One would think that in light of their recent losses in Oregon and Pennsylvania with regards to marriage equality in the courts, anti-gay group leaders would have just a little introspection about the emptiness of their arguments
Riiiiiiight:
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| Barber |
Matt Barber, a constitutional law expert with Liberty Counsel Action, believes governors need to turn their backs on federal court decisions against traditional marriage. He describes the decision in Pennsylvania by Judge Jones as "cartoonish."
"This decision is absolutely outrageous and it reads like a parody," he tells OneNewsNow. "We have moved beyond judicial activism into judicial imperialism."
Barber, Matt (Liberty Counsel) Barber, founder of Barbwire.com, says the problem can be rectified. On a federal level, he suggests the other two branches of government "reject and start pushing back" against what he calls a "false, counter-constitutional notion of judicial supremacy."
On a state level? "It's time for governors to reject these opinions, and that's what they are," states Barber, pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can determine the definition of marriage. "[They need to] say No thank you, we are a sovereign state and we are going to adhere to our constitution in this state."
And finally, he adds: "... These judges who have abdicated their sworn duty to defend the United States Constitution [and] who are legislating from the bench? They need to be impeached."
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| Gramley |
Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania tells OneNewsNow she's looking to Congress to take action against judges like John Jones.
"Congress has the ability in the U.S. Constitution to begin impeachment proceedings," she explains. "When you look at these judges – not only Judge Jones here in Pennsylvania, but other federal judges who are handing down these decisions – their actions are unconstitutional."
Gramley, Diane (AFA of Pennsylvania)Gramley also contends those activist judges don't reflect the will of the people. "We're seeing homosexual wins across the country not because the views of Americans are changing but because of judicial activism," she says. "And that's the same thing that's happened in Pennsylvania.
"The views in Pennsylvania are still that marriage is only between one man and one woman."
In other words:
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the linguistic trick that conservatives are playing in the article - it's the same trick they play with regard to evolution and other forms of science with which they disagree.
ReplyDeleteConseratives like to say evolution is "only a theory" - which is a deliberate mis-use of the term theory. In popular parlance, a theory is an idea, a working model that can be discarded. But the scientific use of the term theory refers something well-established by evidence and observation, which has strong predictive power. A scientific theory is as close to settled as anything in science can be and generally new evidence supports rather than diminishes a scientific theory. Religious conservatives, however, deliberately conflate the popular use of theory with the scientific use of theory to make it appear that creationism or intelligent design are equally viable.
The OneNewsNow article quotes people dismissing various judicial rulings as merely "opinions" or "one man's opinion." They're deliberately conflating and mis-using the term opinion. A legal opinion (as in these rulings) is backed up by precedent, evidence etc. This rhetoric is not accidental. They're attempting to minimize and dismiss the impact of the rulings by ignoring the precedent and logic of the arguments within them and calling them merely "opinions."
The goal is obvious - to paint these rulings as transitory, informal and unimportant and the people issuing them as biased opinionators - essentially they're arguing these judges are no different than the talking heads on the news shows, spouting personal opinions and nothing else.