Posted on 07/07/2003 7:00:07 AM PDT by mrobison
LAW OF THE LAND
Justice: Can Constitution make it in global age?
On TV, Breyer wonders whether it will 'fit into governing documents of other nations'
Posted: July 7, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
In a rare appearance on a television news show, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer questioned whether the U.S. Constitution, the oldest governing document in use in the world today, will continue to be relevant in an age of globalism.
Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos and his colleague Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Breyer took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia, who, in a dissent in last month's Texas sodomy ruling, contended the views of foreign jurists are irrelevant under the U.S. Constitution.
Breyer had held that a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that homosexuals had a fundamental right to privacy in their sexual behavior showed that the Supreme Court's earlier decision to the contrary was unfounded in the Western tradition.
"We see all the time, Justice O'Connor and I, and the others, how the world really – it's trite but it's true – is growing together," Breyer said. "Through commerce, through globalization, through the spread of democratic institutions, through immigration to America, it's becoming more and more one world of many different kinds of people. And how they're going to live together across the world will be the challenge, and whether our Constitution and how it fits into the governing documents of other nations, I think will be a challenge for the next generations."
In the Lawrence v Texas case decided June 26, Justice Anthony Kennedy gave as a reason for overturning a Supreme Court ruling of 17 years earlier upholding sodomy laws that it was devoid of any reliance on the views of a "wider civilization."
Scalia answered in his dissent: "The court's discussion of these foreign views (ignoring, of course, the many countries that have retained criminal prohibitions on sodomy) is ... meaningless dicta. Dangerous dicta, however, since this court ... should not impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans," he said quoting the 2002 Foster v. Florida case.
Scalia's scathing critique of the 6-3 sodomy ruling was unusual in its bluntness.
"Today's opinion is the product of a court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct," he wrote. Later he concluded: "This court has taken sides in the culture war."
Both O'Connor and Breyer sought to downplay antipathy between the justices – no matter how contentious matters before the court become. O'Connor said justices don't take harsh criticisms personally.
"When you work in a small group of that size, you have to get along, and so you're not going to let some harsh language, some dissenting opinion, affect a personal relationship," she said. "You can't do that."
Breyer agreed.
"So if I'm really put out by something, I can go to the person who wrote it and say, 'Look, I think you've gone too far here.'"
O'Connor, too, seemed to suggest in the ABC interview that the Constitution was far from the final word in governing America. Asked if there might come a day when it would no longer be the last word on the law, she said: "Well, you always have the power of entering into treaties with other nations which also become part of the law of the land, but I can't see the day when we won't have a constitution in our nation."
Asked to explain what he meant when he said judges who favor a very strict literal interpretation of the Constitution can't justify their practices by claiming that's what the framers wanted, Breyer responded: "I meant that the extent to which the Constitution is flexible is a function of what provisions you're talking about. When you look at the word 'two' for two representatives from every state in the United States Senate, two means two. But when you look like a word – look at a word like 'interstate commerce,' which they didn't have automobiles in mind, or they didn't have airplanes in mind, or telephones, or the Internet, or you look at a word like 'liberty,' and they didn't have in mind at that time the problems of privacy brought about, for example, by the Internet and computers. You realize that the framers intended those words to maintain constant values, but values that would change in their application as society changed."
In an unrelated matter, O'Connor indicated on "This Week" that she would likely serve out the next term on the court, dismssing speculation that she was about to retire.
The current court is split between Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Scalia, who tend to hold the traditional constitutionalist approach to rulings, and the majority of O'Connor, Breyer, Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginzburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens, who tend to believe in the concept of a "living Constitution" subject to changes in public opinion and interpretation.
It doesn't matter. This goes waaaaaay beyond everything you've said. The fact of the matter remains that this is a LIBERAL...GLOBALIST court. My Lord, four of them are members of the Council on Foreign Relations! This is the best shot the globalists will ever have to destroy the 2nd Amendment. Have you read what CFR member Breyer just said about the Constitution? Do you think CFR members Ginsburg, O'Connor, and Stevens think any differently?
Stop thinking of these people like they're interested in maintaining the sovereignty of these United States! The 2nd Amendment and the 100 million lawful gunowners it protects is the final remaining obstacle to some form of global government. Get rid of the 2nd Amendment, pass the incremental laws on registration and eventual confiscation and it's all over.
Look don't get me wrong: Your arguments are well ordered, cogent, logical and thought provoking. They will appeal to the strict constructionists and freedom loving conservatives on the court, that is Scalia and Thomas will love them. But they won't matter in the end. In this most important of all matters, I think even the vote of Rhendquist may be in doubt. He's not CFR, but he didn't get to where he is by not knowing the music and the musicians...and the name of the tune. We need to get a few more Scalias and to do that we conservatives need a veto, and filibuster proof US Senate before we can begin to even remotely relax. Until then, we have to walk carefully and choose our battles with great care and careful timing.
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This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
I think this is the clause they intend to use to hold treaties equal in law with the Constitution. As I read it treaties are superior to State law based on this clause. That alone is scary stuff.
I would add Christian people to that.
Worth repeating.
Thanks for finding and posting this golden nugget.
Anytime somebody says "WE CAN'T LOSE" I know they're out of touch with reality, because losing is always a possibility in life. That's my final thought on this issue.
A few more Scalias is right. Anything short of that will spell failure for the great American experiment.
The Liberation Of The American Constitution From A Corrupt Government.
What the praying minister and the commandment-posting-judge did are considered Civil Disobediance.
The Right can use these techniques also.
Do you noticed that our CD doesn't inconvenience and cost other citizens (unlike those anarchists lying down in the streets) ?
And we don't wear those stupid outfits!
Or did you write this yourself?
The 4th Amendment has nothing to do with this at all. Period.
Gimme a break!
Following that reasoning, the states would be allowed to enter your home to search for unregistered guns or undeclared income.
The 4th Amendment, as a part of the supreme law of the land, guarantees us that no branch of government, at any level, has a right to violate the privacy of your home without probable cause, usually backed up by a warrant, but always supported by oath or affirmation. Since the Texas sodomy law violated that guarantee, the 4th Amendment has everything to do with it.
I wonder if you would feel the same about state laws that allowed police to enter your home on flimsy hearsay evidence, to search for guns. Regardless of how much you may dislike queers, when you deny them their rights, you open the door to having your own similar rights denied.
I have no respect for queers. They are either mentally or physically sick and they refuse to seek a cure. Even so, I will defend their rights under the Constitution, just as I would defend yours. An attack on the rights of one citizen, even a queer, is an attack on the rights of every citizen. Like it or not, the 4th Amendment, as does the rest of the Constitution, protects all of us equally.
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