Judicial Arrogance Prevails

7/25/03 | Russell Shaw

[cpforlife.org]

The theme of judicial arrogance has been invoked so often in reference to the Supreme Court that it seems like belaboring the obvious to invoke it again in reference to the court's decision approving sodomy.

Yet what else but arrogance can you call it when six unelected justices presume to tell us that moral intuitions central to Western culture and law for centuries no longer count? Of course, citing "moral intuitions" regarding sodomy invites the rejoinder that, along with intuiting the wrongness of homosexual sex, earlier ages intuited the rightness of, say, slavery. Evidently more needs to be said.

Writing in 1933, not long after the Anglicans' Lambeth Conference had approved contraception, the great historian Christopher Dawson pointed out that the willed separation of sex from procreation weakened marriage by encouraging people who wanted sex without procreation to look for it outside the married state.

Although it took several decades for the consequences to sink in, this insight into human nature helped explain the sexual revolution of the 1960s. So did the complementary principle that individuals have a virtually unlimited right to do whatever they want in matters of sex.

Cohabitation and premarital sex have soared ever since. Meanwhile, predictably, the marriage rate has declined, and we have hastened merrily down the path of social decay in the name of personal liberty. If Supreme Court justices have not noticed what's been happening, they need to open the windows of their ivory tower and look.

Dawson, nevertheless, failed to anticipate that a second front would be opened in the assault on marriage by extending its legal form to homosexual unions and calling these "marriages."

In this scheme, marriage is reduced to the status of a civil contract — open to same-sex couples as much as to anyone else — whose purposes are mutual comfort and economic advantage. Sex and procreation are still sundered, of course, while sex rendered procreationless by gender takes its place in a new version of marriage a la mode.

Catholics will recall that Pope Paul VI saw what was coming in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, which repeated the Church's condemnation of contraception. As we prepare to mark the 35th anniversary of this much-maligned document, issued in July 1968, it becomes increasingly clear how tragically accurate it was in pointing to the implications of separating sex from procreation.

The scope of the sodomy decision is indicated by a passage in Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion that speaks of the constitutional protections afforded to "personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education."

Citing this passage, Justice Antonin Scalia remarked in dissent: "Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned."

If the people of the United States don't want same-sex marriage imposed on them by their arrogant courts — as Canadian courts and the Canadian government have just imposed it upon our unhappy neighbors to the north — it will require amending the Constitution. The obvious, yet now controverted point, must be made that marriage is between a woman and a man, not a woman and a woman or a man and a man.

President Bush says he wants lawyers to tell him whether an amendment is needed. But there are no serious grounds for delay. However much some of those in the White House might prefer to duck this issue, the Supreme Court has made it clear that ducking is not an option any more.

Russell Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C. You can email him at RShaw10290@aol.com.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

They died for personal freedom.

That is a completely unfounded assertion. Neither of us is qualified to say what motivated their sacrafice. Sadly, I fear that few of the brave men and women who gave up their lives in the service of this nation would do so again again for the government and culture we have today. This recent extraconstitutional ruling only demonstrates how badly we have squandered our inheritance.

[gcruse]

Liberty or death? Hmmmm. Yeah, who knows what they really wanted.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

I know of no historical reference that even hints that their definition of liberty included the "personal freedom" to be buggered by your boyfriend. I think that it is safe to say that they were as opposed to pure freedom as they were to pure democracy.

[gcruse]

To me, if you have to enumerate every possible human activity that is allowed and call it 'liberty,' then that is not what you have got.  Liberty, to me, is anything I wish to do that does no harm to another.  It is up to government, as restrained by the Constitution, to make the case for infringing on any activity.

Think of the Bill of Rights as being tent poles. They keep the tarpaulin of government power from falling down and smothering the people. The tarp is held up away from us, and we are free to live our lives without government interference. There is no need to enumerate every reason for keeping the tarp up. Only the conditions under which it may descend.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

Liberty, to me, is anything I wish to do that does no harm to another.

Fine, but don't claim that that was what our founders had in mind since buggery was illegal at the time of our nation's founding. Only recently has a "right" to buggery been invented, and only then by appealing to "international standards of human dignity", not the bill of rights.

[gcruse]

Fine, but don't claim that that was what our founders
 had in mind since buggery was illegal at the time of our nation's founding.

You don't get it, do you?  Liberty is not a list of acceptable behaviors.
It is the freedom to live our lives as we see fit.  That is the liberty the
revolution was fought over.  The sodomy laws were a mistake from
the beginning, no less so than the slave laws.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

You asserted that our nation's founders fought and died for your distorted view of liberty, and all of the arguments you have presented to defend this erroneous position has been refuted. You may want to reread post #10. Based on your response, it went right over your head.

[gcruse]

Actually, the assertion was made by the Supreme Court of Georgia. But thanks for confusing me with them.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

No, you asserted in post #11 that our founders died for your perverted view of liberty. Aside from being untrue, this is an insult to every American who died in the service of their country. No one laid down their life so you could be buggered by your boyfriend, and if rulings like this are allowed to stand I fear that no one will lay down their life for this country in the future.

[gcruse]

Your fettered view of liberty is the problem. Until
you get over that, which is most unlikely, there is
little use in continuing this conversation.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

My view of liberty has nothing do with the error of your assertion in post #11.

[cpforlife.org]

Welcome to the Pro-Life Ping List!

Also, please take time to visit my two websites:

CHRISTIAN PATRIOTS FOR LIFE at:
http://www.CpForLife.org

AND

NATIONAL AMERICAN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL at:
http://www.CpForLife.org/Memorial

Thanks,

Kevin

[cpforlife.org]

^

[savagesusie]

They died for personal freedom. Not your right to reject it for others because you think it is immoral.

They NEVER died for people to "behave" in immoral ways for they clearly believed in God and the Ten Commandments (see Declaration and Federalist papers). In fact, God was mentioned quite often and prayers were said in their meetings. They would have definately denounced (and did) despicable behavior that spread disease and death and infections to infants. What would be the purpose of permitting such degrading, nihilistic behavior in a productive society?

[timydnuc]

They have recalled a California Governor, we can call for impeachment for Supreme Court Justices. The law is there we must have the guts to use it. Any Judge that legislates from the bench and thworts the will of the Poeple should and must be impeached. It's the only course the People have. Do it, and do it often!

[gcruse]

They NEVER died for people to "behave" in immoral ways

They died for freedom.  And that is defined by the Constitution,
not biblical morality.

[Eala]

I believe that the author was referring to a state of accountability to the electorate rather than the mode of selection.

I would hope you are correct.

[JesseHousman]

Your parentage is of no interest.

I was merely offering a suggestion as to another outlet for you.

[JesseHousman]

...and another thing, if you pick the right endangered animal species you many get an award and a spot on Animal Kingdom.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

They died for freedom. And that is defined by the Constitution, not biblical morality.

Nowhere in the constitution is freedom defined, or even mentioned. Our constitution lays out the governmental structure of our republic. Only in the first amendment of the bill of rights is freedom mentioned and then only with regard to protected classes of communication.

This may come as a shock, but rights were assumed to be natural and God given by our founders (read the Federalist Papers). No where in any U.S. legal code is the authority to create or define rights invoked. Furthermore, the basis for the decision discussed in the article was given as international standards of "human dignity", not the U.S. constitution.