Mr. Bork stated, and I agree, that the "Supreme Court will ...create a national constitutional right...[that] will be forced upon us by judges following no law but their own predilections...and will deal a severe and quite possibly fatal blow to the rule of law in constitutional interpretation..."
"...it...[is] much too late to worry about the sanctity of a document the Supreme Court has been shredding for fifty years. Surely the Court's diktats, which are themselves profoundly unconstitutional, are not sacred."
Mr. Bork, I disagree with the FMA for the reason stated by Matthew J. Franck, Chairman And Associate Professor Of Political Science, Radford University before the House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. January 29, 1998, Congress, the Court, and the Constitution:
My opposition to amending the Constitution to deal with our difficulties is not rooted in mere reverence for the framers' handiwork if evidence shows its insufficiency in some respect. No institutions crafted by human beings can be truly permanent, never requiring any alterations. Yet the Constitution, as Joseph Story said, was ''reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title.'' Before we take risks with a structure whose ''foundations are solid'' and whose ''compartments are beautiful, as well as useful'' (again Story's words),(see footnote 155) we should explore the building thoroughly and be certain we have not overlooked any of the useful features it already contains.
Mr. Bork, Judges are the problem, not the Constitution! Problem identification is half the solution and you need to focus on and solve the problem. Stop throwing amendments at the Constitution the way legislature likes to throw money at pork barrels. The Constitution is a very conservative document for the most part. FMA will only make it more so and serve no purpose in correcting the liberal federal courts, which are to the left of MoveOn.org: Demagoguery in Action. Additionally, the amendment process is exceedingly slow and no match for the rapidity at which the U.S. Supreme Court can generate unconstitutional opinions.
The visionary Founders included at least two additional Constitutional means to deal with the disastrous federal courts. Mr. Bork briefly mentions jurisdiction stripping and omits impeachment. The Federalist #48: "It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas stated the following at the Francis Boyer Lecture for the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research at Washington, D.C. on February13, 2001:
The Constitution means what the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention and of the state ratifying conventions understood it to mean; not what we judges think it should mean.
Third, this approach recognizes the basic principle of a written Constitution. We "the people" adopted a written Constitution precisely because it has a fixed meaning, a meaning that does not change. Otherwise we would have adopted the British approach of an unwritten, evolving constitution. Aside from amendment according to Article V, the Constitution's meaning cannot be updated, or changed, or altered by the Supreme Court, the Congress, or the President.
Mr. Bork states, "Conservative constitutionalism today requires taking back the original Constitution to restore the constitutional order and representative government. There is no other remedy available to save or, more accurately, to restore a republican form of government."
Mr. Thomas's comment and Mr. Bork's own comments starkly contrast with this statement from Mr. Bork: "Their mistake, it seems to me, derives from a conservative constitutionalism which, though laudable in the past, is now, most unfortunately, obsolete. Walter Bagehot, writing of the English constitution in the nineteenth century, said, "[I]n the full activity of an historical constitution, its subjects repeat phrases true in the time of their fathers, and inculcated by those fathers, but now no longer true."
How in the name of almighty jurisprudence did the Impeachment Clauses and Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 leave without taking Article 5. with them? Is this what is meant by a "living" Constitution, where the text you don't like packs up and moves off like some Disney animation? "On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823) "The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary, as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction, and no excuse for interpolation or addition." - Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat 304; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat 419; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat 419; Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet 10; Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 U.S. 139; Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U.S. 662; Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1; Edwards v. Cuba R. Co., 268 U.S. 628; The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655; (Justice) Story on the Constitution, 5th ed., Sec 451; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 2nd ed., p. 61, 70.
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (6) A fundamental maxim of law is, whenever the intent of a statute or a constitution is in question, to refer to the words of its framers to determine their intent and use this intent as the true intent of the law. Given that the stakes riding on the outcome of the effort to adopt the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) are so high...given the requirement of a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress and then ratification by three-quarters of the states.
Why do you insist on Amendment, Mr. Bork, to the exclusion of a much easier and faster Constitutional means?
Mr. Bork mentions Arnold Beichman, but he needs to read cosponsor Paul:
Protecting Marriage From Judicial Tyranny by Ron Paul Since the Marriage Protection Act requires only a majority vote in both houses of Congress (and the president's signature) to become law, it is a more practical way to deal with this issue than the time-consuming process of passing a constitutional amendment. In fact, since the Defense of Marriage Act overwhelmingly passed both houses, and the president supports protecting state marriage laws from judicial tyranny, there is no reason why the Marriage Protection Act cannot become law this year.
"Congress should deny all federal courts jurisdiction to deal with the marriage issue. Congress has power under Article III of the Constitution to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and to remove lower court jurisdiction."
"If the Supreme Court allowed its jurisdiction over a particular subject to be abolished, which is by no means a certainty, the result would be to leave jurisdiction in the state courts."
Only six of the nine would object and it takes more than a black robe to join the global terrorist network. Perhaps, an anger management seminar with subsidized Prozac will suffice.
Article III, Section 2 - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78
The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
The commentary for Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 is found in Federalist No. 81:
" The authority of the proposed Supreme Court of the United States, which is to be a separate and independent body, will be superior to that of the legislature. The power of construing the laws according to the SPIRIT of the Constitution, will enable that court to mould them into whatever shape it may think proper; especially as its decisions will not be in any manner subject to the revision or correction of the legislative body. This is as unprecedented as it is dangerous....But the errors and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United States will be uncontrollable and remediless.'' This, upon examination, will be found to be made up altogether of false reasoning upon misconceived fact.
The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only ``in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which A STATE shall be a party.''
We have seen that the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court would be confined to two classes of causes, and those of a nature rarely to occur. In all other cases of federal cognizance, the original jurisdiction would appertain to the inferior tribunals; and the Supreme Court would have nothing more than an appellate jurisdiction, ``with such EXCEPTIONS and under such REGULATIONS as the Congress shall make.''
To avoid all inconveniences, it will be safest to declare generally, that the Supreme Court shall possess appellate jurisdiction both as to law and FACT, and that this jurisdiction shall be subject to such EXCEPTIONS and regulations as the national legislature may prescribe. This will enable the government to modify it in such a manner as will best answer the ends of public justice and security.
The amount of the observations hitherto made on the authority of the judicial department is this: that it has been carefully restricted to those causes which are manifestly proper for the cognizance of the national judicature; that in the partition of this authority a very small portion of original jurisdiction has been preserved to the Supreme Court, and the rest consigned to the subordinate tribunals; that the Supreme Court will possess an appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, in all the cases referred to them, both subject to any EXCEPTIONS and REGULATIONS which may be thought advisable; PUBLIUS.
The federal branches of government are coordinate, NOT coequal and they are all subordinate to the U.S. Constitution which is the supreme law, NOT the U.S. Supreme Court:
The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78 It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power 1 The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.'' "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws.'' vol. i., page 186.
The Avalon Project : Federalist No 51 But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates
Conservative opinion leaders must recognize that the illegitimacy of the rampant judicial constitution- making that is before their eyes changes all the old rules about the place of amendments
The Court can run much faster and further to the left, till there is nothing left. Amendment corrects the Constitution, impeachment, jurisdiction stripping, executive non compliance (see Lincoln on Judicial Supremacy & Judicial Monopoly Over the Constitution: Jefferson's View) and interposition (Standing Between the Butcher and the Baby) deal with the unconstitutional courts.
There is another answer to the objection that "it cannot be done." There is evidence that the mere threat of impeachment will have a salutary effect on the federal judiciary. As noted in the Introduction, the law school deans found this aspect of the impeachment movement especially troubling. Yet, the historical data clearly reflect that the Framers intended the threat of impeachment to have exactly this effect. Impeachment is a multi-step process. Resolutions can be introduced, authorizing impeachment directly or authorizing an investigation into possible impeachment proceedings. Assuming that an investigation occurs first, the steps leading to conviction would include investigation, debate on whether or not to draft articles of impeachment, a vote on passage of the articles, a trial in the Senate, and conviction. The farther the process goes, the greater the salutary impact will likely be. Those who are persuaded that impeaching judicial tyrants is correct should not give up before they start simply because they don't think they can obtain the final goal of conviction.
The Supreme Court and the Politics of Impeachment by Matthew J. ...
It is an ancient maxim in law and politics that the potential for the abuse of a power is no argument against its use. Certainly this is true of judicial review itself, the most frequently abused power in American politics today. And if the Constitution's framers and authoritative early commentators regarded the impeachment power as perhaps the most decisive available response to judicial imperialism, it is past time to consider following their wise counsel.
It's Time to Hold Federal Judges Accountable -- March 1997 Phyllis ...
When President Gerald Ford was a Congressman, he proposed the impeachment of one of the most liberal of all Supreme Court Justices, William O. Douglas. Ford, who was a moderate in every sense of the word, explained Congress's tremendous and far-reaching power of impeachment: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body [the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office."
WallBuilders | Resources | Impeachment of Federal Judges
Even though the Constitution gave the lawmaking powers to the Congress, courts have become the predominant policy making body in the nation. In fact, on public tours of the Supreme Court, one often hears the ridiculous claim that "this is the building from which all the laws in the land emanate." The Supreme Court, fully believing its own propaganda, regularly strikes down or rewrites the laws of Congress to conform to its own predilections and edicts.
Allowing the Court to enlarge its own sphere of power beyond what the Constitution authorizes, permitting the Court to usurp the powers of Congress, and tolerating the Courts' disregard of constitutional separation of powers moves America ever further from being a representative republic and ever closer toward the oligarchy against which Jefferson warned. The Court must be resisted in these attempts.
Although Congress is ultimately responsible for the discipline of judges, far too many of our Congressmen (like far too many of our citizens) have no understanding of the proper use of impeachment. However, a wise political axiom declares that "Congress sees the light when it feels the heat," and this is especially true on this issue.
Judicial Tyrants Should Be Impeached
The Justices are fully engaged in social and cultural engineering. George Washington said those who labor to subvert religion and morality may not be called patriots. Yet subverting religion and morality is exactly what the Court is doing. It is in the business of changing America from the Christian nation the Court said America was in 1892, to an anti-Christian secular state whose religion is secular humanism. Even though Christianity and the Bible condemn homosexuality as an evil, the Court in Lawrence said "(t)he state cannot demean" homosexuals. In Romer v. Evans, the Court invalidated a law prohibiting favored treatment of homosexuals. Such Christian condemnation was tantamount to bigotry.
The Court has even altered the meaning of the word "liberty" as used in the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. As originally understood, it meant only "the right to have one’s person free from physical restraint." Yet the Court in Lawrence, repeating its bogus and solipsistic "sweet mystery of life" statement (as Justice Scalia called it) it first made in an abortion case, said, "At the heart of (14th Amendment) liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." When the Framers spoke of liberty, they meant, not licentious self-indulgence, but the liberty to do that which is good, just and honest, or liberty under lawful moral constraints. They realized, as Edmund Burke said, that "men of intemperate minds can never be free; their passions forge their fetters."
What is worse, the People and their elected representatives continually, by their inaction, concede without a whimper that our imperial judiciary virtually has carte blanche to say the Constitution means anything it wants it to mean. This brings to mind an anecdote related by Robert Bork. A new State Supreme Court Justice upon meeting a U.S. Supreme Court Justice said, "I'm delighted to meet you in person because I have just taken an oath to support and defend whatever comes into your head." Congressional leaders seem to think that the only thing that can be done is to urge appointment of conservative constitutionalists to the Court, or urge passage of constitutional amendments to correct judicial excess. However, there is a better solution.
It is now generally believed that grounds for removal under impeachment must be only for treason, bribery or for violation of a criminal statute. However, David Barton, in his book "Impeachment: Restraining An Overactive Judiciary," has documented that the Framers of the Constitution had a much broader view. Barton states that "impeachments of federal judges in the century-and-a-half following the ratification of the Constitution usually revolved around non-statutory and non-criminal charges rather than today’s standard of a direct violation of statutory law."
Justice Joseph Story, the U.S. Supreme Court’s greatest scholar, believed such a restriction was preposterous and said, "No one has as yet been bold enough to assert that the power of impeachment is limited to offenses positively defined in the statute book of the Union as impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors." Justice Story said impeachment was for protecting the rights of the people "and to rescue their liberties from violation," and a remedy for "political offenses, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of public interests," as well as a check upon "arbitrary power." So were "unconstitutional opinions" and "attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power."
Founding Father and later Supreme Court Justice James Wilson said "(i)mpeachments are confined to political characters, (and) to political crimes and misdemeanors.." George Mason, who is called "the Father of the Bill of Rights," saw impeachment as a remedy for "attempts to subvert the Constitution." Hamilton said the subjects of impeachment are those which may "be denominated political." Justice Samuel Chase was impeached for his judicial high-handedness and arbitrary uses of the judicial power. Barton also points out that one federal judge was impeached for supporting the secession movement. Federal judges were removed from office in 1904, 1912 and 1926 for judicial high-handedness.
The language leaves out of account what state courts may do with state constitutions. A state supreme court could very well hold-and a number of them certainly will-that its state constitution contains a right to homosexual marriage or, alternatively, that its constitution mandates recognition of such marriages contracted elsewhere. It is not a sufficient answer that the citizenry could respond by amending the state constitution. In many states the amending process is quite difficult and time-consuming; and a state supreme court's ruling will itself affect the balance in the electorate.
States vary in the means to remove/correct members of government.
Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights -Massachusetts Constitution:
"In order to prevent those, who are vested with authority, from becoming oppressors, the people have a right, at such periods and in such manner as they shall establish by their frame of government, to cause their public officers to return to private life. . ."
Language of bill of address, sponsored by Rep. Emile J. Goguen (D-Fitchburg), NOW before the Massachusetts Legislature:
Resolved, That both houses of the legislature hereby request the Governor by way of address, under the provisions of Article I of Chapter III of Part the Second of the Constitution, to remove Margaret H. Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from her office, to remove John M. Greaney, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from his office, to remove Roderick L. Ireland, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from his office, and to remove Judith A. Cowin, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from her office.
The bill is still in the House Rules Committee. It's been gaining support. But the leadership may not allow it to be voted on during this session. If necessary, we will have it immediately re-filed.
The Avalon Project : US Constitution : Article IV The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government….
republic - yourDictionary.com - American Heritage Dictionary" A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them."
WallBuilders | Resources | Republic v. Democracy
A pure democracy operates by direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it; the majority wins and rules. A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is the rule by majority feeling (what the Founders described as a "mobocracy" 12); a republic is rule by law.
A republic is the highest form of government devised by man, but it also requires the greatest amount of human care and maintenance. If neglected, it can deteriorate into a variety of lesser forms, including a democracy (a government conducted by popular feeling); anarchy (a system in which each person determines his own rules and standards); oligarchy (a government run by a small council or a group of elite individuals): or dictatorship (a government run by a single individual).
The couple will respond with a challenge to DOMA under the federal Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.
For the history and thorough refutation of the Incorporation Doctrine, see the following: The Ten Commandments and the Ten Amendments: A Case Study in Religious Freedom in Alabama, 49 Ala. L. Rev.434-754 (1998)., Jaffree v. Bd of School Comm., 554 F. Supp. 1104 (1983) Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Second Edition, Raoul Berger, Forrest McDonald , Liberty Fund, Inc.; 2nd edition (June 1997) The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights; The Incorporation Theory, Charles Fairman, Stanley Morrison, Leonard Williams Levy, Da Capo Press , January 1970
The Committee for Justice Lino A. Graglia, A. Dalton Cross professor of the University of Texas School of Law:
"....Hope once lay in the making of new appointments, but the failure of ten consecutive appointments by four Republican Presidents to change the direction established by the Warren Court has shown this hope, too, to be unreliable. Rule by judges can certainly be solved by abolishing judicial review, but the real problem resides less in judicial review as such than in the Court's reading of the Fourteenth Amendment as a text without any definite meaning. That problem could be solved either by returning the Fourteenth Amendment to its original meaning or by giving it any definite meaning, thus making it a judicially enforceable rule."
If Republicans refuse to fight cultural battles on that reasoning, they will look cowardly to conservatives, which could be equally disastrous.
The US Constitution v. rebellious federal judges and cowardly republicans ... As you can see, jurisdiction stripping is far more common and easier to accomplish than amendment or impeachment; and far more effective than hoping for a favorable decree from trained monkey, or his more liberal colleague - a federal judge.
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Herbert W. Titus Senior Legal Advisor to the The Liberty Committee:
Cached How many of you received your Constitution when you came in tonight? Well, you are going to need one! We are going to read it and that is a radical thing! When I was a student at Harvard I took Constitutional Law class and we never read the Constitution. We only read the opinions of the Supreme Court about the Constitution. Tonight as we sketch out a blueprint to for state action to recover constitutional liberty and law for America, we are actually going to look at the document and read what it says.
The following quote has been attributed to James Madison, often referred to as the "Father of the U.S. Constitution." "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
AEI - Publications Beneath the Supreme Court's many astounding decisions in its 2002-2003 term, and the shifting judicial coalitions that produced those results, runs a unifying basso continuo: Constitutional law, in the sense of judicial decisions that are guided--at least in aspiration--by the text, structure, and logic of the written Constitution, is dead. It has been replaced, often as a matter of explicit doctrine, with subjective judicial impressions of popular sentiment or political utility. Federalist Outlook, The Term the Constitution Died, Michael S. Greve,Friday, July 25, 2003
Justice Curtis's warning is as timely today as it was 135 years ago:
"[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought tomean." Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 621 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting).
The Imperial Judiciary lives. It is instructive to compare this Nietzschean vision of us unelected, life tenured judges--leading a Volk who will be "tested by following," and whose very "belief in themselves" is mystically bound up in their "understanding" of a Court that "speak[s] before all others for their constitutional ideals"--with the somewhat more modest role envisioned for these lawyers by the Founders.
"The judiciary . . . has . . . no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither Force nor Will but merely judgment . . . ." The Federalist No. 78, pp. 393-394 (G. Wills ed. 1982).
Or, again, to compare this ecstasy of a Supreme Court in which there is, especially on controversial matters, no shadow of change or hint of alteration ("There is a limit to the amount of error that can plausibly be imputed to prior courts," ante, at 24), with the more democratic views of a more humble man:
"[T]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." A. Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1861), reprinted in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. No. 101-10, p. 139 (1989).
The philosopher Hegel said, "What experience and history teach us is this: that people and government never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it." Or as Winston Churchill said, "The one thing we have learned from history is that we don't learn from history."
The refrains that are often heard are: "It can't happen here," or "Our country is different." But the reality is that nations are born and die just like individuals. Their longevity may exceed the average person's lifespan. But the reality is that nations also die.
Each of the great civilizations in the world passed through a series of stages from their birth to their decline to their death. Historians have listed these in ten stages.
The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith. The second from spiritual faith to great courage. The third stage moves from great courage to liberty. The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance. The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness. The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency. The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy. The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay. The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence. And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.
Nations most often fall from within, and this fall is usually due to a decline in the moral and spiritual values in the family. As families go, so goes a nation.
Dred Scott | Washington University in St. Louis In 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This suit began an eleven-year legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a landmark decision declaring that Scott remain a slave.
The Case for Impeaching Rogue JudgesThe American people are asking themselves, why bother voting when the judiciary can knock down laws like so many bowling pins?
Judicial Dictatorship Everyone talks about the Supreme Court, but no one ever does anything about it.
You will either take control of the federal courts via Congress and to a lesser extent the President, or they will increasingly take control of you and yours!
Begin here:
PING
Some answers here from Bork about our previous discussion.
To read later
Bork is so right.
If conservatives will not give battle when they have the support of the American people, then, pray, when will they ? If sodomite marriage is conceded then "trans generational love" becomes the next issue.
Victory creates a bandwagon momentum, in the face of which Max Boot is frankly defeatist. Is the cultural left invincible ? Is it the "wave of the future" ? I see no reason to make that assumption. Culturally, is this the America of 1977 ? All the sodomites have done is to use the Clinton years to regain their 70's momentum. When Bush is reelected, watch them shrivel.
This is a hugh error made by the "public."
It is not incompatible or disasterous to our moral society to simultaneously afford constitutional rights to a "minority" of citizens, homosexuals, and retain a moral and Christian society.
The 9th Amendment, not the 14th amendment, is the constitutional basis for our federal government to recognize the "marriage" of homosexuals for all of the legal reasons, hetrosexuals are recognized.
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Who you wish to "marry" is a right "retained by the people."
It will be religion's failure if there would be an increase of homosexuality after the recognition of homosexual "marriage."
Why does religion need the endorsement of a secular government in order to validate it's covenants and principles?
There's no possibility our forefathers would have ratified the 14th Amendment if they had even the slightest suspicion that their judicial employees would eventually distort it into an instrument to trash their basic values. They probably recognized that values would change, as time went on, and their laws would need to be revised accordingly; but they knew that's what we have legislatures for; and we get to elect the people who sit in legislatures.
There's no possibility our forefathers intended the 14th Amendment to empower our employees on the Supreme Court to revise the Constitution, from time to time, whenever they thought the legislatures were a bit too slow. The folks who ratified the 14th Amendment viewed the Supreme Court as "a diseased member of the body politic" that was at risk of "amputation" .
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
A long read, and the rebuttal of Bork's support of the amendment after. I only read part of Bork's article, liked what I read. I always like Bork. He has great arguments against the libertarian philosophy - the best I've ever read. I hope more scholarly freepers can comment; I'll read the rest later and see I can grasp any of it.
One question that those opposed to a Constitutional amendment protecting marriage have never answered is this:
If you don't want an amendment protecting marriage, how will you prevent same sex marriage from being mandated as the law of the land?
No one has answered that one satisfactorily yet. Most seem to think that "gay" marriage is no big deal.
Let me and Scripter know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
Two great reads BUMP. Bork's is great analysis, the latter is a great call to arms on what should really be done.
bttt