John G. Roberts, President Bush’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, has the longest paper trail of any nominee for the Supreme Court. In a check of Supreme Court briefs, Roberts’ name appears no less than 140 times on various documents submitted to the court.

Criminal defense lawyers praise Roberts for a brief he wrote in private practice in support of a criminal defendant tried, convicted and imprisoned for throwing a Molotov cocktail into his cousin’s empty building. A jury convicted him of federal arson involving a “building” used in “interstate commerce.”

Roberts’ brief formed the basis of a unanimous Supreme Court opinion reversing the conviction. He suggested that the building in question had little connection with interstate commerce. It was empty. The cousin used it formerly as a commercial structure. The government maintained that maintaining gas and electrical lines in a building “affects interstate commerce” and therefore cannot be the basis of a federal law. He discounted that position, noting that every building, then, with gas and electricity hookups, would be subject to federal law.

The reality is that Roberts’ views on Congress’ ability to make private acts federal crimes is very good news for gays and lesbians. As long as Congress is in the hands of conservative Republicans, it’s likely Congress could try to make it a federal crime “to use the Internet for the purpose of having sex or making plans for a sexual liaison” (video sex or hook ups); or to “use a building engaged in interstate commerce for sexual liaisons” (bathhouses). Roberts would most likely strike these anti-gay measures as having little to do with Congress’ interest in regulating true interstate commerce.

In addition to being conservative on the interstate commerce clause, Roberts is also a conservative when it comes to statutory interpretation. He angered parents’ rights advocates, who form a large segment of the Christian right, when he wrote a brief in support of Gonzaga University. There, Roberts’ argued that a former student from the private religious college had no right to sue Gonzaga under federal privacy statutes when college officials disclosed embarrassing (and unproven) facts about his sex life to state regulators.

Religious conservatives joined student and gay and lesbian groups in pressing the Supreme Court to side with federal courts that found the Family Educational Rights Private Act gave students and parents the right to sue in federal court when school officials violated parents’ (or students’) privacy rights. But the court ruled 7-2 that Congress implied no such right. Congress hasn’t seen fit yet to approve bills making such a right clear.

But then religious conservatives were thrilled with Roberts’ statutory views expressed in a brief in a case testing the legality of the Equal Access Act, which requires public schools to allow religious student groups equal access to school facilities on the same basis as other non-curriculum student groups. Roberts’ brief argued, and a majority of the Supreme Court accepted, the view that schools must accord all groups, regardless of their viewpoint, equal access to school facilities.

The irony, of course, is that while religious conservatives were thrilled about this, they may not be so thrilled when the Supreme Court likely hears an appeal involving whether the same Equal Access Act also applies to gay-straight alliances. Roberts’ language in Mergens v. Westside Community School District is so broad that he would most certainly extend his rationale for bible groups to groups like gay-straight alliances.

All groups, however, are going to have difficulty with Roberts’ views on Congress’ ability to attach “conditions” on federal spending. Conservatives and others didn’t like it when Roberts wrote a brief against the state of South Dakota when it challenged Congress’ requirement that states, as a condition of obtaining federal highway money, must raise their drinking age to 21.Pro-choicers didn’t like when, in Rust v. Sullivan, Roberts argued that Congress could condition receipt of federal funds upon agreeing not to encourage abortion with pregnant mothers. This next year the Supreme Court will consider whether Congress can require law schools receiving various types of federal funds to agree to provide military recruiters the same facilities they provide to employers that don’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

In every “spending” case, Roberts has sided with the government. And while that may be good news for conservatives, if Congress and the presidency ever return to Democratic control, Roberts would then support the spending conditions of a liberal Congress.

If Roberts is a true conservative – and not a judicial stooge, as the religious right really wants – then Roberts won’t be able to advance a complete religious-right agenda.