Partisan battle shapes up over Gorsuch nomination

WASHINGTON - Liberal activists and Senate Democrats on Wednesday launched what is likely to be a protracted battle to block President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, focusing on how his conservative views could threaten women's rights, gay marriage and church-state separation.

But Gorsuch has not given Democrats much to work with. He hasn't ruled directly on cases involving abortion and gay rights, and he won Senate confirmation a decade ago on a voice vote with no opposition.

Opponents have been focusing on Gorsuch's ruling on religious liberties, which they warn could be used by some as a legal rationale for discrimination.

"We absolutely must not confirm a Supreme Court nominee who has ruled that religious beliefs can trump law," said Rachel Tiven, chief executive of Lambda Legal in New York, a gay rights advocacy group. "It is a short hop from birth control restrictions to restrictions on intimate relationships and health care needs of LGBT people."

Gorsuch, while serving on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, ruled in favor of exempting religious employers from having to provide female workers with a range of contraceptives, as required under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. He said the owners of the Hobby Lobby craft store chain - who viewed certain methods of contraceptives as destroying a fertilized egg - had a right to invoke their religious beliefs to obtain an exemption. Otherwise, he said, they believe they would be "complicit" in wrongdoing.

He relied on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government may not put a "substantial burden" on a person's exercise of religion. The Supreme Court agreed in 2014.

In October, when the 10th Circuit blocked Utah's governor from cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood, Gorsuch dissented. The governor had claimed that secretly recorded videos showed workers discussing "selling fetus body parts for money." A federal judge and the 10th Circuit majority concluded those charges were false and did not justify the funding cutoff.

Gorsuch, 49, said the majority acted too quickly. The governor cut off the funding "in direct response to the videos. And it is undisputed that the governor was free as a matter of law to suspend the funding in question for this reason," he wrote.

In mobilizing the effort against Gorsuch, abortion rights advocates point out that Trump promised to appoint only "pro-life" justices who would overturn the right to abortion.

"With a clear record of supporting an agenda that undermines abortion access and endangers women, there is no doubt that Gorsuch is a direct threat to Roe v. Wade and the promise it holds for women's equality," said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Shortly after accepting Trump's nomination Tuesday night at the White House, Gorsuch reportedly placed a call - out of respect - to Judge Merrick Garland, Obama's nominee for the same seat, whom the GOP-led Senate had refused to consider for nearly a year.

Democrats remain bitter over what they now see as a stolen high court seat. But some senators expressed a willingness to consider Gorsuch.

"Let's give the man a chance," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Still, many Senate Democrats voiced concern over Trump's nominee.

"Judge Gorsuch has a long record, and it will take time to conduct a thorough review," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Judge Gorsuch voted twice to deny contraceptive coverage to women, elevating a corporation's religious belief over women's health care."

Gorsuch has also shown an interest in cases involving religion. The First Amendment says Congress "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." And since the 1940s, the court has said those religious guarantees extend to state and localities.

Gorsuch wrote dissents in recent years when the 10th Circuit decided the display of religious symbols on public property amounted to an unconstitutional "establishment of religion."

Advocates of church-state separation described Gorsuch's views as "extreme."

"Our nation needs a Supreme Court justice who respects real religious freedom and appreciates the role church-state separation plays in protecting the rights of all Americans, religious and non-religious," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

david.savage@latimes.com

Credit: By David G. Savage - Washington Bureau

Caption: Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, 49, alongside former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, arrives Wednesday at the office of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in Washington.; Chip Somodevilla/Getty