I guess I must be “stopid,” just like Joe Collidge says, because I can’t see any Constitutional authority for five schmucks on the Supreme Court to redefine marriage–and to create a brand-new “law of the land” without any legislation being passed by anyone’s elected representatives.
So a county clerk in Kentucky was tossed into the slammer because she wouldn’t obey the Supreme Court’s new “law” and issue marriage licenses to pairs of homosexuals, some of whom drove in from other states just so they could force her to refuse their demands. She didn’t issue the licenses because she is a Christian and she holds to God’s law, which deems homosexual acting-out a serious sin. She was also complying with the only written and duly enacted law involved here–the Kentucky Constitution.
Not to worry–the Democrat National Committee’s new Commissar for Religious Issues, the Hon. Jezebel Jones, says the party is proposing a way to let people “practice their religion” without getting chucked into prison for it.
“In each home, be it a house or an apartment or a furnished room,” says Jones, “one particular area–say a closet, or a corner of the bedroom, whatever–will be set aside as a Religious Freedom Zone where that person can believe whatever he or she wants to believe, regardless of how hateful, stupid, backward, vicious, or despicable it is.
“True, when you come out of your Religious Freedom Zone, you still have to obey whatever the Supreme Court or your neighborhood gay activist tells you to do, no matter what it is. Whatever judges say, from day to day, even from hour to hour, that’s the law.
“But afterward you can go home and go into the linen closet and have all the religious freedom anybody deserves.”
In the interests of Diversity, she adds, only Christians will have to restrict their practice of religion to Religious Freedom Zones. “For all non-Christians, we have an open-door policy. Do what you want, wherever you want. As long as it’s okay with the gays. They’re the ultimate authority.”
You’re not “stopid”, Lee, whatever that is. Like plenty of other edumacated folks, you appear not to understand the SCOTUS power of Judicial Review, which IS granted in the Constitution. They can’t write laws, but they can VOID laws, any law or part of a law they decide is unconstitutional. When they decided that Obergefell case, they made gender an invalid qualifier for civil marriage (not religious marriage) in all 50 states. So no one in any County Clerk’s office in any state may qualify people on the basis of their gender as LEGALLY fit for PERMISSION BY THE STATE to get married.
Kim Davis was wrong on the law, in violation of her oaths of office, and also guilty of obstruction (which she wasn’t charged with) for ordering deputy clerks to disobey a direct court order.
As it stands today, she can sit barricaded in her private office behind closed shades, saying “It’s not happening. It’s not happening.” all day. Deputy Clerk Brian Mason is handing out the licenses to qualified applicants instead.
“They can’t write laws, but they can VOID laws, any law or part of a law they decide is unconstitutional.”
The problem with that is there is nothing in the Constitution about marriage, nada, zilch, zero. Therefore it falls to the states and people to decide as defined by the 10th Amendment. The Kentucky legislature previously defined marriage between a man, so Kim Davis was in the right. The Supreme Courts gave an opinion, not a ruling, because it had no constitutional backing.
The whole idea of a few judges redesigning basic human institutions, ordained by God, and not subject to tweaking by moral imbeciles in black robes, is simply appalling.
The constitutional basis the SCOTUS used was violation of the 14th Amendment concerning due process and equal protection under law, but I’m not a lawyer and I frankly dislike comments that run as long as posts, so here’s the wiki entry on the Obergefell v Hodges case. You can argue it out with the justices:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges
How am I to argue anything with a very small group of people who think they are my rulers, infallible, and capable of changing marriage–based on the 14th Amendment, which of course has absolutely nothing to do with it?
Beats me, but the constitutionality of US laws is entirely up to those nine judges. The biggest influence you or I can have is who we choose to vote for President, since they nominate, and for Senator, since they confirm.
If it makes any difference to you, I’m not happy with many of their decisions either, like the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby cases. But I do have faith in the overall system of checks and balances.
I don’t. Not with executive orders and court decisions replacing legislation.
Each branch does have unique powers. The Legislative branch’s writing of laws gets checked by Presidential Veto powers, and by SCOTUS’ power of judicial review. When taken as a whole, the worst decisions do get revisited and addressed and eventually corrected over time. But that’s the historical view, taken over decades. I’m about ready for retirement. When I was younger, I felt much as you do.