Don't Judge A Book by it's Cover

Maybe Judge John Roberts won’t be so bad if confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Maybe he should be viewed as a more moderate member of the court like, say, Sandra Day O’Connor?

We are not going to get a nominee from the current President who will be “pro-gay” or “pro-choice”. It’s just not going to happen. What we should all be looking for is a nominee who will be fair minded and open minded and see the side of other arguments and not be guided by some ideology that overrides that reasoning. That’s the best we can hope for.

Maybe he won’t be so bad. And certainly, without a lot of past decisions on his part to pull from, we have no evidence that he would lean to the extreme right on his decisions.

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for a coalition of gay-rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people against discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

Then a lawyer specializing in appellate work, the conservative Roberts helped represent the gay activists as part of his law firm’s pro bono work. While he did not write the legal briefs or argue the case before the Supreme Court, he was instrumental in reviewing the filings and preparing oral arguments, according to several lawyers intimately involved in the case.

The coalition won its case, 6 to 3, in what gay activists described at the time as the movement’s most important legal victory. The three dissenting justices were those to whom Roberts is frequently likened for their conservative ideology -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. [...]

The lawyer who asked for his help on the case, Walter A. Smith Jr., then-head of the pro bono department at Hogan & Hartson, said Roberts did not hesitate.

“He said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And it’s illustrative of his open-mindedness, his fair-mindedness. He did a brilliant job,” Smith said. (source)