Liberty: Settling questions it deems too big for the voters is not the Supreme Court's job. On delicate issues like race and family, the justices â liberal and conservative alike â are obliged to trust the people. The mad rush to transform marriage, which has inevitably landed into the laps of the nation's nine highest-ranking arbiters, must be viewed in the context of cultural history. In the last half-century American society has undergone nothing less than a social revolution. The left would have us believe this upheaval bubbled up from the masses, but most of the radical change was handed down from on high by elites â in Hollywood, the press, academe, and, not least, the legal profession. To take one area, censorship of word and image, the hard-charging attorney who in the '50s and '60s litigated smut into art, Charles Rembar, 45 years ago admitted that First Amendment protection of sexually explicit materials was something very new. "In 1956 the concept did not exist at all," Rembar pointed out in his 1968 book "The End of Obscenity." But "in 1966 it was full grown and dominant, and turned a hard hand against censorship," he reported. It was done by the courts, not by elected lawmakers. Just as there was no majority in America in the '60s demanding constitutional protection for pornography, and no majority in the '70s pining for abortion-on-demand, there was also no majority in 2003 demanding the right to marry for homosexuals. In that year, Massachusetts' highest court declared there was no rationale "for denying marriage to same-sex couples." If, as some polls suggest, a majority now favors radically redefining humankind's most ancient social institution, it's the result of entertainment and news media saturation in favor of that position, at least partly spurred by the Massachusetts judicial diktat. The Supreme Court is now scrutinizing both California's Proposition 8, enshrining traditional marriage in the state constitution, which passed with a healthy majority in 2008, and the Defense of Marriage Act, enacted with overwhelming majorities of 85â14 in the U.S. Senate and 342â67 in the House of Representatives in 1996, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The U.S. Constitution says as much about marriage as it does about abortion: nothing. If Americans want to change that, there is the amendment process. But, as in Roe v. Wade, the Supremes seem to believe they have the power to knock down democratically passed laws. "There are some 40,000 children in California ... with same-sex parents," said right-leaning swing Justice Anthony Kennedy last week, "and they want their parents to have full recognition and full status." But consider the slippery slope of the logic here. If same-sex couples are entitled to marriage rights, how about three or four people? What about polygamists? Or incestuous couples? The wisdom of further revolutionary transformation of society and family is dubious at best. But when a free people do embark on such a path, the change should be by them doing it themselves, after long, reasoned debate. Not by judicial elites. http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...reme-court-should-not-radicalize-marriage.htm
"There are some 40,000 children in California ... with same-sex parents," said right-leaning swing Justice Anthony Kennedy last week, "and they want their parents to have full recognition and full status." ------------------------------------------ Oh crissakes here we go with the bs "for the children" game over. I'm confused with this comment. Does he refer to adult children of same sex parents or is he referring to minor children?
If CA has 40,000 children of same sex parents, quite a large number. What I see here is 40k kids who have been disrupted from one dysfunctional setting to another. Oi vey! If you want to do something "for the children" maybe we ought to require parenting classes and quit promoting anything goes sex.
It shouldn't matter. Their only concern should be Constitutionality in both cases. Damn liberal activist justices!
As someone who is ok with the idea of gay marriage (remember, I am Libertarian - people should be able to do what they want so long as it does not affect me), I cannot understand why the Federal Government has to impose law on this. States are perfectly able to manage this on their own.
The problem with Kennedy's "logic" is that the citizens of California had an actual referendum on the issue and they decided that they didn't want same sex marriage. If we are going on what people "want," it seems to me that a binding statewide vote is more reliable than the musings of a Supreme Court Justice. I'm sure in their hearts, a majority of those kids would prefer to be in a traditional mom-dad family. Does that matter? I get so fucking sick of these federal judges who seem to view themselves as some form of latter day philospoher kings who are meant to rule over us and decide the difficult questions that we peasants are too backward or prejudiced to deal with. The high water mark of that was that dolt Sandra Day O'Connor musing that affirmative action was constitutional now but might not be in 25 years.
Of course they are just as they're perfectly capable of managing so many other issues the federal government has muscled its way into, education for example.
A very funny cartoon. <img src=http://cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/cartoon_550/images/Foden20130329-Scotus%20Thomas.jpg height=300 width=300>