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Court closes for summer; review of major issues By MARY DEIBEL Scripps Howard News Service June 26, 2003 WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court went on summer break Thursday after deciding hot-button issues dealing with gay rights, affirmative action, abortion and anti-crime crackdowns. 'The court has taken sides in the culture wars,' Justice Antonin Scalia declared from the bench in denouncing a 6-3 decision to strike down a Texas statute criminalizing gay sex. But his comments could apply equally to other politically charged controversies before the court, including cases where Scalia was on the winning side. University of Virginia constitutional scholar A.E. Dick Howard said that, in many ways, the court 'is taking the pulse of the public. From sexual privacy and personal autonomy to educational opportunities for minorities to the post 9/11 need for a sense of security, the court is in tune with where American society is.' 'This court remains fundamentally conservative in its judicial outlook, but the country has changed in ways that the court could not ignore,' added American Civil Liberties Union legal director Steven Shapiro. Gary Bauer, a former Christian right Republican presidential candidate who now heads the interest group American Values, saw the court undermining America's moral and legal foundations through 'blatant judicial activism,' however. Indeed, despite the court's official standing as government's non-partisan, extra-political branch, Americans see the court in political terms, as seen through the prism of their own party affiliation, according to a new Gallup finding. Republicans today have the most confidence in a court on which seven of nine justices are Republican appointees, said Gallup editor Steve Crabtree. By contrast, Democrats had more confidence before President Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial, presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and the Bush v. Gore ruling that effectively gave George W. Bush the 2000 preside
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