Gay-Rights Group Visits Kirkland to Deliver Petition to Pepperdine Dean
A gay rights group dispatched an emissary to Kirkland & Ellis to deliver a petition that warns one its lawyers–Pepperdine law dean Kenneth Starr—that history will condemn his actions.
The Human Rights Campaign is taking issue with Starr’s arguments before the California Supreme Court supporting a voter initiative to ban gay marriage in the state, according to a press release.
Starr, a former member of the ABA Journal Board of Editors, is something of a lightning rod for criticism given his past role as Whitewater prosecutor. He is of counsel at Kirkland, but devotes more of his time to his Pepperdine duties.
The Human Rights Campaign has a video of the petition delivery, handed off to a smiling Kirkland employee by HRC director of marketing Anastasia Khoo. The group gathered 46,000 online signatures characterizing Starr’s work as “misguided and malicious.”
The petition reads in full: “Your attempt to nullify the marriages of 18,000 loving couples in California is misguided and malicious. The rights of a minority should never be stripped by a simple majority vote, and the idea that divorcing parents could help the welfare of children is disgusting. History will condemn your actions.”
