reversed 7-2. and this is what he did. he said the state violated the baker s religious freedom by showing hostility to his religion. justice kennedy pointed to one specific hearing held by colorado civil rights commission where he said one commissioner said, look, phillip s beliefs amounted to discrimination. and justice kennedy said that those comments showed that the commission wasn t applying this with the religious neuity it needed to. sot is a win for phillips and it s a win for religious liberty but not necessarily that big religious liberty case some people focussed on. kennedy was straddling two sides of his juris prudence. he wrote the decision that cleared the way for same sex marriage nationwide but today he gave a nod to religious freedom. religious concerns. he said that commissioners hostility was inconsistent with the first amendment s guarantee that our laws be applied in a
recommendations that they legislated are now going to push for these reforms to be implemented. it s the most important thing that i can do to my wife s memory is to make sure that she didn t die in vain. we close, most importantly, by thanking the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. you demanded the creation of this commission, you have encouraged us every step of the way as partners and as witnesses from your grief you have drawn strength.
bombing, bin laden s 9/11 plot was well under way. hijackers were settling down in america and learning to fly airplanes. they lived in rooming houses. they lived in motel 6s. mindy, who lost her husband in the world trade center, presented evidence to the commission that revealed serious immigration violations. i am holding in the hand some of the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. all of these forms are incomplete and incorrect. had the ins or the state department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would
not have been in the united states on september 11th, 2001. while the hijackers made their preparations for the 9/11 attacks, the white house changed hands. once in office president bush decided not to immediately respond to the cole bombing. instead, the commission learned he d ordered the development of a long-range plan to eliminate bin laden. thank you very much. secretary powell. mr. chairman, president bush, and all of us on his team knew that terrorism would be a major concern for us. he wanted a thorough strategy to go after al qaeda. he made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al qaeda one attack at a time. he told me he was tired of swatting flies. the president says, i have no hesitancy about going after him, but i didn t feel that sense of
osama bin laden was visiting a camp in the southern part of afghanistan in kandahar province. a desert camp where there were princes from the united arab emirates, and it was an excellent chance. we knew when he was going to be there. it was a very isolated area. there would be no collateral damage to civilians. but the commission learned that foreign policy concerns complicated matters. according to cia officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with bin laden or close by. what i did was to call the director of central intelligence and say that i had finally been presented with satellite photography of the facility, and it was very clear to me that this looked like something other than a terrorist camp. it looked like a luxury hunting