Detainees and Catholic Charities

My friend Paul Horwitz blogged a few days ago about Cully Stimson's now-widely-discussed (and, so far as I can tell, universally rejected) complaints about law firms representing Guantanamo Bay detainees.  Paul endorsed (as do I) the view that Stimson is off-base, and agrees with (as do I) Jonathan Adler's statement that "[a]ll individuals, even suspected terrorists, are entitled to a capable legal defense when subjected to legal process, and it is wrong to impugn attorneys on the basis of the clients they represent." 

Now, a number of prominent law-school deans have weighed in, with this letter.  The deans write:

We teach our students that lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure that even the most despised and unpopular individuals and groups receive zealous and effective legal representation. Our American legal tradition has honored lawyers who, despite their personal beliefs, have zealously represented mass murderers, suspected terrorists, and Nazi marchers. At this moment in time, when our courts have endorsed the right of the Guantanamo detainees to be heard in courts of law, it is critical that qualified lawyers provide effective representation to these individuals. By doing so, these lawyers protect not only the rights of the detainees, but also our shared constitutional principles. In a free and democratic society, government officials should not encourage intimidation of or retaliation against lawyers who are fulfilling their pro bono obligations.

To be clear, I agree entirely with this statement.  I wonder, though, if a similar statement was warranted when some students at Harvard Law School protested against Ropes & Gray, during on-campus recruiting (according to this report), for its representation of Catholic Charities, which was  at that time seeking an exemption from a non-discrimination law requirement that adoption agencies facilitate adoptions with same-sex couples?

Obviously, statements from government officials like Stimson raise concerns that student protests do not.   Still, it strikes me that, "in a free and democratic society," the religious-freedom rights of those with unpopular religious views deserve and require "zealous and effective representation" no less than the rights of detainees.  Consider this, from the Boston Globe:

''The words 'boycott-slash-picket' were thrown around," said Peter Renn, a third-year student and Lambda board member who said he had wanted to shame Ropes into ending its work on behalf of Catholic Charities and warn the firm that the issue could hurt recruiting at Harvard.

''Big firms like this are very concerned about public relations, and who in this game is maximally positioned to exert pressure on Ropes & Gray? It's law students," said Renn, who will clerk for a federal district court judge in California after he graduates. ''Attorneys at the firm are in a horrible position, because they don't want to get canned, so they can't say, 'How dare you take that case' and insist the firm withdraw."

In his Stimson post, Paul wrote, "One believes that people are entitled to legal counsel or one does not; one believes that lawyers are entitled to provide that counsel without the taint of association or one does not."  Should Dean Kagan (who signed the law-deans' letter regarding Stimson) have made a similar point to Harvard's students?