Why Are These SCOTUS Justices Hanging With an Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group?

by Kate Sosin

3h ago

As the Supreme Court mulls three blockbuster cases on LGBTQ workplace discrimination protections, two of its justices are keeping strange company.

Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh took meetings with designated anti-LGBTQ hate group the International Organization for the Family (IOF), according to the group’s head Brian Brown who tweeted a happy photo with the justices.

Great day at US Supreme Court #SCOTUS with #CardinalMueller, Princess Gloria #ThurnundTaxis with Justices #SamuelAlito and #BrettKavanaugh pic.twitter.com/vi87VCzRxs

— Brian S. Brown (@briansbrown) October 29, 2019

IOF, also known as The World Congress of Families, is a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group. The organization has worked tirelessly to fight the recognition of LGBTQ families worldwide, arguing, as SPLC notes, that gay rights are “pseudo rights” which “do not advance human freedom and dignity but debase them.”

Brown, who is pictured with Kavanaugh and Alito, boasts such an extensive and extreme history that GLAAD has dedicated an entire webpage to his record.

As Brian Brown brags about meeting with two members of the U.S. Supreme Court, here’s a reminder of his anti-LGBTQ record and how troubling this meeting potentially is: https://t.co/5k7k4fdJqS https://t.co/JpJ9kAp62R

— GLAAD (@glaad) October 29, 2019

In 2011, Brown predicted that legalizing marriage equality would make pedophilia socially acceptable.

“When you knock over a core pillar of society like marriage, and then try to redefine Biblical views of marriage as bigotry, there will be consequences,” he wrote. “Will one of the consequences be a serious push to normalize pedophilia?”

The fact that Justices and Alito and Kavanaugh would cozy up to Brown and IOF as the Supreme Court debates what many say are the most substantial LGBTQ rights cases of the century has many advocates on edge. Judges will decide later next year if they think LGBTQ workers are protected from discrimination under civil rights law.

Alito is expected to rule against the workers, but Kavanaugh, as a new appointee under Trump, is still a question mark.

Gillian Branstetter, media relations manager for the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), characterized the meeting as inappropriate given what she said is a history of Brown’s organization empowering transphobia around the globe.

“By holding court with the top echelons of worldwide bigotry, Justices Kavanaugh and Alito have only worsened our concerns about their ability to serve as fair-minded judges,” Branstetter tells NewNowNext. “Given the matters before them right now—including the military ban and the enforcement of Title VII—it’s deeply disturbing and inappropriate for them to be rubbing elbows with those who would openly deny transgender people our humanity and our dignity.”