The following is the text (reformatted for the internet) of an open letter sent by the Law Office of Bruce Godfrey to the Honorable Emmett C. Burns, Jr., delegate from Maryland’s District 10 which covers primarily Randallstown and parts of neighboring ZIP Codes. Though I am appalled by Delegate Burns’ recent choices regarding Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, for which the Delegate has at least in part apologized, I do recognize that Delegate Burns has made many positive contributions to civic life in Maryland on other issues. Because equality under the law, workers’ rights and freedom of speech are core values of this Law Office, this open letter to a basically good man is regrettably necessary.
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15 September 2012
The Honorable Emmett C. Burns, Jr.
House Office Building, Room 309
6 Bladen St.
Annapolis, MD 21401
Re: Brendon Ayanbadejo, Pro Bono Work
Dear Delegate Burns:
I take reference of your recent request that the Ravens football organization “silence” one of its unionized employees, to wit, linebacker Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, due to his disagreements with your position on Question 6, the referendum regarding the legalization of civil same-sex marriage with exemptions for religious liberty. Mr. Ayanbadejo is a Maryland resident and U.S. citizen who supports Question 6; you are among its leading opponents in the General Assembly of this State.
In the past, your office has requested that my office provide services pro bono public to your constituents in the context of their unemployment disputes, most recently during the last legislative session in January 2012. I have never lived, worked or maintained a business in District 10. You are not, and have never been, my representative in Annapolis, nor have I ever been your supporter. Indeed, I actively and strongly disagreed with your opposition to the recently enacted same-sex marriage bill and to similar bills that you and those who share your views successfully defeated in prior General Assembly sessions.
Nonetheless, I did not hold our disagreement against you or your staff. I agreed to receive your pro bono requests because I believed (and do now still believe) in the priority of pro bono work pursuant to Rule 6.1 of my profession’s Rules of Professional Conduct. I did not think it appropriate to allow your constituents to suffer harm from the government due to the lack of legal counsel merely because I believed your own actions to constitute harm against other Marylanders, including members of my family and some of my clients. It would not have been fair to “retaliate” against your constituents, in my view, even in delivering services at no charge. My office has a strong commitment to assisting impoverished workers and those facing governmental abuse pro bono publico, and that commitment continues today.
My cooperation with your office must now end. My office is by policy pro-union, pro-worker and pro-labor. I cannot abide the use of your office to intimidate or harass a Marylander worker, indeed, a union worker, by soliciting his employer to take action against him to his expressed political views on a matter of ordinary public controversy. Your conduct action goes beyond mere advocacy for your views and, in my judgment, constitutes an unconstitutional abuse of your office in defiance of my own Attorney’s Oath. Your conduct was repugnant both to constitutional values and to the pro-worker policies that I and, in theory, your party support. Were, say, Delegate Mizeur or Senator Raskin, outspoken supportet of Question 6, to do the same to a Marylander worker who opposed Question 6, I would be equally outraged at the misuse of official power.
I must respectfully request that you instruct your staff not to contact my office further for pro bono public referrals. I am sending to Senator Delores Kelley of your District 10 a copy of this letter with my encouragement to her staff to contact me regarding any pro bono service opportunities in District 10. Senator Kelley has been a role model to legislators in both houses of equality under law and of constitutional restraint.
Senator Kelley spoke for me and for the Law Office of Bruce Godfrey when she stated, “we may not know why people are gay, but we know they are fully human, and have the same rights we do.” She has not called out opponents of Question 6 for workplace discipline in front of their bosses merely for disagreeing with her; this is to her merit and of course exactly as it should be. Accordingly, I am happy to receive pro bono referrals from her office for her District 10 constituents.
Very truly yours,
T. Bruce Godfrey, Attorney
cc:
The Hon. Delores G. Kelley
James Senate Office Building, Room 302
11 Bladen St.
Annapolis, MD 21401
Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, c/o Baltimore Ravens
1 Winning Drive
Owings Mills, MD 21117
Marylanders for Marriage Equality
1010 Hull Street, Suite 202
Baltimore, MD 21230