The Supreme Court today ruled to impose same sex marriage on the entire United States. Essentially, like the ObamaCare decision, it bypasses the Tenth Amendment and creates fertile ground for further attacks on Christians, Jews and religious freedom.The Court, once again, is writing legislation from the bench.
The grounds, of course, was the ever elastic 14th Amendment which has become a rich hunting ground for justices seeking 'rights' that were never in the Constitution or intended to be.
The 5-4 decision had Justices Kagen, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, Breyer and Kennedy ruling in favor. Justice Roberts ruled against, but I have it on reasonably good authority that he and Justice Kennedy arranged this beforehand so that Roberts could avoid even more severe fallout in addition to what he's already getting for rewriting ObamaCare.
Most of the press is making this seem like the majority of the states already allow homosexual marriage. The number cited is '37 states.' What they'd rather not reveal is that only three of those states voted to approve same sex marriage. In 8 states, same sex marriage was imposed by the legislature, often in defiance to the wishes of the electorate. And in the remaining 26, it was imposed by court order pending this decision,also known as lawfare.
Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, saying,"The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity. The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex."
'Define and express their identity?' Where is that in the Constitution?
"These considerations lead to the conclusion that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them. Baker v. Nelson must be and now is overruled, and the State laws challenged by Petitioners in these cases are now held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite sex couples." [...]
Of course, Justice Kennedy didn't actually elaborate on what 'rights' or 'terms and conditions' gay couples in civil unions are excluded from that married heterosexual couples are not, but then, this was never a civil rights issue even though its advocates invariably used that language and that stance. No CEO has ever been fired for being gay, but they've certainly have been fired merely for airing their their opposition to same sex marriage. Remember Mozilla?
Ironically, Justice Roberts based his dissent on the fact that the Court was essentially legislating from the bench!
"Petitioners make strong arguments rooted in social policy and considerations of fairness. They contend that same-sex couples should be allowed to affirm their love and commitment through marriage, just like opposite-sex couples. That position has undeniable appeal; over the past six years, voters and legislators in eleven States and the District of Columbia have revised their laws to allow marriage between two people of the same sex.
But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be…."
"Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.
"Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening. "
The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent. The majority expressly disclaims judicial “caution” and omits even a pretense of humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society according to its own “new insight” into the “nature of injustice.” Ante, at 11, 23. As a result, the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?"
Pity he didn't apply that same standard to his ObamaCare decision.
Justice Scalia, of course, went right to the heart of the matter:
"The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance. Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. "
"This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy."
And Justice Alito, in his dissent hits out at what this sordid usurpation will actually be used for:
"Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences.
It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.
Perhaps recognizing how its reasoning may be used, the majority attempts, toward the end of its opinion, to reassure those who oppose same-sex marriage that their rights of conscience will be protected. We will soon see whether this proves to be true. I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools."
Actually,this will encompass more than merely being labeled as 'bigots.' We've already seen how bakers, photographers and florists have been heavily fined, forced out of business and deprived of their livelihood merely for politely telling homosexual couples that their religious beliefs preclude their participating in a same sex marriage ceremony.
Now, thanks to another decision the Court sneaked through that no one's writing about, this is going to be expanded to the point of making it open season on Christians, and in areas that have nothing to do with marriage..especially with the Obama Justice Department itching to slap 'dissidents' around.
How long do you think it's going to be before the same activists who hunted down bakers and photographers knock on the door of a church and demands that their wedding be held there? And sues when the clergyman refuses? Watch how those churches, synagogues and other 'bigoted' religious institutions lose their tax exempt status if they refuse to bend to the New Order.
Another effect, one which I've written about before is something same sex marriage activists are not counting on. What the SCOTUS did today was to forcibly change the very definition of marriage.
You might have noticed, and even been puzzled by the fact that while Islam opposes homosexuality more vociferously than any other religion, Muslim groups, especially Islamists been almost completely silent on the gay marriage question. And with good reason.
There is already a substantial movement to legalize polygamy - or to use the new, fashionable term, 'polyamory'. Today's ruling and what it was based on, 'defining and expressing identity' means that there is absolutely no legal basis to continue to ban it, so polygamy will undoubtedly become legal as soon as the first court challenge hits the docket. So will a lot of other things Americans can't even imagine yet.
Islamist groups like CAIR see this as a spear point for their ultimate aim, to make sharia law recognized and enforceable here in America as it already is in Britain.
This is no fantasy, especially since at least one Supreme Court Justice is already quite sharia friendly.
So it's not just judicial tyranny, the disregarding of the Constitution and the rule of law we're talking about here. We are talking about radical changes in American life that are going to change what was a free society into something very different. ..something unrecognizable.
An attempt at gun confiscation is the next step in the agenda. Just watch.
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