Call to Action!

We need to stop the haters.

There has been a building campaign against Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald who Gov. Malloy has nominated to be the next Chief Justice of the state’s high Court. Two of the architects of this campaign are the Family Institute of CT and the Catholic League (not the Catholic Church itself).

Andrew has been a leader in the state senate on marriage equality, transgender protections, and other issues that impact the LGBTQ community. He is being attacked in part for these positions, and is also being attacked by some of the fringe opponents simply for being gay.

The Judiciary Committee is meeting this Friday. The Family Institute and others are mobilizing against his nomination, and it is critical that we counter their lobbying efforts by getting calls and emails into legislators in support of Andrew.

This is what the FIC has said…

Oppose Andrew McDonald's confirmation for Chief Justice. What form this opposition will take remains a work in progress. But a man who tried to use the power of the state to strip the Catholic Church's bishops and priests of financial authority over their own parishes, a man who seems to exhibit a pattern of placing personal agendas above the law, is a man who should not be the head of the most powerful and least accountable branch of our state government.

And in another email the FIC has quote from the Waterbury Republican-American…

The Family Institute of Connecticut just launched an opposition campaign, alleging McDonald is hostile to religious liberty, puts his own agenda above the law and feigns moderation until he has the power to enact his true goals.

The infringement that they are talking about is a bill that was submitted on behalf of a constituent, a common practice in the legislature and the bill never got anywhere and was submitted because of a priest who embezzled from the Catholic parish funds and the bill would have required oversight by lay church council.

They further go on to say…

McDonald is the first openly gay justice in state history, and he would be the first openly gay chief justice of a U.S. state if confirmed.

Executive director Peter Wolfgang said FIC is not opposing McDonald's nomination because he is gay or because the advocacy group and McDonald clashed over the legalization of same-sex marriage in Connecticut.

Yeah, right and I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

The President of the CT Bar Association and Deans of UConn and Quinnipiac law schools endorsed Governor Malloy’s nomination of Justice McDonald as Chief Justice of CT’s Supreme Court campaign and I have known him since around 2005, 2006 timeframe.

In the CT  Mirror in an article from January they say,

McDonald would be the first openly gay chief justice of the highest court in any state, though not any jurisdiction. Maite Orono Rodríguez, who is a lesbian, was confirmed a year ago as the chief justice of the highest court in Puerto Rico. Nationally, there are only about a dozen LGBT justices in state supreme courts.

As an openly gay candidate, McDonald was a political rarity when he was narrowly elected to the state Senate from Stamford in 2002. Three years later, he helped win passage of a civil-unions law that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples, albeit under a different name. The distinction was erased in 2008 in a decision by the court he now hopes to lead.
[…]
McDonald was confirmed by votes of 30-3 in the Senate and 125-20 in the House after a debate in which opponents focused on his lack of previous judicial experience and his sponsorship of a bill in 2009 that Catholics deemed an intrusion into church affairs. It would have made changes in the state’s religious corporations act, which governs the corporate structure of several denominations.
[…]
All 23 legislators opposing his nomination five years ago were Republicans, though the ranking GOP House and Senate members of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, which screens nominees, pronounced him qualified, as did the leaders of the Republican minorities in the House and Senate.

Notice the vote, it was almost unanimous and in the House it was a landslide in his favor, so what has changed?

What changed is the religious right does not want someone on the bench who puts the state and U.S. Constitutions ahead of the Bible and they sure as hell don’t want a gay Supreme Court Chief Justice.

I met him at a fundraiser for GenderPAC which was a Washington DC based trans lobbying political action committee. The fundraiser was held at the home of Westport’s First Selectman’s home, attending the fundraiser was the then mayor of Stamford, Dannel Malloy, and the co-chairs of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Mike Lawlor and Sen. Andrew McDonald. I have also contributed to the campaign of all three.

When I testified before the Judiciary Committee for the gender inclusive non-discrimination bills both McDonald and Lawlor were there and encouraged me during my testimony.

We cannot let the bigots win…call or email your legislators!

They don't want a gay man as Chief Justice of the CT Supreme Court. They also don't want a gay justice ruling on a involving a LGBT case, but they have no problem with a straight person ruling on a case involving LGBT issues... a double standard.

To find your legislator click here, it is about half way down the page.

Please share widely, we need to counter the far right.

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This morning I am given cultural competency training to a non-profit that I have worked with in the pass. We worked with them on