LSU law professor Paul R. Baier, who litigated against Fifth Circuit nominee Kyle Duncan over the constitutionality of Louisiana’s marriage laws, has written a powerful op-ed in support of Duncan’s nomination. (The ABA has also rated Duncan “well qualified.”) Some excerpts (emphasis added) from Baier’s op-ed:

Kyle Duncan is a magnificent nominee for the Fifth Circuit who ought to be swiftly confirmed. I have known him as a colleague and scholar of constitutional law at Louisiana State University Law School, and clashed with him as an adversary in the Louisiana Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage case that followed Obergefell v. Hodges. …
Having battled on the front lines in the same-sex marriage litigation, I can attest to the passionate disagreement and often contentious nature of the issue. Emotions were particularly raw when I litigated opposite Kyle in the immediate wake of Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell.
Through it all, however, I always appreciated and respected Kyle’s advocacy for his client and his respect for the humanity of the same-sex couples who would be most affected by the case. While I disagreed with many of his arguments, often emphatically, I never found a trace of bias, bigotry, or any disrespect towards the same-sex individuals in the case.
Both of us strove mightily as adversaries. But we continue to eat and drink as friends.
Kyle knows well the difference between the advocate’s role for his client (in the same-sex marriage case, the State of Louisiana) and what he would be called upon to decide as a judge on the Fifth Circuit. I maintain this view of Kyle even after having faced off against him in the highly charged atmosphere of same-sex marriage litigation. His ability to act as a judge and not advocate will surely carry over to other questions of public importance facing the Fifth Circuit.

Baier also praises Duncan’s “compelling and brilliant” argument in Connick v. Thompson, an argument that was the target of a desperate and incoherent smearing of Duncan in a New York Times op-ed last month.