So the best way to look at his views is to look at how he’s thought about birth control and about assisted suicide. Together, it appears he is more likely pro-life than pro-choice.

Gorsuch wrote that the birth control coverage mandate under the Affordable Care Act forces employers to “underwrite payments for drugs or devices that can have the effect of destroying a fertilized human egg.” That argument, which is unsupported by medical research, is often made by anti-abortion rights advocates to explain why they oppose birth control methods like IUDs and emergency contraception.

Separately, Gorsuch wrote a book, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, which argued against the legalization of assisted suicide because human life is “intrinsically valuable.” Arguing against assisted suicide is not the same as arguing against abortion access, but the language he uses is similar to that used by anti-abortion activists.

Together, these writings suggest he’ll be the conservative justice Trump promises. But as perennial swing justice Anthony Kennedy has taught us, opposing abortion personally doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll vote to curtail legal abortion rights. Plus, he replaces Antonin Scalia, a fellow conservative, so Gorsuch doesn’t change the balance of the court.

Pro-choice groups are already suspicious

“Gorsuch represents an existential threat to legal abortion in the United States and must never wear the robes of a Supreme Court justice,” NARAL Pro-Choice America president Ilyse Hogue said in a statement Tuesday.

Hogue added that Trump’s decision to “speed up” the announcement should not “distract from the hundreds of thousands of Americans demonstrating” against his anti-immigration executive order.

Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Network of Abortion Funds, called Judge Gorsuch “a far-right jurist who would overturn basic and well-established principles of American law.”

Clarke Forsythe, acting president of Americans United for Life (which describes itself as “the legal arm of the pro-life movement”) said Gorsuch’s nomination shows that Trump “values the legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and is dedicated to ensuring that the Supreme Court is staffed by jurists who respect the Constitution, not by politicians who vote with their policy preferences.”

Gorsuch has said things that would raise pro-choice alarm bells about the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, and how broad the religious exemptions to that benefit should be in infamous cases like Hobby Lobby.

[Luis Gonzalez]

So wait.

Does this mean that Gary Busey is out of contention to fill this vacancy?

[SirLinksALot]

This is on their front page:

---

Like I said Rev Susan W Springer very proudly marched with the Vagina hats and never mentions the March for Life.

There are 2 episcopal churches in Boulder, why does he choose the leftist one to attend??

I know of many fine Christians who have attended liberal churches OUT OF TRADITION and HABIT. Perhaps they grew up in that church and have know those who attended the church for a long time.

Also, some feel that by their presence, they can slowly but surely turn the leftward leaning church BACK by their testimony and presence.

[geronl]

Also, some feel that by their presence, they can slowly but surely turn the leftward leaning church BACK by their testimony and presence.

This church has always been liberal. It was same-sex issues that drove a deep wedge between it and the other episcopal church in town way back in the late 90's and early 2000's.

https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-822929451/two-episcopal-churches-two-paths-in-boulder-colorado

James McKeown, has been described as "an outspoken champion of the alienated and disenfranchised;" for instance, in 1969 he persuaded the church to house a hundred hippies and young runaways in the church every night, more in the summer, for two years, until it could build a hostel for them.

[montanajoe]

Red flag:



Source: The New York Times

I suspect Gorsuch may prove much closer to Robert's and Kennedy (whom he clerked for as a young lawyer) than Scalia over time. The way a Jurist implements an "originalist" philosophy and the way political partisans view it are not the same. I suspect he will side with Roberts and Kennedy fairly often and I would expect this gives the Roberts court an additional vote to refuse to take up many of the cases dealing with social issues until the States and the people have come to some kind of consensus, which is a good thing in my view.

[Silver Pines]

I don't where your source is digging this garbage up, but  FOX News said abortion is one thing he never wrote an opinion on.  In any case Roe v Wade will not be overturned any time soon with any pick.

@NavyCanDo

I don't know how to post links from this phone yet, but on another thread I mentioned Ed Whelan's article at National Review (1/24) in which he refuted Andy Schafly's claim that Gorsuch is pro-transgender.  End run-on sentence, geez.

[TomSea]

So wait.

Does this mean that Gary Busey is out of contention to fill this vacancy?

[SirLinksALot]

Here's the question -- Do we determine how he will decide based on the church he attends, or do we determine how he will decide BASED ON HIS PAST DECISIONS?

Just because his pastor his pro-abortion, do we then conclude that he agrees with his pastor?

Between what his pastor does and what he himself does, I'll take the latter as a better indicator.

In significant rulings in major landmark cases, Gorsuch outlined a broad definition of religious freedom that could point to how he would rule in similar cases regarding abortion if confirmed by the Supreme Court.

CONSIDER THESE TWO MAJOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CASES:

1. The Supreme Court ultimately sided with Hobby Lobby and the Court ruled that companies like it can be exempt from the Obama abortion mandate. In His position at the 10th Circuit Court, Gorsuch sided with Hobby Lobby in 2013, writing, “The ACA’s mandate requires them to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong.”

He also argued in his own separate opinion that the individual owners and directors also had valid religious freedom claims.

See here: http://www.lifenews.com/2017/01/31/supreme-court-nominee-neil-gorsuch-sided-with-hobby-lobby-and-little-sisters-of-the-poor/

Gorsuch wrote:

All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others. For some, religion provides an essential source of guidance both about what constitutes wrongful conduct and the degree to which those who assist others in committing wrongful conduct themselves bear moral culpability. The Green family members are among those who seek guidance from their faith on these questions. Understanding that is the key to understanding this case. As the Greens explain their complaint, the ACA’s mandate requires them to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong. No one before us disputes that the mandate compels Hobby Lobby and Mardel to underwrite payments for drugs or devices that can have the effect of destroying a fertilized human egg. No one disputes that the Greens’ religion teaches them that the use of such drugs or devices is gravely wrong.

2. Gorsuch also sided with the Little Sisters of the Poor, defending the rights of nuns not to be forced to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their health care plans.

He joined a dissenting opinion written to side with the Little Sisters that read: “When a law demands that a person do something the person considers sinful, and the penalty for refusal is a large financial penalty, then the law imposes a substantial burden on that person’s free exercise of religion.”

“All the plaintiffs in this case sincerely believe that they will be violating God’s law if they execute the documents required by the government. And the penalty for refusal to execute the documents may be in the millions of dollars. How can it be any clearer that the law substantially burdens the plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion?” the opinion added.

In Gorsuch’s words, the law “doesn’t just apply to protect popular religious beliefs: it does perhaps its most important work in protecting unpopular religious beliefs, vindicating this nation’s long-held aspiration to serve as a refuge of religious tolerance.”

In fact, as the Washington Post noted, “Gorsuch’s opinions favoring the owners of the Hobby Lobby craft stores and the nonprofit religious group Little Sisters of the Poor took the same sort of broad reading of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.”

If his liberal pastor affected his way of thinking, would he even decide the way he did?

[geronl]

"We had no clue he would do this," will be coming in a bit, "He seemed like a real conservative...."

There are warning signs, but just ignore them.

[SirLinksALot]

MORE INDICATORS OF HIS JUDICIAL PHILOSOPHY....


In a 2005 speech at Case Western Reserve University, Gorsuch said that judges should strive

"to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be—not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best."

SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court/

Also, In a 2005 article published by the conservative National Review, Gorsuch argued that "American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda" and that they are "failing to reach out and persuade the public". Gorsuch wrote that, in doing so, American liberals are circumventing the democratic process on issues like gay marriage, school vouchers, and assisted suicide, and this has led to a compromised judiciary, which is no longer independent. Gorsuch wrote that American liberals' "overweening addiction" to using the courts for social debate is "bad for the nation and bad for the judiciary"

SOURCE: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/213590/liberalsnlawsuits-joseph-6

OK, we have to admit that he never had the chance to author a decision on abortion directly.  However, in his 2009 book The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Gorsuch wrote that he opposed euthanasia and assisted suicide and that "all human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong"

SOURCE: Gorsuch, N.M. (2009). The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. New Forum Books. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-3034-3.

Here is where you can get his book: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Assisted-Suicide-Euthanasia-Forum/dp/0691140979/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485922569&sr=1-1&keywords=neil+gorsuch

[roamer_1]

There are warning signs,
but just ignore them.

Ambiguous on life is all the warning I need.

[SirLinksALot]

"We had no clue he would do this," will be coming in a bit, "He seemed like a real conservative...."

There are warning signs, but just ignore them.

Of course there are warning signs, most of them relating to his pastor.

The question is still relevant -- do we judge based on his pastor, or do we judge based on his past decisions?

[SirLinksALot]

Ambiguous on life is all the warning I need.

Can you explain to me how his decisions in regards to Hobby Lobby and The Little Sisters as well as the book he authored makes him ambiguous on life?

In his book on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide for instance, Neil Gorsuch thoroughly assesses the strengths and weaknesses of leading contemporary ethical arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia. He explores evidence and case histories from the Netherlands and Oregon, where the practices have been legalized. He analyzes libertarian and autonomy-based arguments for legalization as well as the impact of key U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the debate. And he examines the history and evolution of laws and attitudes regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia in American society.

After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia, Gorsuch builds a nuanced, novel, and powerful moral and legal argument against legalization, one based on a principle that, surprisingly, has largely been overlooked in the debate--the idea that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong.

How does that make him ambiguous on life?

[geronl]

Can you explain to me how his decisions in regards to Hobby Lobby and The Little Sisters as well as the book he authored makes him ambiguous on life?

Can we cite his past decisions or do you only want to focus on those particular cases and ignore the rest?

[geronl]

surprisingly, has largely been overlooked in the debate--the idea that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong.

I think the quote is actually "intentional killing by private parties is always wrong". That means different things to different people.

He has used the language of the left on abortion in a case that he punted back to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, I posted the case info elsewhere on one of these threads.

[SirLinksALot]

I think the quote is actually "intentional killing by private parties is always wrong". That means different things to different people.

He has used the language of the left on abortion in a case that he punted back to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, I posted the case info elsewhere on one of these threads.

What does intentional killing INCLUDE? Does it simply include end of life decisions? Or does it include life in the womb? If the former AND the latter, then we can say that he is pro-life.

[SirLinksALot]

Can we cite his past decisions or do you only want to focus on those particular cases and ignore the rest?

Of course we look at his cases IN TOTAL.

So, what are the rest of his other cases that cast doubt on his commitment to protecting life?