Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Post-Marriage Lamentations

by JASmius



Yesterday came the flash, heat pulse, and blast wave; today comes the fallout:

The Supreme Court's unexpected decision clearing the way for same-sex marriages in five states could benefit GOP lawmakers — by deflecting attention on the sensitive issue away from them.

Conservatives, nonetheless, expressed outrage by the ruling, while more moderate Republicans looked at it from a tactical point of view.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz....called the court's move "tragic and indefensible." He vowed to introduce a constitutional amendment allowing states to ban gay marriage.

Which will go precisely as far as each and every previous attempt at a federal biblical marriage amendment.

"This is judicial [extreme]ism at its worst," Cruz said in a statement. "The Constitution entrusts state legislatures, elected by the People, to define marriage consistent with the values and mores of their citizens. Unelected judges should not be imposing their policy preferences to subvert the considered judgments of democratically elected legislatures."

Well, yeah, Senator, but you're forgetting that the Framers were all homophobes.

The evangelical American Renewal Project told the Washington Post it plans to take aim at lower-court judges who have overturned anti-gay-marriage statutes and constitutional provisions.

"Impeachment begins in the House. I can't figure out why a simple congressman won't drop a bill of impeachment to remove people who are doing this to our country," said the group's leader, David Lane. "We're going to deal with these problems — unelected and unaccountable judges — who have no right to interfere with the will of a free people."

No, you're not, Mr. Lane, for the same fundamental reason why "simple congressmen won't drop a bill of impeachment to remove" judicial despots: There are not, and never will be, the votes in the Senate to remove them.  All such an attempt would do is provide propaganda grist for more Christophobic vilification and persecution.  Remember, "in the last days, difficult times will come....", David?  You should.  And no amount of "Fight!  Fight!  Fight!" will overcome it.

Some on the Right are acknowledging - not accepting, but acknowledging - this political reality, to their fratricidal peril:


"We don't have to agree with the decision, but as long as we're not against it we should be OK," one aide to a 2016 candidate told Time, requesting anonymity. "The base, meanwhile, will focus its anger on the court, and not on us."

Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, who's in a fierce re-election campaign — and has also been mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential contender — declared the battle to prevent same-sex marriage is "over in Wisconsin," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports."

The federal courts have ruled that this decision by this court of appeals is the law of the land and we will be upholding it."

Similarly, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie over the summer called the issue "settled" in the Garden State, too, despite his personal opposition.

At a forum in Washington, D.C., Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who is also considering a run for the White House, said the issue was no longer political, noting "the law is certainly in the Court's court," Time reports.

They're all erroneously conceding the unconstitutional power of "judicial review" to the federal judiciary, while grudgingly conceding the political reality of how far American culture has decayed - and perhaps something else none of us want to hear: that waging the cultural war in the political arena was doomed from the start.

Consider why the Left dragged cultural issues into that arena in the first place: They weren't able to depose, demonize, and destroy biblical values and teachings virally, so they used the political arena  as leverage to give them the cultural upper-hand.  In any such societal clash, the side which grabs that leverage first is invariably the one that triumphs.  We, who have been playing defense the entire time, had no hope of withstanding that kind of onslaught.

Or, as I've said and written many times, "right does not make might".  Which brings us back to yesterday's judicial despotism, and how so-cons will take out their raging anger on the only pols that they can - their own:

But evangelical leaders aren't ready to let politicians off the hook.

"For candidates running in 2014 and those who run for president in 2016, there will be no avoiding this issue," the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Ralph Reed said in a statement.

Because the way to revive the cultural and move it in a biblical direction is to punish Republicans at the ballot box and permanently empower homophilic Democrats even more than they are already.  Yeah, that's a plan.

As to the old "judicial appointments will be a key 2016 issue" chestnut....:

Keith Appell, a Republican political consultant, told Time Republicans will begin to focus on the judicial appointments that could open up under the next president.

"Filling those vacancies will shape the court for the next generation and it'll be a huge issue in both the primaries and the general election," he said. "Do we want [extreme]ist judges who literally make the law up from the bench and impose it on the people, as is happening with these appellate rulings? Or do we want judges that fairly apply the law and leave the lawmaking to Congress, state and local legislatures?"

Yeah, Keith, but the problem is, we've heard this argument before, and yet somehow it's the extremist judges who keep getting appointed to the federal bench, who then keep the judicial extremist ball rolling.  And the only side that ever seems to benefit from it is the Left and their dinnermasher allies.

What we could really use is to reframe that issue from "originalist vs. activist" to "Do the federal courts lack possess the Constitutional power to strike down any state law?"  Which, strictly speaking, they do not.  But then, there isn't going to be a "next president" anyway, so the point is pretty much moot.

Still, far be it from me to get in the way of whatever cathartic wailing and teeth-gnashing y'all can muster.  Heaven knows I can't get enough of it.

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