1 Judicial Candidate Questionnaire 2016


These questions do not require essays, but do require more than yes/no answers. For most, we have rough expectations. Others, marked "(∆)" are open-ended. We’re interesting in your thinking and reasoning and in your understanding of the law and of human nature. Candidates are free to email or call & discuss before submission. Responses in .doc, .pdf, .RTF or as text in the body of emails ONLY, please. email to GSPCGP "at" gmail "dot" com, and cc robisonatty "at" gmail "dot" com, jfsabl"at" gmail "dot" com, and flybylight "at" netzero "dot" net. Include a statement that the questions come directly from the candidate; if the candidate is not the person sending them, include the name and contact information of the person hitting the "send" button.

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1. Office sought: 
2. Name, address, phone, fax (optional), and e-mail address:


3. Professional experience, offices held, activism on issues:


4. Do you in any way NOT support the following: civil marriage (and divorce, and inheritance) for same-sex couples? A woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion? AIDS prevention programs, including needle exchange? Pay equity / comparable worth? Custody and adoption decisions made on the sole basis of the perceived “good of the child,” rather than the gender, orientation or gender identity of the parent(s)? Briefly touch on what you have done in the past concerning these topics, and what you can and intend to do, going forward.

5. Do you generally support the ongoing enactment and amendment of anti-discrimination statutes to better protect the rights of sexual minority / gender identity-variant persons with regard to employment, housing, personal safety and civil rights? Mention any past work done on passage and enforcement. Please point out what significant gaps remain in your opinion.

6. How do you see the ongoing purpose of domestic partnership (and its legal role) developing, when marriage-for-all has become the law of the commonwealth (or the country)? (∆)

7. How do you understand and define “ability to consent” in sexual matters, so as to protect the temporarily incapacitated (e.g., drunken) while also allowing some sexual self-determination to people with permanently diminished capacity (e.g., by mental limitation or encroaching dementia)? (∆)

8. Do you support full access to insured medical care for HIV-positive persons?

9. Do you support full access to insured medical care for transgendered persons (including hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery)?

10. A variety of laws (and courts of law) disproportionately penalized LGBT(QI) people in the past. (As may occur in cases including racial minorities and people with "spectrum" disorders, LGBT/gender-nonconforming individuals – either through intentional bias or due to being seen as asocial or antisocial – have often been given less "benefit of the doubt" and harsher sentences. Additionally, people have been sentenced and "listed" as sexual offenders for what are now considered consensual acts, or understood to be non-sexual, non-predatory acts.) The negative results burden some of us to this day. To what degree can you and will you work to remedy injustices based on past ignorance and on bias? Also, to what degree can you and will you speak out regarding legislative restrictions that prevent reparative justice?

11. What kinds of affirmative action and outreach do you support, to counter the effects of racism, sexism, and discrimination against not only LGBT but Q, I, and gender-nonconforming persons?

12. What are some procedures you find valuable, both in court and as alternatives to court, to help end rape, domestic violence, and bullying? (∆)

13. How, broadly, can we reconcile freedom of belief and expression for any person, with freedom from harassment, coercion and discrimination?