DEFENDING TERRORISTS: GOOD; Defending Marriage: Bad

Defending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists has become immensely popular for lawyers and although this might make it seem as if the legal industry will represent anyone, there still is one group of people it hates and won’t defend: those who support marriage.

Former Army officer Jason Wright resigned his commission in order to continue defending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Islamic terrorist who beheaded Daniel Pearl and who played a role in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.:

An Army lawyer assigned to defend Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantanamo Bay has resigned his commission after being told he was being pulled from the case to attend a graduate program required for promotion. . . .

Wright joined the Army in 2005, and for nearly three years, he served on Mohammed’s defense team.

The Army had instructed him to leave the team in order to complete the course. He refused, saying it would have been unethical for him to leave the team. . . .

Wright told NPR that it was hard to gain any client’s trust, but especially that of Mohammed. “All six of these men have been tortured by the U.S. government,” he said. . . .

The hardest thing to deal with as a defense layer, Wright told NPR, is fighting the government’s influence.

“Leave aside our constitutional principles — which we should try to uphold irrespective of who the defendant may be — the Constitution has been completely stepped on throughout this entire process,” he said. “That’s a separate and distinct issue of how the U.S. now has shown just abhorrent leadership when it comes to actually following essential, fundamental human rights and due-process guarantees.”

Wright’s not alone, of course. I previously noted that defending Mohammed and other Islamic terrorists has become a popular thing for lawyers to do.

Meanwhile, the legal industry actively discourages its own from defending those who support marriage. Apparently that is just too much for many lawyers to stomach even as people who saw off heads and otherwise murder is a clientele that they desperately want to represent.

Reuters reported on June 10 that, “U.S. law firms flock to gay-marriage proponents, shun other side”:

As U.S. lawsuits seeking gay-marriage rights move toward a likely showdown at the Supreme Court next year, major law firms are rushing to get involved — but only on the side of the proponents.

A Reuters review of more than 100 court filings during the past year shows that at least 30 of the country’s largest firms are representing challengers to state laws banning same-sex marriage. Not a single member of the Am Law 200, a commonly used ranking of the largest U.S. firms by revenue, is defending gay marriage prohibitions. . . .

Several lawyers opposed to same-sex marriage rights said they believed big firms would not litigate for that side even if attorneys asked to do so. They pointed to the example of Mozilla’s Eich as an example of the pressures being faced.

Andrew Pugno, a lawyer for the group that defended California’s ban when it was challenged by same-sex couples, said he considered big firms when searching for someone to argue the case. In at least one situation, Pugno said, a lawyer at a big firm was interested but partners refused to let him take on the work. He declined to identify the person or firm.

“I personally know many good lawyers in large firms who … are terrified of speaking out even within their own firms,” said Pugno, who has a small firm near Sacramento, Calif. He declined to name any.

Anti-Americanism and anti-Christianity have long been mainstream movements but they now have reached a point where their supporters dominate and control American culture. And they only will become stronger over time unless leaders make a sustained effort to oppose them and undo all the harm they continue doing.

Image: http://www.foodista.com/blog/2011/11/11/lawyer-sues-luxury-spa-over-free-breakfast