Senate vote would cement 'gay' marriage in New York

Editor's note: Monday at 5:30 pm Eastern, the United States Senate is scheduled to vote by roll call whether to confirm the nation's first openly homosexual federal judge.

The New York legislature has voted to impose same-sex "marriage" in New York State. But did you know that the U.S. Senate is now preparing to make that imposition permanent?

True, there is no bill to accomplish this goal. Instead, the imposition will be by future court order. And the instrument chosen by Sen. Charles Schumer to do the deed is J. Paul Oetken, nominated for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A vote to confirm this nominee is in effect a vote to subject New York by force of judicial fiat to the homosexual agenda, lock, stock, and barrel.

Recall that former Chief Judge Vaughn Walker, a federal district court judge in California, ruled that homosexual and lesbian "marriage" is a constitutional right which must be forced upon the citizens of California. Now, after the fact, it turns out that Walker professes to be a homosexual and says he is in a long-term sexual relationship with another man. In hindsight, it is no big surprise that a man called upon to judge the very kind of relationship and behavior he himself is engaged in, and committed to, would give his stamp of approval.

What reason is there to believe that attorney Oetken would be another Vaughn Walker? Plenty.

First, Oetken’s dossier telegraphs sympathy and support for liberal judicial activism.

Oetken was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, the Justice who was the author of the notorious Roe v. Wade abortion decision and who was also a proponent of recognizing homosexual sodomy as a constitutional right.
Oetken has been a member of the liberal American Constitution Society for nine years.
Oetken worked in the Clinton administration in the Justice Department and as an appointee in the White House counsel’s office.
Oetken volunteered to support the Kerry and Gore presidential campaigns.

Second, Oetken’s legal writing points in the same activist direction.

He authored an article in defense of a lower court’s striking down a federal ban on the use of controlled substances to assist suicide.
He co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of the National Gay and Lesbian Law Association challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law banning homosexual sodomy.

Third, Oetken has in particular demonstrated a strong, almost obsessive, devotion to homosexual causes.

In his Senate questionnaire he reports his memberships (past or present) in Lambda Legal, the ACLU LGBT Project, the Human Rights Campaign, DOJ Pride, GAYLAW (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Attorneys of Washington), and the National LGBT Bar Association. (Lambda Legal supports same-sex marriage, as do the ACLU’s LGBT Project, and HRC.)
Among his 10 "most significant litigated matters," Oetken lists two cases challenging bans on homosexual sodomy.
Of the four speeches he lists in his questionnaire, at least three had to do with sodomy laws and/or LGBT issues.

Fourth, Oetken, like Vaughn Walker, would be an "out gay" man. In fact, he would be the first "out gay" to be put on the federal courts.

Being an unabashedly "out gay" says some important things. For one thing, Oetken considers sodomizing/being sodomized by a man to be normal, and in fact he personally finds the idea attractive. As Oetken wrote in his Supreme Court brief in Lawrence v. Texas, "what is fundamental to the nature of homosexuals … is that they desire a sexual and emotional attachment to a person of the same gender …" For another, he thinks sexual proclivities of this sort are something to be unashamed of. And, crucially for his potential role as a judge, Oetken necessarily rejects millennia of teachings on sexual morality that condemn sodomitical acts and reserve sexuality for a married man and woman.

Oetken’s homosexuality on the sleeve approach, combined with his resume’s track record, leave no doubt of the biased worldview he would bring to any case dealing with aspects of the sexual revolution, same sex "marriage" or the homosexual agenda. Furthermore, as someone who rejects traditional sexual values, he is likely as well to harbor animosity toward the proponents of traditional sexual morality, deeming as "bigots" any churches and synagogues – or their members – that adhere to the traditional understanding of man-woman relations.

We’ve already seen what a practicing homosexual federal judge with no paper trail did with the marriage issue (Judge Vaughn Walker in the Prop 8 case). Do we want to subject New York to a new Judge Walker – this time, one unabashedly, demonstrably committed to the same activist goals? Is this what our senators are prepared to inflict on the country?

Frank J. Bleckwenn is the pen name of an attorney in Washington, D.C.