Those are the exact people sitting on the bench, minus Kennedy, who voted in favor of the Lawrence v. Texas decision that banned sodomy laws. He pretty much said that he wants to recriminalize homosexuality.

"This nomination should be based on the criteria on a proven record of strictly adhering to the Constitution and not legislating from the bench," McCain added.

McCain said he would have never nominated Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

"I don't think he was a strong enough jurist or a legal thinker at the time for that. I profoundly disagree with his interpretation" of the Constitution, he said.

Neither candidate shied away from a question about which current Supreme Court justice they would not have nominated.

This deserves its own post separate from the one I wrote on Rick Warren's presidential forum earlier. No, he doesn't say that in so many words, but that's exactly what would happen:

There isn't much better code to speak in here. The very fundies that he was speaking to at that forum were exactly the people who thought that Lawrence, along with Roe and Griswold, was an extreme case of judicial activism:

In 2003, in Lawrence v. Texas, the court threw out all bans on sex acts between homosexuals, saying, according to Barron, "The right to privacy also included the right for same-sex couples to engage in same-sex sexual acts." And later in 2003, when Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, it cited Lawrence v. Texas as justification. Sekulow sees these rights expounded in Goodridge and Lawrence going straight back to Griswold. "If you see a decision out of the Supreme Court that says same-sex marriage is required -- if that were to happen, I think they will find it primarily...originally...in Griswold, and bring it forward," Sekulow observed.

While it seems like the media doesn't really want to catch this goal (gay rights discourse is focused on marriage, and Lawrence seemed like a final decision to almost everyone), but McCain was talking to the exact audience that would want that case overturned, who agree with his reasoning, and he named almost every justice in that majority in his hit list.

Besides, whether he ever talks about wanting to reinstate sodomy laws or not, this is the most effective, direct, and, well, only way for sodomy laws to come back. And he's made it a central talking point when addressing fundamentalist audiences.

We shouldn't forget how easy it would be for that case to be overturned and to go back to the days when we were criminals just for loving.

Update: This is also a major flip-flop:

McCain wasn't a senator when Stevens was nominated, but why did he nevertheless vote to confirm Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter? It seems he was for them before he was against them.

Will anyone pick up on this and ask him? Doubtful.

But even if he is flip-flopping here, I see no reason to doubt him. He only cares about killing people and getting money, so it's unlikely that he was lying here but that he'll nominate decent human beings to the Supreme Court. He'll do whatever the Religious Right wants on judicial nominations because he just doesn't care.