By Valerie Ploumpis, National Policy Director
Now that the confirmation hearings are over for Judge Kavanaugh, here’s what we know: Kavanaugh is no champion for LGBTQ Americans.
“And this is Megan, she’s in 5th grade. And this is Chloe, she’s in 7th grade…”
The girls shyly smiled as ‘Coach K’ — Trump’s radical Supreme Court nominee better known as Judge Brett Kavanaugh — effortlessly reeled off names and grades of his daughters’ basketball team at his confirmation hearing, a staged demonstration of his credentials as a loving dad and champion of women’s athletics.
But this cohort of pony-tailed middle schoolers will find their lives uniquely and profoundly affected if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to a Supreme Court that is sharply yanked to the right.
These girls and their families now have marriage equality under Obergefell, nondiscriminatory, comprehensive and affordable healthcare under the Affordable Care Act, access to safe abortion and birth control under Roe v. Wade, clean air and water under dozens of state and Federal regulations, and a wide range of civil rights protections under the Constitution.
But in just a few years, one of these Megans, Chloes or Avas will discover that she needs a safe abortion, that her roommate didn’t return from Spring Break because her family was deported, that her mother’s breast cancer has returned but now she has a pre-existing condition, that her father’s in-patient alcohol treatment is bankrupting their family, or that her little brother was kicked out of the Air Force for gender dysphoria. Will Judge Kavanaugh be their champion then?
What’s at stake for the LGBTQ community with the Kavanaugh confirmation? Literally everything: our health, our civil rights, our marriages, our bodies, our environment, our voting rights.
Kavanaugh — who has ruled that the ACA is unconstitutional, called birth control an “abortion-inducing drug,” sought to expand gun rights, and has consistently voted for the interests of partisan politicians and special interest over those of women, consumers, voters, and lower-income people — would turn the clock back to the 1950s. And that is exactly why Trump nominated him.
Equality California’s DC office has been on the front lines since the hearings began last week – attending the confirmation hearings, lobbying undecided Senators in blue and purple states, and demonstrating at nightly rallies – and we will continue to be here until the work is done. America deserves far better than Brett Kavanaugh.
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