In recent months we have seen a flurry of federal court actions to block the people from having any say about the laws they must live under. Delicately referred to as Judicial Activism, such actions are actually judicial tyrannies or acts of judicial lawlessness. The courts are not legislatures, still less constitutional conventions, and cannot be permitted to just make up stuff and say it is in the Constitution.
- In 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the State.
- In July, on the day before it was to take effect, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction against most provisions of Arizona’s SB 1070 which attempted to treat illegal immigration as illegal.
- In August, federal U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued a risible decision overturning California’s Proposition 8 which limited marriage to, well, marriage. Recall that Proposition 8 was itself a response of the people to a similar overreach on the part of the California Supreme Court.
- In October, U.S. District Judge (and apparently Supreme Ruler of the Universe) Virginia Phillips issued a universal global fatwa overturning the1993 federal law enacted by Congress and signed by President Clinton which held homosexuality to be “incompatible with military service.” (Her ruling is stayed pending appeal.)
- The people of Oklahoma just voted 70-30 to prohibit the use of Sharia or international law in its court system. Naturally, another federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to block this “Islamaphobic” will of the people.
Many people have noted how polarized and acrimonious our politics have become, but few have noted one major reason why this has happened. When the U.S. Supreme Court decided to bypass the legislative process and just make abortion legal by pretending to “discover” a right to abortion in the U.S, Constitution, they set in motion a destructive process. If our most important laws concerning the most gut wrenching and profound issues are to be settled by an unelected and un-removable “committee of nine lawyers,” then the focus of politics will shift to the process of appointing these man-gods. This will drive the two parties, as we have seen, to being either 100% pro-life or 100% pro-abortion. There can be no middle since any given Supreme Court nominee will either be confirmed for life or not. Compromise is out and total political warfare is in. The radicalized parties will then find it difficult to reach compromise on other issues as well.
Seemingly oblivious to this, the Supreme Court has doubled down in its Lawrence ruling, which found a right to sodomy in the Constitution, right next to the right to abortion and the right of local governments to take property from one private person and give it to another.
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they made a fundamental transgression of God’s law-order. This original sin had ramifications not just for them but for all succeeding generations and even for nature. In a similar way, the practice of judicial activism, and its acceptance by the body politic, represents a fundamental breach of the whole constitutional order. When judges act as judges, applying the law faithfully to individual cases, they should indeed be insulated from political passions and pressures. But when they act as legislators, creating law out of thin air, they violate their oath of office and throw the whole system out of order. If we fail to deal with this crime we stand to lose everything.
On a lighter note, the people of Iowa just dumped all three of the gay marriage judges who were up for confirmation, so maybe there is hope after all.
