Thursday, July 7th, 2005
The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
July 6, 2005 Wednesday
All Editions
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A-11
LENGTH: 378 words
HEADLINE: Supreme Court vacancy spurs on activists
BYLINE: ELIZABETH GUDRAIS, Journal Staff Writer
BODY:
The leader of a rally in Providence says, “It’s critical that we not allow our court to be taken over by right-wing conservatives.”
PROVIDENCE - Four dozen people gathered yesterday in front of the federal building on Kennedy Plaza to tell Rhode Island’s senators that they’ll be watching when the Senate considers the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy.
“Almost every aspect of our lives is impacted by the decisions that the Supreme Court makes,” the rally’s leader, Karen Malcolm, associate director of Ocean State Action, said into a bullhorn. “It’s critical that we not allow our court to be taken over by right-wing conservatives.”
The demonstrators shouted over the din of honking horns and buses zooming by.
“The Supreme Court is our last line of defense,” said Jennifer Tuttle, program coordinator of the Sierra Club’s Rhode Island chapter, adding that the Bush administration had “the worst environmental record in history.”
“We are the generation born after Roe [v. Wade],” Meaghan Lamarre, president of the National Organization for Women’s Providence chapter, said. “We have never lived in a world where women did not have reproductive choice.”
Her comments gave way to chants of “We won’t go back! We will fight back!”
Frank Ferri, co-chair of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, said his concern over the Supreme Court nomination did not center on the issue of same-sex marriage, but rather on a wider protection of individual freedoms. He called for the Senate to hold out for appointment of a justice who would bring “objectivity and moderation” to the court.
The rally’s organizers have dubbed themselves Rhode Islanders for a Fair Judiciary. The coalition also includes the National Council of Jewish Women, the Urban League of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Association of Social Workers-R.I., Rhode Island Parent Information Network, the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College School of Social Work, Planned Parenthood Rhode Island, 2 to 1: The Coalition to Preserve Choice, Jobs with Justice and the United Service and Allied Workers-R.I.
Senators Jack Reed and Lincoln Chafee “know what they need to do,” state Rep. Joseph S. Almeida, D-Providence, said. “We’re going to put the pressure on.”
LOAD-DATE: July 7, 2005
