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

By Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress

17 May 14

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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.