a head of my own

I read this article from The Washington Post, and this paragraph stroke me:

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

I wonder what his wife thinks of this view he holds. Or his mother. I know he has kids, don't know if he has a daughter, but if he does, would he really want her to only have the role of housewife and mother as option for her future? Actually, not even an option, since that's all she could and should have, according to him.

And to think that this view of his, an intelligent lawyer who studied in progressive universities in modern cities, only go back 20 years or so. Imagine what they think of women in the Bible belt.

A few more gems of his:

He concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

God forbid we pay women the same as men!! What an outrageous demand!!

Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done.

So we also have to thank him for Reagan's disregard of the AIDS epidemic for years, which caused a delayed intervention on the part of the government, which set the stage for far more deaths than was necessary. But who cares, they were mostly homosexuals anyway. The fewer the better, right?

He also, the documents illustrate, played a bit role in the Reagan administration's efforts in Nicaragua to funnel assistance to CIA-supported "contras" who were trying overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government.

Shouldn't this cause concern? The Iran-Contras scandal was huge, and certainly tainted the Reagan administration's legacy. If he was part of it, shouldn't we know more? And shouldn't people be more offended by his involvement with state sponsored terrorism?

Roberts singled out three ideas for particular criticism: what he characterized as a California requirement that employers take into account affirmative action, in addition to seniority, when laying off workers; another California proposal to require women to be paid the same as men for state jobs considered of comparable worth; and a Florida proposal to charge women lower tuition than men at state colleges because their earning power was less.

Again:

• don't help minorities in any way (discrimination? What discrimination?);
• screw women, they don't work as hard as men, and if they do, they're still women, they don't deserve equal treatment;
• what?? Because we pay them less than men, we should charge them less for education? What if then they learn as much as men do and become better then men are at their jobs? Plus, that would most certainly be a form of discrimination towards men, and we absolutely cannot allow for that to happen!!

Finally:

He was asked to review a draft speech to be given by then-Education Secretary William J. Bennett to the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's organization. Other White House officials had said the speech was too divisive, as it criticized Supreme Court rulings that had blocked the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and prohibited public school teachers from giving remedial classes at parochial schools. "Bennett's point is that such decisions betray a hostility to religion not demanded by the constitution," Roberts said. "I have no quarrel with Bennett on the merits."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, settles the dispute on his views on the separation between church and state which is clearly established in the Constitution and that he would start chipping away at from his first day on the job.