I am going to speak ill of Justice Kennedy .

Justice Anthony Kennedys retirement announcement on Wednesday secured his legacy. By declaring his intention to leave the court on the same day he joined an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts gutting labor rights, and the day after he joined opinions upholding President Donald Trumps Muslim ban and overturning Californias protections against fraudulent crisis pregnancy centers, Kennedy has ensured that he will be remembered not for the landmark pro-LGBTQ cases he authored, but for upholding the racist, misogynist, anti-labor principles that run rampant throughout the Trump administration.

A Ronald Reagan appointee who joined the countrys highest court in 1988, Kennedy has a mixed record at best. Attorneys arguing before the court frequently talked of speaking to Kennedy, as he was often the only justice whose vote could not be reliably predicted from past opinions.

Yet on same-sex marriage, Kennedy became a rock for the LGBTQ community. He wrote the opinion in 1996s Romer v. Evans, striking down a Colorado law banning local LGBTQ nondiscrimination ordinances. In 2003, he authored the seminal decision in Lawrence v. Texas, heralding the end of state criminalization of same-sex relationships. He then wrote the landmark decisions in U.S. v. Windsor, which brought federal recognition to people married in states that had already expanded marriage to same-sex couples, and Obergefell v. Hodges, expanding marriage equality to the entire country.

Kennedys record on LGBTQ rights, however, is narrowly limited to the unique issue of relationship recognition. The LGBTQ community is diverse, and Kennedys record on other important civil rights issues undermines this seemingly solid support for queers.

His record on abortion is mixed: In 2007, he wrote the opinion upholding a federal ban on some forms of abortion . Hes struck down gun control laws, supported strip searches for people in detention, declared that corporations are people for the purposes of campaign contributions, and joined the majority in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the case holding that for-profit corporations can claim religious exemptions.