Protest John G. Roberts' Confirmation Hearings!

WHO: Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights
(BACORR)
WHAT: Picket Sen. Diane Feinstein's Bay Area Offices

John G. Roberts is a threat--period.

Every few days new revelations surface about just how
right-wing he is--on every issue imaginable. From
abortion rights to affirmative action, he's been
against it all. Yet, in a speech Sen. Feinstein gave
in Los Angeles on 8/24, she maintained she and other
Democrats did not know exactly where Roberts stood on
the issues and that they would focus on asking probing
questions at the hearings (SF Chronicle, 8/25). What
more do they need to know?

It's time for Feinstein to take a stand! Join us
Tuesday 9/6 @ 5pm!

Here's a brief list of his past record on a variety of
issues:

WOMEN'S RIGHTS
**While serving as Deputy Solicitor General, he asked
the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying
“[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided
and should be overruled.... [T]he Court’s conclusion
in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an
abortion... finds no support in the text, structure,
or history of the Constitution.”

**He has urged the Court to limit the legal remedies
women could seek when their rights under Title IX were
violated.

**Also, while working as Deputy Solicitor General, he
filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of
Operation Rescue and others, who routinely blocked
access to abortion clinics, arguing it was not direct
discrimination against women!


CIVIL RIGHTS
**Roberts wrote affirmative action programs were bound
to fail because they required “recruiting of
inadequately prepared candidates”.

**He ruled in October 2004 that the civil rights of a
12-year-old African American girl were not violated
when she was handcuffed and arrested for eating a
single French Fry on the Washington, D.C. metro
subway.

**In a recently-decided case brought by a Guantanamo
Bay prisoner, Judge Roberts joined a ruling holding
that the government could try terrorism suspects
without granting them basic due process protections.


IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS
**Roberts criticized the Supreme Court for overturning
a Texas law designed to keep undocumented immigrant
children from getting a public education.

**As a legal aide in the Reagan administration in
1983, he declared that he would support creating a
national ID card in order to combat "the real threat
to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled
immigration"...


GAY RIGHTS
**The Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas ruling was in
favor of legal and privacy protections for gays and
lesbians, overruling the state legislature. In
recently released memos, Roberts has referenced this
ruling while raising questions about "intrusive"
courts.


RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
**As Deputy Solicitor General, he urged the Court to
uphold school sponsored prayer at graduation
ceremonies and eliminate a key Supreme Court
protection of government neutrality toward religion.

**Roberts praised Chief Justice Rehnquist's dissent in
a Supreme Court decision that overturned an Alabama
law authorizing public school sanctioned moments of
silence for prayer or meditation, calling the ruling
"indefensible."

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Much information provided by:
http://www.savethecourt.org
http://news.ncmonline.com/news
http://www.naral.org
http://www.socialistworker.org