August 2007

Letters to the Editor

Bar News welcomes letters from readers. We do not run letters that have been printed in, or are pending before, other legal publications with overlapping readership. Letters should be no more than 250 words in length, and e-mailed to letterstotheeditor@wsba.org or mailed to WSBA, Attn: Letters to the Editor, 1325 Fourth Ave., Ste. 600, Seattle, WA 98101-2539. Bar News reserves the right to edit letters. Bar News does not print anonymous letters, or more than one submission per month from the same contributor.

Not the end of the (guardian) story

Franklin Shoichet's letter to the editor [August 2007 Bar News] disputing the value of regulating guardianships through the executive branch raises two important issues:

(1) He notes that other programs supervised by the executive branch have resulted in newspaper exposés and large verdicts for negligence — which, in turn, led to seeking immunity from suits and the hiring of a "flack" to attack the victims' lawyers who speak to the press. I would point out that the probate courts have been the subject of repeated exposés over the last year in the Seattle Times. The judiciary has been held up to public ridicule. While there have, as he implied, been no suits for court negligence or corruption, that is only because of judicial immunity. If such immunity didn't exist, the probate courts would be inundated with suits for corruption and negligence . . . .

There is a cost to the judicial farce playing out in the probate courts. Respect for the judicial system is rapidly diminishing as family members receive "junk" justice and witness the rank corruption of their vulnerable family members being bartered and sold.

(2) Mr. Shoichet has found "the courts willing and able to rein in guardianship abuses when abuses are competently raised." I have found just the opposite, in Washington State and across the nation.

The more important issue, however, is the meaning of monitoring. If the courts are truly doing the monitoring, then abuses don't have to be raised, competently or otherwise. The courts have perverted the noble intentions of the guardianship program and converted it to an organized crime. The monitoring of this program needs to be taken out of the courts and put into the hands of those with medical and financial backgrounds so that they can truly monitor and prevent this legalized abuse of vulnerable citizens.

Sharon Denney, Seattle

It's not my choice

We've now had an article in Bar News teaching us "how to create a gay-friendly environment" since "sexual orientation" is a statutorily protected classification ["Pride in the Workplace: How to Create a Gay-Friendly Environment," July 2007 Bar News]. The president of the GLBT Bar Association teaches us that "Sexual orientation — Describes an individual's enduring physical, romantic, emotional, and/or spiritual attraction to another person…. Avoid the term 'sexual preference' which is typically used to suggest that being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is a choice." Isn't that interesting. Sexual orientation can involve a "spiritual" element, whereas moral or religious opposition thereto is "extremist." If homosexuals can be spiritually attracted to one another, why can't I be spiritually repulsed by it? And by all means, let's don't call it a "sexual preference" since that might imply "a choice." Yet, the State Supreme Court in Andersen v. King County/State of Washington declared that "The plaintiffs do not cite other authority or any secondary authority or studies in support of the conclusion that homosexuality is an immutable characteristic" (emphasis mine). In other words, there is no proof that homosexuality is anything other than a choice.

In any event, "non-discrimination" has become the politically correct device to promote not just diversity but perversity. Yet, we as a society make discriminatory judgments all the time. Nearly all of our laws both civil and criminal are based on some notion of morality or concept of right and wrong. We do not think twice about proscribing incest, bigamy, beastiality [sic], prostitution, drug abuse, obscenity, euthanasia, and child pornography. In other words, we discriminate against those who engage in certain conduct we deem inappropriate and unacceptable. These things we view as simply wrong in an enlightened, civilized society. Homosexuality, with its rejection of family structure and the sanctity of procreation, along with its embrace of perverted sex and an epidemic of AIDS, falls within the category of things which are simply wrong and we have every right, indeed the obligation, to "discriminate" against it. By the way, I believe what I just said is protected by RPC 3.1.

Brian L. McCoy, Puyallup

Faith-based initiative?

As a member of the Washington State Bar Association, and a member who upholds the value and dignity of all people, I found the article "Pride in the Workplace: How to Create a Gay-Friendly Environment" to be one of propagating for a particular secularist agenda that excludes people of faith. Ms. Bloom's position obviously goes beyond the law of making it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and instead seeks to mandate an agenda which would have a chilling effect on fundamental rights. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association.

Many other members of the WSBA are practicing Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Latter Day Saints who find cross dressing, transgender transition, and "gender expression" as offensive behaviors well beyond the scope of tolerance. Such behaviors are conducive to a distracting work environment. Must these members of the Washington State legal community and their respective communities of faith be forced to accommodate values that clash and offend their religious convictions? Does refusing to adopt Ms. Bloom's suggestions for creating a "gay-friendly environment" subject a bar member to discipline under the Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(g)?

Are Washington state lawyers with religious beliefs allowed to publically [sic] agree with the agenda of the Christian Coalition, American Family Association, and Sound the Alarm, which hold that homosexual/transgendered lifestyles are "sinful"? May lawyers publically denounce gay/lesbian/transgendered lifestyles in public speeches?

If Evangelicals, Mormons, and other attorneys with a faith tradition do not submit to this politically correct agenda sponsored by the diversity police, and chose to speak out publically by verbalizing their objections in the marketplace of ideas, would they be singled out as non-conformist instigators of discrimination who should face appropriate sanctions?

Richard F. Lee, Spokane

Thank you, Legislature

An article in the June [2007] Bar News ["The Justice in Jeopardy Initiative: Celebrating Accomplishments and Setting Goals"] reported on the important strides the Legislature is taking to invest in critical justice system functions. I join the authors in thanking the Legislature, and, in particular, Representative Pat Lantz, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee who has worked tirelessly to improve access to justice for all. While the article noted that the Legislature increased state funding for legal aid this year, the article mistakenly reported that "state funding for civil legal aid has steadily declined." In fact, since the publication of the Civil Legal Needs Study in 2003, the Legislature has consistently acted to increase state funding for civil legal aid in an attempt to gradually close the gap between available resources and urgent needs.

The additional funding will help thousands of families who faced serious legal problems but had nowhere else to turn. But the Legislature recognizes that additional funding is needed because we still have a long way to go to ensure that all members of our community obtain the basic protections of our legal system.

With the strong support we've had from our judiciary, from bar and community leaders, and from legislative leaders in both parties, I am confident that the Legislature will continue its commitment to improving access to justice. After all, as the Alliance for Equal Justice says, "It's not justice if it's not equal."

Scott A. Smith, chair, Equal Justice Coalition, Seattle

Hidden agenda?

It is constantly disturbing to see the WSBA, a public agency, serve as the handmaiden for the Democratic party. I refer to a trio of presentations in the July Bar News. First, the editors express their distaste for the Republican president by putting his picture in a collage at the very bottom of the cover, as if almost sliding off, with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in the prime, favorable upper right position. Second,  the Bar News almost endorses the lawyers who challenged the administration detention of Guantanamo prisoners ["Member Profile: Seattle Lawyers Win Fight for Constitutional Rights in the War on Terror"],  talking about an overreaching executive branch,  unlawful executive action and "aggressive claims of executive power by the Bush administration." Nothing from the other side. The  matter of captured "enemy combatants" is not so simple.  Both the courts and the executive branch as institutions have the capacity to adjudicate cases. The constitution gives the Congress power to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces, article 1 section 14, and to make laws that are necessary and proper to carry out its functions. The due process clause applies to adjudications in all branches. Third, the Bar News lavishes praise on a court rule that would expropriate money "left over" in class action lawsuits ["Unclaimed Class-Action Funds Offer Hope for Equal Justice"] and give it to Columbia Legal Services! Columbia is a political and lobbying group whose policies almost always support those of the Democratic Party. They never support the Republican party. Yet here the WSBA all but endorses this advocacy group, which incidentally spends between 10 and 20 million dollars every year to promote its policies. 

The Bar News should publish both sides of public issues. 

Roger Ley, Seattle