The Virginia-based law firm Becker &
Poliakoff has taken “immediate and severe” action against a
lawyer who called AIDS the “gay plague.”
In an email sent to the firm's 170
employees, Walter “Wally” Kubitz, a senior attorney at the
intellectual property firm, ranted against U.S. District Judge Robert
L. Hinkle's decision striking down Florida's ban on gay marriage.
(Related: Federal
judge strikes down Florida's gay marriage ban.)
Above
the Law published Kubitz's entire screed, titled New
Decision: Same Sex Marriage (Brenner v. Scott).
“Judge Hinkle says that the Florida
ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment Due
Process and Equal Protection clauses. However, there is not a shred
of historical evidence that either of those clauses was ever intended
to legitimize homosexuality,” Kubitz wrote in his email.
“Judge Hinkle and others like-minded
have effectively amended the Constitution by judicial fiat. This is
a blatant usurpation of power reserved to the States and to the
people in violation of the 10th Amendment. The better handling of
the issue is as exemplified by Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810
(1972), in which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn a
Minnesota ban on same-sex marriage 'for want of a substantial federal
question.'”
“Adding insult to injury, Judge
Hinkle invokes our founding fathers as though they would have
approved of his ruling. Not so. In his 1796 farewell address
then-president George Washington spoke of morality as being
indispensable to our societal well-being.”
“Today’s reckless trashing of
morality has been damaging on many fronts. For one, there has been a
significant increase in sexually transmitted disease over the past
few decades, with the gay plague of AIDS being a classic example.”
Kubitz went on to cite Bible passages
to suggest being gay is a sin.
“We would do well to heed the
Proverbs 11:21 warning of our ultimate Judge: 'Though hand join in
hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.' In other words,
popularity does not trump peril.”
“Homosexuality, clearly condemned
throughout Scripture, is especially perilous in that it tends toward
the 'reprobate mind' as spoken of in Romans 1:18-32 that makes its
participants all the more hardened in their ways. The message to the
homosexual, as to all, is 'Seek ye the LORD while he may be found.'”
The
Daily Business Review reported that the firm took “immediate
and severe” action against Kubitz.