When a Democrat doesn’t like a Republican nominated judge, they usually accuse the judge of being an ‘extremist’, or ‘outside the mainstream’, and even a ‘judicial activist’, but what is never asked is what exactly does a Democrat consider mainstream. In other words, what would Democrats want in a nominee, what would it take for them to support the judge fully?

Well, to answer that question, let’s look at a nominee that both, was nominated by a Democrat and had strong support by Democrat senators, let’s look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She is a judge that currently sits on the Supreme Court, she was nominated by President Clinton, used to work for the ACLU, and had strong support by Democrats in congress. So she has everything one would need to be considered ‘mainstream’ liberal Democrat. So what exactly are her views?

Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, gives us exactly that, he writes:

1. Protecting Prostitution. Ginsburg had opined that several federal laws against prostitution “are subject to several constitutional and policy objections. Prostitution, as a consensual act between adults, is arguably within the zone of privacy protected by recent constitutional decisions.” In support of this proposition, Ginsburg cited only two cases involving contraception (Griswold and Eisenstadt) and one involving abortion (Roe). She further recommended that the federal laws against prostitution be repealed.

2. Protecting Bigamy. Ginsburg had opined that a law restricting the rights of bigamists “is of questionable constitutionality since it appears to encroach impermissibly upon private relationships.” Ginsburg offered only a weak “Cf.” cite to Griswold and Eisenstadt in support of this proposition. But the marital relationship that Griswold celebrates is plainly the traditional one-husband, one-wife version: marriage is “an intimate relation of husband and wife” and a “bilateral loyalty.” And Eisenstadt speaks of the “right of the individual, married or single,” not of the bigamist. Again, Ginsburg’s constitutional argument is an extreme one that makes it most reasonable to conclude that Ginsburg had strong sympathy for that argument.

3. Abolishing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Ginsburg had stated, “Replacing ‘Mother’s Day’ and ‘Father’s Day’ with a ‘Parent’s Day’ should be considered, as an observance more consistent with a policy of minimizing traditional sex-based differences in parental roles.” I have previously parsed the question whether Ginsburg was proposing to abolish Mother’s Day and Father’s Day or was instead merely proposing that abolition “be considered.” Suffice it to say that, either way, hers is not a mainstream position.

4. Criticizing the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. According to Ginsburg: “The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, while ostensibly providing ‘separate but equal’ benefits to both sexes, perpetuate stereotyped sex roles to the extent that they carry out congressionally-mandated purposes.”

5. Urging Co-Ed Prisons. This one may be my favorite, as it starkly illustrates how far removed Ginsburg was from the real world: “Sex-segregated adult or juvenile institutions are obviously separate and in a variety of ways, unequal.… 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.”

6. Reducing the Age of Consent to 12. Ginsburg had recommended legislative changes that would reduce the age of consent for statutory rape under federal law from 16 to 12.

7. Requiring Taxpayer Funding of Abortion. Ginsburg strongly criticized the Court’s ruling that taxpayers are not constitutionally required to subsidize non-therapeutic abortions. (See Ginsburg’s chapter on the 1976 Term of the Supreme Court in a book titled Constitutional Government in America.)

8. Practicing “Limousine Liberalism.” Ginsburg had opined that an employer who had a manifest racial imbalance in the composition of his work force could be subjected to court-ordered quotas even in the absence of any intentional discrimination on his part. But Ginsburg herself, at the time of her Supreme Court nomination, had operated her own judicial office for over a decade in a city that was majority black, but had never had a single black person among her more than 50 hires. (Senator Hatch established this glaring inconsistency at the outset of Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing.)

Lets also add that Ginsberg voted against both ten commandment cases that just passed, she also voted in favor of the government and against the little guy in Kelo, and is still not considered an ‘extreme liberal’ by most peoples standards. In fact, many Democrats still refer to her as ‘moderate’.

So please, remember this the next time a Democrat refers to a Republican nominated judge as ‘outside the mainstream’, or as ‘extreme’, because considering what Democrats consider ‘mainstream’, it’s a good thing to not be (their definition of) ‘mainstream’.

In fact, many Democrats consider her to be moderate, still not considered