Oregon civil union ruling puts federal judge in the spotlight

Link: The Oregonian

Excerpt:

Photo: Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

 

U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman seems an unlikely ally in the fight for gay rights.

On Friday, Mosman, 51, a Bush appointee with solid conservative credentials, tossed out a challenge to Oregon's new civil-unions law. That suit sought to block the domestic partnership law passed by the Legislature and force a public vote.

The ruling put the new law, which originally was supposed to take effect in early January, into effect immediately. It entitles same-sex couples to most of the duties and benefits that married residents receive.

[…]

Mosman's ruling was a major victory for gay-rights advocates, who have fought for years to gain the rights and protections that married couples enjoy. 

Ironically, it was Mosman's perceived anti-gay bias that hung up his appointment to the federal bench. Gay rights advocates worried about a 1986 memo Mosman had written as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell Jr. in which he argued against expanding privacy rights to include sodomy. Powell ultimately sided with that view in a controversial 5-4 decision.

When Mosman, then a U.S. attorney for Oregon, surfaced as a candidate for a federal judge post, gay rights groups said they feared Mosman's memo reflected a personal bias against gays.

Mosman responded by meeting privately with representatives of the state's largest gay-rights group, Basic Rights Oregon. "He came across as thoughtful, careful and a good listener," Roey Thorpe, executive director, said at the time. She said Mosman convinced her that he cares deeply about being seen as a person who is fair.

[…]

"One of my strongest religious views is the important principle of separation of church and state," Mosman once told a reporter for The Oregonian. "That is vital for the state, and it is vital for religion."

[jw]