Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Conservative, yes; compassionate, no
By HUBERT G. LOCKE
P-I COLUMNIST
<snip> In the memo, Rehnquist opined that the ill-famed separate-but-equal doctrine that the court espoused in its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision was "right and should be reaffirmed," adding "I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian
position, for which I have been excoriated by my liberal colleagues."
Obviously, he was not excoriated enough, for once on the bench, he voted to reject a desegregation remedy for public high schools in 1977 and against affirmative action in university admissions in 1978. He was the lone dissenting vote in 1983 when the court upheld the refusal of the Internal Revenue Service to grant tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University because it insisted on a policy banning interracial dating; he dissented in 1986 when the court held that removing prospective jurors because of their race was unconstitutional; and he rejected, a year later, the claim that the death penalty was unconstitutional.
For good measure and long before he got to the Supreme Court Rehnquist, as a prominent figure in Phoenix politics, spoke out against a proposed local ordinance banning racial discrimination in places of public accommodation and against an integration plan for the Phoenix public schools. <snip>
It's so uplifting to know what compassionate conservatism has to offer our society.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/243201_locke04.html
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