Obama Judicial Nominee Ran Anti-Gay Political Campaign Touting His 'Conservative Christian Values'

By Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress

17 May 14

udge Michael Boggs, who President Obama nominated for a lifetime appointment to a federal judgeship in Georgia due to pressure from the state’s Republican senators and an idiosyncratic Senate Judiciary Committee practice, endured a brutal confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Democratic Senators peppered Boggs with questions about his past support for keeping the Confederate battle emblem as part of Georgia’s state flag, his past opposition to marriage equality, and anti-abortion votes he cast as a state lawmaker. One of Boggs’ primary defenses was that he cast these votes because they aligned with the views of his constituents.

In 2000, however, when Boggs was a candidate for the state legislature, he sang a different tune. In a campaign flyer first posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Boggs did not promise his constituents that he would cast conservative votes simply because he felt a duty to merely act as a conduit for his district’s conservative views. Rather, Boggs presented himself as a passionate, anti-gay conservative rooted in “quality conservative Christian values.” Though Boggs ran as a Democrat, he implied that the primary advantage of his remaining a member of this party was that it would enable him to receive plum committee assignments — not that he actually agreed with the Democratic Party’s more liberal views:

The fate of Boggs’ nomination likely rests with the ten Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.