Conservatives should welcome the Supreme Court’s inquiry in “standing” issues.
The U.S. Constitution makes clear that:
“The judicial power of the United States shall extend to all Cases…arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and…-to Controversies to which the United States shall be a party…” – Article III, Section 2.
This “cases and controversies” clause makes clear that courts do not exist to serve as philosopher kings available to issue advisory opinions imposing liberal orthodoxy when We the People’s representatives dare evade the supposed progressive bent of history dependent upon a so-called “living constitution.”
We the (conservative) People of the United States dared, thanks primarily to Speaker Newt Gingrich and the first Republican House in 40 years after the mid-term Election of 1994, to pass the Defense of Marriage Act less than two months before the Election of 1996 to make clear that states would not have to recognize same-sex marriages legally entered into in other states and that American taxpayers would not have to subsidize such marriages under federal law. Liberal Democrat Bill Clinton recently expressed his evolved opinion that the law is unconstitutional and that he favors gay marriage; but the then-recently-chastised-at-the-polls-President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law as a re-born defender of traditional values so that he would have a chance to slip by with Ross Perot’s help again for a second term in the White House.
There are conservative arguments based upon Tenth Amendment federalism and the Full Faith & Credit Clause that could undermine the constitutionality of a federal definition of marriage contrary to that of states that actually authorize and conduct marriages; but that Attorney General Eric Holder and his boss could somehow unilaterally leave the law un-defended and thus have it overturned on the issue of a lack of “standing”, would turn the Rule of Law into an unjust game of chance unworthy of any court of justice, much less our nation’s highest.
Same goes for Governor Jerry Brown’s decision to refuse to further defend Proposition 8, the second such popular referendum in California in eight years that rejected marriages by other than traditional ones between one man and one woman, after his government’s lawyers conveniently lost the case in lower federal courts.
The main purpose of “standing” requirements to bring lawsuits is make sure that only persons or entities harmed by another, including the government, may access the judicial power; thus protecting the guardians of law and justice serving and being funded by the people from arbitrary and whimsical employment. The issue of standing is most seriously required of plaintiffs who summon defendants to court. Clearly a person sued for money damages has standing to defend themselves.
Do Jerry Brown, Eric Holder and Barack Obama own The Government?
But what of the government as defendant against persons complaining of a law passed by the government? Much of the discussion concerning oral arguments in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases before the United States Supreme Court this week seemed to miss the fact that these laws defending traditional marriage are not the property of Jerry Brown, Eric Holder of President Barack Obama. DOMA was passed by THE government of the United States, not Bill Clinton’s or even Newt Gingrich’s. Prop 8 was a referendum insisted upon by the people of California precisely because their courts and elected representatives had twice rejected their clear voice.
Both cases invoke the Fourteenth Amendment and other provisions of the Constitution of the United States and thus, as required by Section 2 of the judicial article, “arise under” said constitution. The people are entitled to have their over 200-year-old Constitution, and laws passed there-under, defended no matter the duplicity of the Eric Holders of the world to try and trick America into becoming Sodom or Gomorrah before its democratic processes choose to challenge God to find at least 10 good men residing therein.
For decades, the only way liberals were able to impose their will upon a center-right country was through five un-elected lawyers in black robes that circumvented the amendment process prescribed in the Constitution by using the terms “due process” or “equal protection” to mean anything but for babies in the womb or any other object of their “progressive” evolving wrath.
Standing on the promises of God and the U.S. Constitution
Now, just as liberals muster actual electoral majorities in selected states and in re-electing a fairly overt radical and failed liberal to the presidency, one would hope that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy will resist what Robert Bork called “the tempting” and let We the People govern ourselves. Can’t they look their Georgetown cocktail party hosts in the eye trust the liberal agenda to an increasingly liberal electorate? Or must they wield absolute power even among the like-minded?
Once again, the subjects of nine American oligarchs, 237 years removed from declaring independence from King George III, await the fate of marriage from on high. What were those shots heard ’round the world fired for again?
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
