‘Activities Like Prostitution, Adultery, Necrophilia, Bestiality, Possession of Child Pornography, and Even Incest and Pedophilia’

A federal appeals court judge believed to be one of the top candidates to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia met with Donald Trump over the weekend. The President-elect reportedly sat down with Judge William Pryor of Alabama on Saturday, according to David Lat of Above the Law. The AP confirmed the meeting.

11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Pryor, a George W. Bush appointee, appeared on Trump’s initial list of possible Supreme Court nominees. That list was complied by a far right wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Lat notes, “Judge Pryor, beloved by conservatives, sits at the top of the Trump SCOTUS list.” lat place him in the top five, while AL.com, Alabama’s top news site, puts Pryor “among Trump’s top two prospects for the High Court.”

Pryor’s candidacy is exceptionally concerning. Not only is he a far right wing extremist, some say he stands a good chance of being confirmed.

Judge Pryor’s views on homosexuality are debilitating. In 2003, then-Alabama Attorney General Pryor signed an amicus brief arguing that bans on same-sex sex are not only constitutional, but morally correct. The case in question: Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court case that found bans on sodomy are unconstitutional.

The brief, which was signed by Pryor and the state Solicitor General, compared gay sex to “prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia,” while curiously quoting the Broadway musical “Hair.”

Pryor’s brief, arguing in support of a ban on same-sex sex, says that Texas’ law is constitutional because it does not criminalize “sexual orientation, which may or may not be a matter of choice,” but rather “sexual activity, which is indisputably a matter of choice.”

Petitioners’ protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, a constitutional right that protects “the choice of one’s partner” and “whether and how to connect sexually” must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia (if the child should credibly claim to be “willing”).

The brief also claims legalizing private, consensual sexual relations between two people of the same sex “would limit the ability of the States to express and preserve the moral standards of their communities.”

It also argued, “Because homosexual sodomy has not historically been recognized in this country as a right — to the contrary, it has historically been recognized as a wrong — it is not a fundamental right.”

Lambda Legal Executive Director Kevin Cathcart in a 2005 statement said Pryor “has a record of blatant hostility to fairness for gay people.” The group also called Pryor “the most demonstrably anti-gay judicial nominee in recent memory.”

Pryor has also expressed extremist anti-choice views.

“Abortion is murder, and Roe v. Wade is an abominable decision,” he said in 2002. 

“I will never forget Jan. 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children,” Pryor said in 1997.

Why would Pryor likely be confirmed? 

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions.

Pryor is closely tied to Sessions, Trump’s nominee to become Attorney General. 

“Sessions is a major Pryor proponent — and now that Sessions is definitely going to be AG, having killed it at his hearings, his Trumpworld stock is way up and his views enjoy greater sway within the administration,” Lat claims. (The “having killed it at his hearings” is a matter of opinion.)

But Lat also notes that “Sessions and Pryor are close friends and have known each for more than 20 years. They met in 1994, when Sessions was running for Alabama attorney general and a mutual friend introduced them. After Sessions won, he hired Bill Pryor as his deputy attorney general. Sessions cited Pryor’s work for him, among many other factors, when he spoke glowingly about Pryor at his Eleventh Circuit confirmation hearings in 2003 and 2005.”

Towleroad offers a few more insights into Judge Pryor’s background.

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