Flashback: Senators Overlooked Radical Record of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Human Events – by Phyllis Schlafly, Aug 23, 2005

Hypocrisy stands at the pinnacle of the sins that liberals most disdain. So it’s fair game to compare the free ride they gave to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with their searching the archives to pillory every word ever written by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

Liberal commentators and U.S. senators, who are salivating at the upcoming interrogation of Roberts, never asked Ginsburg about her extremist views spelled out in her lengthy paper trail. The senators didn’t have to do much research; I made it easy for them by publishing her words in my July 1993 Phyllis Schlafly Report.  

I quoted extensively from her 230-page book called Sex Bias in the U.S. Code, published in 1977 by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The purpose of this book was to show how the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (for which she was an aggressive advocate) would change federal laws to make them sex-neutral and “eliminate sex-discriminatory provisions.”

Ginsburg called for the sex-integration of prisons and reformatories so that conditions of imprisonment, security and housing could be equal. She explained, “If the grand design of such institutions is to prepare inmates for return to the community as persons equipped to benefit from and contribute to civil society, then perpetuation of single-sex institutions should be rejected.” (Page 101)

She called for the sex-integration of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts because they “perpetuate stereotyped sex roles.” (Page 145)

She insisted on sex-integrating “college fraternity and sorority chapters” and replacing them with “college social societies.” (Page 169)

She even cast constitutional doubt on the legality of “Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as separate holidays.” (Page 146)

Ginsburg called for reducing the age of consent for sexual acts to people who are “less than 12 years old.” (Page 102)

She asserted that laws against “bigamists, persons cohabiting with more than one woman, and women cohabiting with a bigamist” are unconstitutional. (Page 195)

She objected to laws against prostitution because “prostitution, as a consensual act between adults, is arguably within the zone of privacy protected by recent constitutional decisions.” (Page 97)

On the other hand, her view of the traditional family was radical feminist. She said that the concept of husband-breadwinner and wife-homemaker “must be eliminated from the code if it is to reflect the equality principle,” (Page 206) and she called for “a comprehensive program of government supported child care.” (Page 214)

Ginsburg wrote that the Mann Act (which punishes those who engage in interstate sex traffic of women and girls) is “offensive.” Such acts should be considered “within the zone of privacy.” (Page 98)

She demanded that we “firmly reject draft or combat exemption for women,” stating “women must be subject to the draft if men are.” But, she added, “the need for affirmative action and for transition measures is particularly strong in the uniformed services.” (Page 218)

An indefatigable censor, Ginsburg listed hundreds of “sexist” words that must be eliminated from all statutes. Among words she found offensive were: man, woman, manmade, mankind, husband, wife, mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, serviceman, longshoreman, postmaster, watchman, seamanship, and “to man” (a vessel). (Pages 15-16)

She even wanted he, she, him, her, his, and hers to be dropped down the memory hole. They must be replaced by he/she, her/him, and hers/his, and federal statutes must use the bad grammar of “plural constructions to avoid third person singular pronouns.” (Page 52-53)

Not only did Ginsburg pass former President Bill Clinton’s litmus test of being pro-abortion, but she was also on record as opposing what was then settled law that the Constitution does not compel taxpayers to pay for abortions. In her chapter in a 1980 book, Constitutional Government in America, she condemned the Supreme Court’s ruling in Harris v. McRaeand claimed that taxpayer-funded abortions should be a constitutional right.

In a speech published by Phi Beta Kappa’s Key Reporter in 1974, Ginsburg called for affirmative action hiring quotas for career women. Using the police as an example, she wrote, “Affirmative action is called for in this situation.”

It’s too bad that Americans were denied the entertainment value of a C-SPAN broadcast of a Senate Judiciary Committee interrogation of Ginsburg about her out-of-the-mainstream views. But Republicans rolled over and Ginsburg was confirmed 97 to 3.

Liberals are trying to make a federal case out of Roberts’ membership or non-membership in the Federalist Society. But Ginsburg had been the general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which, unlike the Federalist Society, litigates to bring about leftist and even radical goals.

Tim Russert posed the pertinent question on Meet the Press, after showing a clip of Clinton saying he would appoint only Supreme Court justices “who believe in the constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose.” Russert asked: “Doesn’t George Bush, as a Republican, have the same opportunities as Bill Clinton, the Democrat, to put people on the Court who share his philosophy?”

http://humanevents.com/2005/08/23/senators-overlooked-radical-record-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg/