Legal News

Staver: AZ Bar Rule Recommendation is Affront to Traditional Values

By Dan Slater

Consider the following recommendation currently before the State Bar of Arizona: According to reports, the bar is considering changing its oath that requires lawyers to affirm they won’t “permit considerations of gender, race, age, nationality, disability or social standing to influence” their duty of care to clients. The proposal is to add “sexual orientation” to that list.

At least one leading lawyer in the Catholic community — Mathew Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University Law School — is outraged. “I believe that this is a major threat to the practice of law,” Staver (Southern Missionary College, U. of Kentucky Law) told Catholic Online. “This is an attempt to literally license those out of business and to revoke the license of those who, in fact, have traditional moral values.”

(Note: Loyal Readers will remember Staver from his effusive praise of the Supreme Court’s June decision in Heller, the Second Amendment case. Staver said in a statement: “‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition’ is the best way to describe today’s decision.”)

From Catholic Online:

Staver believes the campaign is going nationwide and will be a tool used by homosexuals to hold back Christian lawyers. “If they then can hold over your head the license and the ability to practice law, that will be a devastating blow to those of us who believe in traditional family values,” he points out.

According to Staver, this is an issue that lawyers and law school students cannot ignore. “It’s a ticking time bomb,” he concludes. “It is a land mine just waiting for someone to step on them.”

Many believe that same sex attraction is a disorder. There is also some evidence that it can be cured.

Here’s a hypo that Staver offered to WorldNetDaily: “What if you represent someone in a divorce and you’re the attorney of record. Afterwards this person enters into a lesbian lifestyle and wants a change of custody. They want the child. That presents Christian attorneys with a conflict with their religious beliefs. Would [that Christian lawyer] want to continue to represent that person? It would be pushing that child into a homosexual lifestyle.”

LBers, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this one (let’s keep it civil, please!).

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 02, 2009 (boomark / email).