Progressive groups have already voiced their opposition to Georgia state judge Michael Boggs, nominated by President Obama to the federal bench, for his opposition to abortion rights and a vote, while serving in the Georgia state legislature, to keep the Confederate flag on the state insignia.
Now BuzzFeed’s Evan McMorris-Santoro has unearthed video of Boggs from 2004, while he was still serving as a legislator, urging the body to adopt additional measures against same-sex marriage, as a bulwark against “activist judges” who might overturn the state’s existing ban.
According to a transcript posted at BuzzFeed, Boggs said:
I tell you that and I submit to you that whether you’re a Democrat or whether you’re a Republican, whether you’re rural, from a rural area, like myself, or whether you represent an urban area, we have opportunities seldom in my short tenure in the legislature to stand up for things that are commonsensical, things that are premised on good conservative Christian values, and in this instance in particular, to support the sanctity of marriage.
The White House, in continuing to support the Boggs nomination, has defended its decision as necessary to gain the support of Georgia’s two Republican senators and avoid leavng the seat vacant due to Republican obstruction.
But now, as McMorris-Santoro points out, “the 2004 video shows he also opposed the kind of judicial action expanding marriage rights that has been a hallmark of Obama’s time in office.”
It’s actually worse than that. It shows that as a legislator Boggs believed laws should be based on “good conservative Christian values.” The trouble is not just that his views are at odds with the president’s; it’s that they are at odds with the Constitution.
