Judge Strikes Down Nebraska Gay Marriage Ban

It is time to strike down these leftist judges with an action known as impeachment.

Because so-called "civil unions" grand basically the same benefits as marriage in many states. So the effect of "civil unions" is to give a back-door (no pun intended) way for gays to get in on the "marriage" benefits.

Thanks for the ping. Gaaaack!! "Nebraska voters enacted the provision five years ago, with 70 percent approving it."

Believe it or not, they share our concerns.

It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the United States have exclusive control

Thanks for the post. I do take the point that marriage is a priviledge, and not a right. However, the SCOTUS opinion seems not to convey the validity of US legislation over the several states themselves. The principles, however, should apply equally to state legislation.

Once again, if judges are found to have deliberately ignored or revised the constitution they should be impeached and removed. The US Constitution allows a judge to hold office only during "good behavior" which this certainly is not.

To clarify, judge shouldn't be impeached because he's leftist any more than if he is rightist, but judges should be impeached for ignoring or changing the law (IE the constitution).

Didn't Hamilton also say that we shouldn't really fear the Judiciary even if they have Judicial Review because they have no ability to enforce their rulings, thus subtly implying that the other two branches were free to disregard them?

Plus, to argue in favor of JR is not to support the extreme and radical abuse of it. I doubt that Hamilton would agree that its the role of Courts to divine new rights rights like abortion and gay marriage. I doubt he would agree that its proper for the Courts to take provisions of the Constitution and extend and apply them to things for which they were never envisioned or intended, and thus for which they do not have the consent of the governed. No part of the Constitution was ever passed with the understanding or consent of the people that it be used to to win the Culture War for the left.

But anyway, I'm always curious about those who support 'civil unions', which is of course gay marriage w/o the word 'marriage.' They are often put forth by the media as a moderate/centrist compromise, but that's clearly not the case in many, or most states. The people of Nebraska knew what they were voting for, as did those in Ohio, Michigan, Mississsippi, and a host of others when they voted to ban not only gay marriage, but also its euphemistic substitutes.

So the question for those in favor of civil unions --in the face of the reality that if left to the people then they will be rejected in most states -- is do you support having them imposed by the judiciary? Do you think that is a proper reading of the Constitution, and do you think it is a legitimate power of the Courts to do so?

Its a question I never heard asked of John Kerry during the campaign, or of anyone who hold the inherently contradictory 'gay marriage-no, civil unions-yes' position.

As to your 3 options:

1. Change the character of the Courts -- at best that is a temporary solution. We've seen this SCOTUS declare unconstitutional things the SCOTUS of just 20 yrs ago deemed constitutional. And as the 'slam dunk for conservatives' David Souter, and increasingly worthless on social issues O'Connor and Kennedy proves, there is no way of knowing how a judge will behave once safely in office for life.

With this issue of marriage, I think it very likely that this Court would at least pull a Vermont, and impose either gay marriage or civil unions on the entire nation. Of course, as several state laws and Amendments prove, that would be no different than an imposition of full-blown gay marriage for most states. If Bush can replace Rehnquist with a similarly good judge, then we at least hold the line. If he can replace O'Connor with a good judge, then we get to 4, with Kennedy holding the deciding vote. If Stevens and/or Ginsberg were to leave (what a fantasy!), then Bush would have the opportunity to reinstate sanity for many years to come, but again, whose to say a Court in 2025 won't overrule a proper ruling from this or a near-future court on marriage?

2. Use Article III the reign in their jurisdiction -- Its certainly worth a try. The House did just that last year when they passed legislation barring federal Court review of the Defense of Marriage Act (or was it marriage laws in general???). It only got 233 votes, but it passed nonetheless, but since then Frist hasn't seen fit to bring it up in the Senate.

But even if it did pass and was signed into law by Bush, what is to stop the same federal Courts it seeks to tame from declaring that court-stripping law unconstitutional? What is to stop SCOTUS from saying that such a law is an incorrect reading of Article III?

3. Impeach judges and abolish/consolidate some lower federal courts -- That would be great, as it would send an unmistakable message to would-be judge kings, but I'm afraid the leftist/media supported image of the Courts as the sacred branch would make such a move nearly impossible. Its tough, I mean, the people oppose a whole host of things imposed by the courts -- gay marriage, abortion on demand, insane readings of the Establishment Clause, conferring of citizen-like status to illegal aliens -- yet that is a long way of saying they would support a move to remove those judges makning such insane, ideologically driven rulings. Maybe if our side could mount an effective PR campaign, but it would be an uphill battle for sure.

As to the Constitutional Amendment -- Part of me agrees with you that no matter what a possible Amendment says, the judges would find some way to ignore it and do what they want anyway. But still, IF an Amendment were worded in such a way that it clearly defined marriage the traditional way, and banned the Courts from bestowing marriage-like status to other relationships, then the optimist in me says that even a nut extremist like Ginsberg would be wary of testing the public's patience with such an arrogant act. For judges to create new rights and destroy tradition based on the absurd 'living Constitution' theory is outrageous, but they get by with it. For them to defy and ignore something as explicit as a clearly worded Amendment would be something else altogether. I think it would give them pause.

As to the possibility of ignoring the Courts' crazy decisions -- The problem with this is not that it would lead to anarchy, but rather the same thing with trying to impeach judges/consolidate courts; it would be viciously opposed and attacked by every elite institution in the nation. We'd hear a steady and repeated mantra of how this goes against the wishes of our Founding Fathers, and how unAmerican it is, and so on and so on. By the time the media got done, everyone in favor of such action might as well have a swastika stamped on their forehead or be cloaked in a white hood.

As to anarchy, well it would be presented by the media as a step towards anarchy for sure, but I think the very thing that would make such a move possible would make anarchy very unlikely. For such a move to work, either the President or Congress, or both, would have to be willing to assert his or their role as a coequal protector of the Constitution. Politically speaking, that would mean they must be confident that the people will side with them. In effect, this means it could only happen when the Court has made an especially egregious decision that has gone too far with most Americans so as to dash the credibility and stature of the Court (how it still has any I don't know). This means that there is no practical or realistic threat or danger of the Executive and Legislative branches rising up to render void the good, reasonable, or at least popular, decisions of the Court.

Overall I must admit to being a pessimist, as I think that the only ways of stopping the Courts from slowly but surely continuing to push the nation to the left is for this final, most 'extreme' option of rendering such Court decisions void by refusing to enforce them, or by passing an unambiguous, clearly-worded Amendment that would at least offer a good chance of victory on this one issue.

Seeing as how DeLay was attacked by the media, and how the media places liberal judges on a pedastool, I think the Left still holds the advantage in the Culture War.

Well the one time the other two branches did ignore the Judiciate (Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears) was not one of the high points in our history. What's the point of having a judicial Branch if the other two can feel free to ignore it. As to far afield interpretations, sadly, it's inevitable that the further away we get temporally from the time the USSC was written, the more of these issues we're going to have. I don't see a way around it short of another Constitutional Convention.

I should say that I'm not 'in favor' of CUs. I just wanted to bring up the possibility of legal ramifications which would hopefully be addressed by FReeper legal eagles. :-)

As to Civil Unions; I think this notion that inherently consistent bans on gay marriage and its various substitutes like CUs and domestic partnerhips would somehow be used to nullify private arrangements is a red herring. The purpose of these bans on gay marriage and civil unions is to be consistent, and to prevent judges from defying the intent by imposing civil unions if they are not explicity barred from doing so. Again, this is consistent as the only difference between legal gay marriage and legal civil unions is in name only. They would have the same effect for public purposes. The taxpayer would be forced to subsidize civil unions via their taxes. Public educational curricula would be changed to reflect the equal-to-marriage CUs. Barring legal recognition of same-sex unions, no matter what they are called, is the only way to ensure that traditional, civilization-fostering marriage remains the publically supported ideal.

Private contracts between individuals, or benefits offered by private companies would not be harmed by this, as their purpose is clearly to do with the public realm.

As to Andrew Jackson -- that he ignored a SCOTUS decision in carrying out an injustice to American Indians does not mean that his defiance of the Court was inherently wrong. The big lesson and point to be taken by Jackson is that the Republic did not collapse in his refusal to kneel before Marshall, and we did not descend into anarchy.

As to time increasing the number of issues -- well that gets to heart of the whole debate over the absurd 'living Constition' which conveys to judges the ultimate and supreme power, versus the Originalism which says such matters are best left to the states and/or people, as the 10th Amendment says. Of course we are faced with things today that the Framers never contemplated, but to say that its right for judges to extend and apply provisions in the Constitution in such a way that was never intended, and thus never given consent by the people, is to make judges quasi-kings. Obviously, the idea of gay marriage would probably have made the Founders heads explode as it would have been unimaginable. Therefore, they clearly couldn't anticipate a threat to an ancient and understood institution like marriage. That does not mean thay they ever intended that the Judiciary take it upon itself to decide such unforeseen things. They clearly meant for the people to decide.

If the people want a right to abortion; if they want gay marriage, if they want public nativity scenes banned, then they can do all those things throught the proper legislative or popular channels. We should have no illusions as to what this all really about -- the fact is that the Left can implement its radical, out-of-the-mainstream agenda through such proper channels only in a few states and regions of the nation. And this vexes them to no end. (They are an intolerant bunch afterall, and for some reason it really bothers people in San Francisco and New York that a small town in Georgia has a Creche outside city hall.) So they feel the need to impose on the entire nation what most areas of the nation already has rejected, or would reject if given the choice. And the Courts are the only mechanism for this. Thus you have the 'living' document philosophy. Thus you have one crazy decision after another whereby the Courts do for the Left what they can't do via the proper bodies. If the people were sociall and culturally liberal, and voted that way, then this wouldn't be an issue as there would be no need for such judicial activism.

If power corrupts, then why would it be any different for a judge than a President or Congressman? If one's agenda is dead on arrival if it must pass with the people, then why not, as a judge, take power from the people and do the things you want done, especially if the other two, allegedly coequal branches do nothing about it?

Who decides? If it is the judges; if the final say rests with the judiciary, then the Left has already won the Culture War and all of these overwhelming projections and manifestations of public will at the ballot box are all for naught because they can be swept aside by as few as 5 people and their views of what the Constitution should say, instead of what it actually does say.

...the SCOTUS opinion seems not to convey the validity of US legislation over the several states themselves. The principles, however, should apply equally to state legislation.

Well, if you study the history of polygamy and the Mormon Church, it is a federal issue, is it not? Congress has legislated prohibitions on that "practice," as well as others...

The interesting part of it is that the court DID say marriage was subject exclusively to statutory regulation. Whether by Congress or by state legislatures makes no difference to me...

The federal judge here and the Massachusetts court are not abiding by the case law precedent and have exceeded their jurisdiction - - and the stupid legislators, governors and others don't have a clue...

I just wonder why so many "conservative" commentators, pundits and politicians don't want to talk about it...

I constantly hear the "separation of church and state" bull-ship that was established as a legitimate point of legal argument, but never hear it pertaining to this idolatry of perversion...

"...judge shouldn't be impeached because he's leftist...judges should be impeached for ignoring or changing the law"

Jim, I agree with you. This judge arbitrarily changed the constitution of the State of Nebraska. Impeach.

Agreed.
This judicial issue is not understood by many. Those that do need to raise their voices and demand action. Too many are wringing their hands about what will happen if we start impeaching (and hopefully removing at least some of)all these judges. Maybe the pendulum will swing too far the other way. It probably will. Fine, and hopefully further down the road we and the judiciary will understand the right balance of properly applying current events to the original intent of the law.

"This judge needs to be impeached, removed from office, and subjected to public shame and ridicule for the rest of his natural life."

I would prefer that he be jailed and taken out and given 20 lashes every day for the rest of his natural life.

I thought the Legislature is supposed to enact the will of the majority into law, and the Judiciary is supposed to protect the rights of minorities like me. That's why the legislators are elected -- if they don't express the will of the majority they'll get voted out. And that's exactly why judges AREN'T elected -- because they protect minorities that can't defend themselves with the ballot box.
40 years ago, there were many state laws against interracial marriage. They were enacted because the people in those states felt that black people shoudn't marry white people. The Supreme Court struck down those laws as unconstitutional. Was it an activist judge that struck down those laws?
But how do you think people in those states would have voted if asked "should our state allow blacks to marry whites?" Many southern states would have put these racist laws into their constitutions had they thought to do so. As we now know, that would have been unconstitutional, and the people injured by those laws would only have recourse to the courts. That's they way the Legislature and the Judiciary are supposed to work.

You argument has merit only if you accept the circumstance of race as equivalent to homosexuality - I do not. Under that presumption pedophilia, bestiality and numerous other forms of what I consider to be BEHAVORIAL human activities are to be afforded the same protection as racial minorities.

I reject this slippery slope in it's entirety. Behavior is not the same thing as genetics no matter how many would like to establish the equivalence of the two. Relationships based on behavior can be established under a contractual mechanism, in the form of a Civil Union.

This Judge has inserted his opinion in the face of the will of the people and redefined marriage according to the wishes of the minority.