When Ideology Supersedes The Constitution

The Supreme Court has always been held to a higher ethical standard than the other courts… until now.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES BRETT KAVANAUGH AND SAMUEL ALITO URGED TO RECUSE THEMSELVES FROM LGBT CASES
Newsweek
By Aila Slisco
November 7, 2019

The director of a judicial activist group has written U.S. Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito a letter demanding they recuse themselves from upcoming Supreme Court cases concerning LGBT rights, after the pair posed for pictures with the president of anti-gay group National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

The liberal group Take Back the Court advocates adding additional justices to the Supreme Court. Their executive director Aaron Belkin wrote the letter on Tuesday, and it was shared to their website and social media on Wednesday. The letter concerns a recent photo showing Kavanaugh and Alito posing with members of NOM and the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.

The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in multiple cases that could have serious implications for LGBT employment rights. NOM has filed an amicus brief in at least one of the cases, urging the court to rule against LGBT rights.

NOM advocates for what they claim is "traditional marriage," and hope to take marriage rights away from same sex couples. The group's president is Brian Brown, who boasted of a "great day at the US Supreme Court" when posting the contentious photo to his Twitter account on October 29.
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"If you refuse to recuse yourselves, this incident will further illustrate the urgent need for structural reform of the Supreme Court in order to restore a Court that understands its role is to protect individual rights and our democracy," the letter ends.

And then Above the Law wrote…

Conservative Supreme Court Justices Are Showing Their Biases On Twitter Now
If only the Supreme Court had ANY ETHICS RULES AT ALL.
By Elie Mystal
October 31, 2019

[...]
But the Supreme Court operates under no ethics rules. John Roberts occasionally makes noises about issuing some, but he hasn’t. And I suspect the reason is that any reasonable rules would proscribe the behavior of his colleagues like Kavanaugh, Alito, and Clarence Thomas. Thomas, along with his wife Ginni, spend so much time promoting right-wing causes and groups that nearly any code of “ethics” would force Thomas to recuse himself from half of the Court’s docket.

And so NOM gets to have its little photo op and meeting with Alito and Kavanaugh who are mulling over the future of Title VII right now. You don’t have to wonder what NOM might have wanted to talk about. Again, they have a BRIEF BEFORE THE COURT right now:
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This photo is direct evidence that Alito and Kavanaugh are not impartial. I could find you 100 photos of Clarence Thomas doing the same thing. It is a flagrant violation of judicial norms and ethics. It only happens because Republicans no longer care about norms or ethics. They have the votes to win and they are winning and the Chief Justice is happy to let them win.

The Republicans are only interested two things… advancement of their ideology and power!