No matter what your position is on the Roberts nomination, his participation in a pro bono challenge to an anti-gay statute in Colorado before the Supreme Court cannot be explained away as simply a lawyer acting as a "hired gun". Pro bono work is never something a lawyer does just for the an intellectual challenge; in order to do your job effectively, you have to be able to convince yourself of the merits of the case, of its importance, first.

Roberts worked at Hogan & Hartson, a large D.C. firm with over a thousand attorneys. He was not the only appellate litigator at the firm, so he would not have been indispensible in preparing the case, and he could have easily begged out of working on the matter. Clearly, he participated in the manner in which he did because he believed in the importance of the issue presented by Romer v. Evans; according to the partner who asked his assistance, Roberts didn't flinch for a second before volunteering to assist. The very fact that he was a doctrinaire conservative on other issues, well-versed in the judicial thinking of Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist, made his help invaluable.

None of this answers the important questions about where Roberts stands on a constitutional right of privacy, or his interpretation of the commerce clause; Romer, after all, was a civil rights case dealing with discrimination under color of state law, not a privacy challenge to sodomy laws. The refusal to produce the relevant papers from Roberts' tenure with the Solicitor General, and particularly the claim that said documents are being withheld under the "attorney-client privilege", still fails to pass the giggle test, and Senators should seriously consider the use of the filibuster if the Administration refuses to cooperate. But lets not act like Roberts' work on the Romer case means nothing, or pretend that he's cut from the same cloth as the other Court conservatives.