From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:
WASHINGTON—Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, decried the August 4 decision of a federal judge to overturn California voters' 2008 initiative that protected marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
“Marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of any society. The misuse of law to change the nature of marriage undermines the common good,” Cardinal George said. “It is tragic that a federal judge would overturn the clear and expressed will of the people in their support for the institution of marriage. No court of civil law has the authority to reach into areas of human experience that nature itself has defined.”
Joining Cardinal George in his criticism of the court decision was Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage. Archbishop Kurtz noted that “Citizens of this nation have uniformly voted to uphold the understanding of marriage as a union of one man and one woman in every jurisdiction where the issue has been on the ballot. This understanding is neither irrational nor unlawful,” he said. “Marriage is more fundamental and essential to the well being of society than perhaps any other institution. It is simply unimaginable that the court could now claim a conflict between marriage and the Constitution.”
Jim Garlow, lead pastor of the Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, got it right when he said that judge Walker threw out the principle of "we the people." See here. As I said in a previous post:
In the name of "tolerance," the New World Order seeks to impose its rebellion from truth on all. It will not tolerate any dissent, any disagreement. Coercion is an acceptable tool in a dictatorship.* Soon, the New Order will use violence to achieve its goals and not just coercion and propaganda. In the end, every dictatorship must rely on violence in its vain attempt to hold onto power.
* "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires..." - Pope Benedict XVI.
Related reading here and here.
The Supreme Court got it right in Bowers v. Hardwick when it affirmed that sodomy is not a fundamental right and that there was a legitimate state interest to make it a crime. And in most states, it has always been a crime.
ReplyDeleteJudge Walker is not only engaging in judicial tyranny but has crossed over into judicial fantasy. No doubt due to his homosexual proclivities.
Wikipeda explains that, "The majority opinion in Bowers, written by Justice Byron White, framed the legal question as whether the constitution confers 'a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.'
ReplyDeleteJustice White's opinion for the majority answered this question in the negative, stating that "to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition' or 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty' is, at best, facetious.'"
I couldn't agree more. And the Supreme Court should have upheld this correct ruling. Sir William Blackstone referred to sodomy as a "crime not fit to be named." What has changed?
Nothing.
Amanda asks, "What has changed?"
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision overturned/reversed Bowers v. Hardwick. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, stating that a state law classifying consensual, adult homosexual intercourse as illegal sodomy violated the privacy and liberty of adults to engage in private intimate conduct under the 14th amendment (the same rationale used in Supreme Court decisions legalizing contraception and abortion).
Judge Walker on several occasions in his decision references Justice Kennedy's opinion as if to remind/appeal to Justice Kennedy on how to vote when the case comes before the Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy is considered a swing vote.
You miss the point anonymous. The Supreme Court had already ruled that the constitution does not confer "a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy." This was the legal tradition in this country from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThe Vatican (CDF) has refuted the autonomy argument employed by the Supreme Court in the Lawrence v. Texas decision:
"Nor can the principle of the proper autonomy of the individual be reasonably invoked. It is one thing to maintain that individual citizens may freely engage in those activities that interest them and that this falls within the common civil right to freedom; it is something quite different to hold that activities which do not represent a significant or positive contribution to the development of the human person in society can receive specific and categorical recognition by the State. Not even in a remote analagous sense do homosexual unions fulfill the purpose for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition. On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their impact on society were to increase." (Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, No. 8).
The Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence is erroneous because it advances a false concept of moral liberty which the Court itself had rejected from its very beginning.
The Supreme Court said that Bowers had to be overturned because "liberty presumes an autonomy of self." But as Pope Leo XIII reminded us in his Encyclical Letter Libertas, "..the nature of human liberty, however it be considered, whether in individuals or in society, whether in those who command or in those who obey, supposes the necessity of obedience to some supreme and eternal law, which is no other than the authority of God, commanding good and forbidding evil. And, so far from this most just authority of God over men diminishing, or even destroying their liberty, it protects and perfects it, for the real perfection of all creatures as found in the prosecution and attainment of their respective ends, but the supreme end to which human liberty must aspire is God."
In Lawrence, the Court broke with the entire legal tradition and with moral standards formed during the 2,000 year history of Western Christian civilization. In so doing, the Court advanced an interpretation of liberty which is so broad that it will allow virtually every form of evil. Evils such as adultery, bigamy, incest, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia and bestiality will now be viewed differently.
Lawrence is not sound law. It is a radical break from the entire legal tradition of American jurisprudence and Western Christian civilization.
It is judicial fabrication and activism.
What is significant to me also is that the Supreme Court completely reversed its previous decision. Why then should we trust anything the Court says. In one case it says that X is true. In another it says that X is false. Now something cannot be both true and false. What makes the Supreme Court judges who decided Lawrence more right than the Supreme Court judges who decided Bowers? Especially since, as you correctly note, Bowers invoked the entire legal and moral tradition of Western civilization.
ReplyDeleteTruth cannot be abandoned by judicial fiat. What was true for the last 2,000 plus years remains true today. Nine people wearing black robes cannot alter reality. Truth cannot change. If it could, it wouldn't be truth. Or understanding of truth can develop organically. But Lawrence isn't an organic development of truth. It is, as you have noted, a complete reversal, a complete repudiation, of our entire legal tradition.
The decision of the Supreme Court in Lawrence is indeed fantasy.