If you thought your job interview was tough, try being Neil Gorsuch. The president’s Supreme Court pick has spent three grueling days under the microscope of nitpicking Democrats who seem more interested in finding a super-legislator than a replacement for Antonin Scalia. Yesterday, after hours of grilling, the 49-year-old finally got a breather from the hot seat, where liberals desperately tried to pin him down on political topics meant to draw out his personal opinions. He didn’t take the bait.

“I’ve declined to offer any promises, hints, or previews of how I’d resolve any case,” Gorsuch told them. “When I put on the robe,” he explained on day one, “I am also reminded that under our Constitution, it is for this body, the people’s representatives, to make new laws… And for neutral and independent judges to apply the law in the people’s disputes. If judges were just secret legislators, declaring not what the law is but what they would like it to be, the very idea of a government by the people and for the people would be at risk.”

For Gorsuch, the frustration with judicial activism runs deep. Twelve years ago, he blasted the Left for using the courts, not elected officials, to advance its “social agenda.” More than a decade later, liberals like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are quite open about their cozy relationship with the courts, gushing that they never could have redefined marriage otherwise. Enter Gorsuch, who shows the kind of deference for the Constitution that his job calls for, and liberals come unglued. In announcing his opposition Thursday, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) actually used Gorsuch’s restraint as a reason to vote no! Amazingly, he points to “serious concerns about Judge Gorsuch’s rigid judicial philosophy.” That’s exactly why the U.S. Senate should confirm him!

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) can only shake his head in disgust. “What happened? Did the Constitution change? I don’t think so. I think politics has changed. I think it’s changed in a fashion that we should all be ashamed of as senators, and I think we’re doing great damage to the judiciary by politicizing every judicial nomination.” But, as several pundits point out, Casey’s decision could have as much to do with his future as Gorsuch’s. The Pennsylvanian is up for re-election next year in a state carried by Trump. “By opposing Judge Neil Gorsuch,” warned the National Republican Senate Committee, “Bob Casey is aligning himself with the far Left instead of honoring the will of Pennsylvania voters. Pennsylvanians will remember Casey’s betrayal when they head to the polls in 2018.” In the meantime, rumors are swirling that Democrats are offering to scrap their filibuster plans if the GOP would promise not to kill the filibuster during a future SCOTUS nominee. Nice try, said Trump advisor Leonard Leo.

Democrats must be delusional to think that Majority Leader McConnell or any of his Republican colleagues would reward Democrats for their awful treatment of Neil Gorsuch by agreeing to a 60-vote threshold for future Supreme Court nominations in exchange for a filibuster-free vote on Judge Gorsuch. One way or the other his confirmation is all but assured by now. This absurd ‘deal’ would prolong an environment in which Democrat Supreme Court nominees get up or down simple majority votes and Republican nominees get filibustered. That’s not a deal, it’s unilateral disarmament.

The only ones Democrats are negotiating with are themselves. Everyone recognizes that the real debate will be over Trump’s second choice for the Court, since it has the potential to shift the bench’s balance. Senate liberals must have gotten the message, since Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went to the press before noon with his intent to obstruct. “He will have to have 60 votes for confirmation. My vote will be no, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.” For Gorsuch to win his seat, Republicans will have to peel off eight Democrats — a tall, but not impossible, task.

Until then, some conservatives are taking the time to dissect a few of the judge’s statements. More than a few eyebrows were raised when Gorsuch answered a question about same-sex marriage by saying the two-year-old Obergefell ruling “is absolutely settled law.” That caused more than a little heartburn in circles like ours who refuse to believe that moral issues like Roe v. Wade or Obergefell have been permanently decided by a handful of unelected judges. (Especially not when the polling shows that the Supreme Court’s opinion isn’t America’s.)

But, as legal experts like Ed Whelan point out, there’s no cause for panic. “It’s clear, in the broader context, that Judge Gorsuch was saying of Obergefell the same thing he said of lots of other Supreme Court precedents: A justice starts off by presuming that a precedent is entitled to respect and then applies all the considerations that bear on whether that precedent should be overturned,” Whelan said. “On this case as on others, Judge Gorsuch’s response says nothing about those considerations.” FRC’s own Mandi Ancalle reminded the Christian Post, “Most of Tuesday morning, Judge Gorsuch spoke about the value of precedent. Certainly, precedent has significant value in the context of judicial interpretation. That said, precedent on a topic does not guarantee a same outcome on a similar case.”

But the best reassurance probably came from the Left, where LGBT activists at The Huffington Post dismissed the answer as any sort of support for their cause. Michelangelo Signorile, the “queer voices editor-at-large,” argued that the most “telling” portion of Gorsuch’s statement on the topic was the part where he did point out that there’s “ongoing litigation about [Obergefell’s] impact and application.” In the end, it’s Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy that matters most, especially in a highly politicized environment like this one. We continue to be optimistic that he’ll interpret the Constitution — not ignore it.

Originally published here.

No Bathroom Sanctuary at Rockville High

Headlines about school bathrooms have become pretty commonplace over the last year, but there was nothing common about what happened in Rockville, Maryland. In a horrifying story that’s rocking the nation, a young 14-year-old girl was walking down the hallway when two older students in her class allegedly grabbed her, dragged her into the boys’ bathroom, and took turns raping her. Later, after the arrests, police explained that the young men, who were enrolled as 9th graders despite being 17 and 18 years old, never should have been in the country in the first place.

According to reports, both boys crossed the Mexican border illegally last year. And although they were taken into custody by border control, they were allowed to move to relatives’ homes until their deportation hearings. Wednesday night, at a packed PTA meeting, parents were furious that more hadn’t been done to protect students. “There are a lot of people here that maybe don’t belong here,” one said. “They haven’t been checked out and I really need to know that my kids are safe.” Others complained that the school admitted the students in the first place. Administrators were in damage control mode, explaining that the Supreme Court forbid schools from denying education based on a person’s immigration status. Still, one attorney said, “There were long speeches from the principal, from the superintendent, from others who were associated with them explaining why this could never have happened when it did. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound to cure it.”

Outside, members of the community held signs that read “Safety for students” — a rallying cry that’s been on parents’ minds since President Obama made school bathrooms and locker rooms a sexual free-for-all last spring. Suddenly, areas that should be safe and private aren’t. And while school officials promise that they’re more vigilant in monitoring the school, transgender policies like these only make that job more difficult. Some liberals argue that letting boys into the girls’ bathroom isn’t a big deal. But who knows if in Montgomery County Schools, where Obama’s policy is in effect, someone saw this girl go into the boys’ bathroom and didn’t say something because of it? Administrators told Rockville parents to remind their kids that if they “see something inappropriate, they should immediately tell a staff member.” That becomes infinitely more difficult when what’s inappropriate has already been normalized! In the county’s own guidelines, students are told to “foster understanding” — code for students to look the other way when something seems amiss. Maybe a bystander would have been told, as the Pennsylvania junior was when he saw a girl in the boys’ locker room, to “tolerate” it.

As I told members of the Texas Senate, who, like 12 other states, are doing everything they can to restore some semblance of safety to bathrooms, policies like Montgomery County’s are dangerous. They ignore the deterrent value of the ordinary citizen empowered to sound the alarm when something appears out of place — like a biological male in a girls’ bathroom. Students may be less willing and less likely to “say something if they see something” out of fear they would be accused of “gender identity discrimination.” Regardless of the circumstances, schools should be rushing to remove any obstacle that stands in the way of students and safety. It’s what parents expect, and what children deserve.

Originally published here.

Saving Children Starts by Rescuing Moms

On Wednesday, Human Coalition president Brian Fisher presented a lecture at FRC on the role of technology and data in rescuing mothers and children from abortion. Fisher, whose team piloted the Human Coalition model of online marketing in 2007, shared crucial findings of Human Coalition’s innovative team.

There are approximately 1.2 million American women who actively seek an abortion each year, according to Human Coalition research. This group of women is unreached and underserved by the pro-life movement, largely due to the massive resources required to find them and extend help. The challenge, Fisher explained, is that reaching the abortion-determined woman requires penetrating the abortion industry’s target market and extending to abortion-seeking women a system of care that that they are not actively seeking.

Focusing on the market penetration and effective rate of the pro-life movement online, Fisher explained that Human Coalition was born out of the realization that these abortion-seeking women have almost zero chance of seeing a pro-life resources when searching for abortion procurement terms online. Human Coalition set out to bolster the pro-life movement’s market penetration online.

Through search engine marketing (SEM), Human Coalition invaded the online space theretofore monopolized by the abortion industry. The result was that abortion-seeking women began to call Human Coalition’s contact center, which works to bring the women into a system of care at one of Human Coalition’s seven-owned and operated women’s care clinics or 35 partner pregnancy resource centers. Effective SEM requires constant modification and evolution — something Human Coalition’s innovative team works full-time to monitor and adjust for maximum impact.

Approximately 95 percent of the women who contact Human Coalition after finding the organization online are actively seeking an abortion. This population, Fisher explained, is likely to seek abortion for financial and relational reasons, and extending compassion and tangible help in a safe and non-threatening environment introduces an element of hope into the decision-making process that is absent when abortion appears to be the only viable option. To date, Human Coalition has rescued 5,922 children from abortion. Learn more at HumanCoalition.org. For more on Wednesday’s event, check out this article from The Washington Times.

Originally published here.