Who Is SCOTUS Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson?

On January 26th, various news outlets reported that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who was appointed in 1994, planned to announce his retirement. This announcement was followed by multiple reports suggesting that Justice Breyer may have been ushered out by political activists/strategists within the Democratic Party. One report by FoxNews.com claimed that “groups such as Black Lives Matter and Women’s March launched an effort calling for the justice’s retirement.”

With the midterm elections just eight months away and a “red wave” predicted, time was of the essence. U.S. Senate Democrats could not afford to wait to fill the seat occupied by the oldest liberal member of the Court, even if that meant ushering Breyer out before he was ready to go.

Last Friday, President Joe Biden nominated federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Breyer’s seat. According to background information provided by the White House, Judge Jackson, who currently serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Miami, Florida. She earned a BA from Harvard University in 1993 (magna cum laude), and then attended Harvard Law School, graduating cum laude in 1996. Judge Jackson clerked for a variety of judges after earning her JD, and in 1999 clerked for Justice Breyer. She worked in private practice and then as a public defender.

President Barack Obama nominated Judge Jackson as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2009. She was confirmed unanimously for that position by the U.S. Senate in 2010 and served there until she was nominated by President Obama for a position on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was again confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2013. Judge Jackson served on the District Court until 2021, when President Joe Biden nominated her for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The U.S. Senate again confirmed her appointment in 2021 by a 53-44 vote with three Republicans joining all 50 Democrats voting “yea:” Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Judge Jackson is currently visiting Senators as she begins the interview process for the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will commence confirmation hearings. If she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Judge Jackson would be the second youngest justice on the court—behind Justice Amy Coney Barrett—and the first Black woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Of course, President Biden publicly and proudly announced to the nation that the race and gender of his nominee were pre-qualifying conditions for his consideration. (White males need not apply.)

So, what about her judicial philosophy about the U.S. Constitution, the sanctity of life and religious freedom? Well, according to an article by law professor Jonathan Turley,

What is most notable of the statements of support for Judge Jackson is how little is said about her judicial philosophy or approach to the law. The fact is that we have a comparably thin record of opinions in comparison to recent nominees. While she obviously has opinions as a district court judge, there are few opinions that shed light on her judicial philosophy. That is not surprising for a trial judge who issues hundreds of insular decisions on trial issues or outcomes. This is not about the years of experience on the bench, which I have repeatedly noted is a great strength in the nomination. It simply means that we have fewer opinions offering substantive insights into her approach to legal interpretation. The question is whether we will learn substantially more in this confirmation.

We can hope that the confirmation hearings for Judge Jackson, which are scheduled for March 21 through 24, will flesh out more about her views on key issues and her judicial philosophy.

Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute has a different perspective. He isn’t waiting to sound the alarm:

In nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden is selecting a judicial activist for the Supreme Court. Her record from the beginning of her career shows hostility to religious liberty, free speech, and other constitutional rights. The American people do not want a liberal extremist on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Judge Jackson’s judicial activism will place the constitutional rights of all Americans in jeopardy.

Other concerns about Judge Jackson’s positions have been raised by our friends at Family Research Council and Family Policy Alliance.

Watching a Bully Get Smacked

It appears that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is having a long overdue comeuppance.Seven years ago, inspired by SPLC’s “hate map,” a gunman walked into the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, intending to massacre the staff and then stuff Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces.FRC is among many Christian organizations targeted by the SPLC for pro-family stances. During the 1990s, FRC helped draft the Defense of Marriage Act and defended the right of the military and the Boy Scouts to adhere to traditional morality. Over the years, FRC has produced a mountain of meta-research papers that debunk the many spurious studies fed to the media by the LGBTQ activist movement.It was more than enough to get FRC placed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map,” a profoundly defamatory instrument that inspired Floyd Lee Corkins II to try to commit mass murder that day in August 2012.

The young gay activist would have succeeded and perhaps gone on to other Christian targets on his list if not for the heroics of building manager Leo Johnson, who was shot in the arm but managed to disarm Mr. Corkins and wrestle him to the ground.

Mr. Corkins pleaded guilty to three felonies, including an act of terrorism, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He told the FBI that the SPLC’s “hate map” led him to FRC’s door.

The SPLC is now ensnared in a scandal that has cost the group its leadership and, it is hoped, its misplaced credibility with law enforcement agencies and corporations.

In March, two groups of employees wrote letters to SPLC leadership, warning them that “allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it” and that the SPLC leaders were complicit “in decades of racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment and/or assault.”

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, has written to the Internal Revenue Service asking for an investigation into the tax-exempt status of the SPLC, which he described as a “racist and sexist slush fund devoted to defamation.”

The senator’s action came on the heels of the firing of SPLC co-founder Morris Dees for misconduct and the resignation of Richard Cohen, who had been SPLC’s president since 2003.

The Montgomery, Alabama-based SPLC, which earned a national reputation in the 1970s for taking on the Ku Klux Klan, had been the gold standard for determining what constitutes a “hate group.” From the U.S. Justice Department on down, the SPLC’s “hate” listings were widely used to identify violent extremists.

Housed in what’s nicknamed the “poverty palace,” the SPLC has an endowment exceeding $500 million, including $120 million in offshore accounts. After defeating the Klan, the group needed new enemies on which to raise millions of dollars via direct mail. To the delight of LGBTQ activists, the SPLC began placing Christian conservative groups alongside skinheads, Nazis and the Klan in its materials and on the “hate map.”

Soon, companies like Amazon began removing Christian groups like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) from their charitable programs such as AmazonSmile. The charity index GuideStar USA affixed “hate” labels to ADF, Liberty Counsel, D. James Kennedy Ministries and other Christian groups, costing them support.

In an April 4 Wall Street Journal article, “We Were Smeared by the SPLC,” ADF Senior Vice President Kristen Waggoner relates how the “hate” designation is anything but harmless. She saw “the word ‘HATE’ plastered in red letters on a photo of my face” on a Google image-search. “Days after I argued the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in front the U.S. Supreme Court, I found the window of my car shot out in my church parking lot after a Sunday service.”

As the SPLC wallows in its own bile, it would be natural to take pleasure from their troubles, especially given the ruthless way they’ve treated their victims. As David wrote in Psalm 57:6: “They have prepared a net for my steps … they have dug a pit before me; Into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.” It’s not wrong to appreciate when a bully gets smacked and justice prevails.

However, Psalm 24:17-18 also warns against schadenfreude: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.”

While still insisting on justice, we might learn from Leo Johnson, who has metal rods in his shattered arm. At Floyd Corkins’ sentencing, Leo recalled that after disarming Mr. Corkins, he refrained from shooting him because, he said, God spoke to him, telling him not to.

“I forgive you but I do not forget,” he told Mr. Corkins. “If you believe in God you should pray to Him every day because not only did God save my life that day – He saved yours, too.”

All this said, the media and corporate America should refrain from using the SPLC as a source until it cleans up its hateful act and stops smearing people.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Colorado Cake Artist

Earlier this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling, striking down the State of Colorado’s decision against Jack Phillips. Though Jack served all customers, the State of Colorado punished Jack for declining to participate in a same-sex ceremony by creating a wedding cake.

This is an important court decision, not just for Jack, but for every American who values freedom and hopes to freely exercise their faith in the public square!

This decisive 7-2 ruling invalidates the State of Colorado’s tyrannical ruling in which they violated Jack Phillips’ First Amendment rights by punishing him for operating his business according to his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage. In other words, the court upheld Jack’s freedom to live and work consistently with his conscience.

The ruling clearly states the government cannot decide what is and isn’t ‘acceptable’ for you to believe or think. And the government can’t be hostile toward your faith.

This ruling will set the tone for future cases on similar issues of sexual identity verses religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

Below is the case description from the Alliance Defending Freedom, followed by their news release:

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Description: Two men filed a complaint with the state of Colorado after they asked cake artist Jack Phillips to design a wedding cake to celebrate their same-sex ceremony. In an exchange lasting about 30 seconds, Phillips politely declined, explaining that he would gladly make them any other type of baked item they wanted, but that he could not design a cake promoting a same-sex ceremony because of his faith.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 Monday in favor of Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The ruling reversed the state’s decision to punish Phillips for living and working consistent with his religious beliefs about marriage.

“Jack serves all customers; he simply declines to express messages or celebrate events that violate his deeply held beliefs,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who argued before the high court on behalf of Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop. “Creative professionals who serve all people should be free to create art consistent with their convictions without the threat of government punishment.”

“Government hostility toward people of faith has no place in our society, yet the state of Colorado was openly antagonistic toward Jack’s religious beliefs about marriage,” Waggoner added. “The court was right to condemn that. Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours. This decision makes clear that the government must respect Jack’s beliefs about marriage.”

On behalf of the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that “the record here demonstrates that the Commission’s consideration of Phillips’ case was neither tolerant nor respectful of his religious beliefs.”

The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court after the Colorado Supreme Court declined to review a Colorado Court of Appeals ruling in the case. That ruling affirmed a Colorado Civil Rights Commission decision from May 2014 that ordered Phillips to design custom wedding cakes celebrating same-sex marriages if he creates other wedding cakes.

The commission’s order also required Phillips to re-educate his staff, most of whom are his family members—essentially teaching them that he was wrong to operate his business according to his faith. An additional requirement was to report to the government for two years all cakes that he declined to create and the reasons why. Because the order left Phillips with no realistic choice but to stop designing wedding cakes, he lost approximately 40 percent of his income and has been struggling to keep his small business afloat. (#JusticeForJack)

“It’s hard to believe that the government punished me for operating my business consistent with my beliefs about marriage. That isn’t freedom or tolerance,” said Phillips. “I’m so thankful to the U.S. Supreme Court for this ruling.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.

Gov’t Seeking to Impose ‘New Belief System’ on Client

A Colorado baker who declined to bake a cake for a same-gender “wedding” is fighting through an appeal to make sure his constitutionally protected freedoms – as well those of others – aren’t taken away.

In the summer of 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division after cake artist Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop refused to endorse their marriage ceremony because of his faith. Last month the Colorado Administrative Law Court ruled Phillips must provide the cakes for homosexuals and prove that he has complied with the court order. Alliance Defending Freedom on Monday filed an appeal on Phillips’ behalf.

ADF-affiliated attorney Nicole Martin argues the government has “turn[ed] its guns” on her client for exercising his constitutional freedom.

“America was founded on the fundamental freedom of all citizens to live and work without fear of government punishment,” Martin offers. “Jack [Phillips] simply exercised the long-cherished freedom to not speak by declining to promote a false view of marriage through his creative work.

“It’s outrageous that the government would turn its guns on Jack and threaten him with a potential jail sentence unless he says and does what the government demands,” she adds.

In a statement to OneNewsNows, ADF attorney Kristen Waggoner says artists like Phillips “must be free to create work that expresses what he or she believes” without fear of the government compelling them to speak something contrary to their beliefs.

“Forcing Americans to promote ideas against their will undermines our constitutionally protected freedom of expression and our right to live free,” she says. “If the government can take away our First Amendment freedoms, there is nothing it can’t take away.”

This article was orignially published at the OneNewsNow.com blog