WND EXCLUSIVE
LEGAL EXPERTS, BY DOZENS, WANT RESISTANCE TO MARRIAGE RULING
Decision authorizing 'gay weddings' 'must be judged anti-constitutional and illegitimate'
Bob Unruh
Dozens of top legal scholars from the likes of Washington & Lee, Boston College, Kansas State, Notre Dame, University of Texas, Villanova, Vanderbilt, Hillsdale, University of Nebraska, Catholic University and Regent University have issued a statement encouraging all state and federal officials to treat the Supreme Court’s recent creation of “same-sex marriage” as “anti-constitutional and illegitimate.”
“It cannot … be taken to have settled the law of the United States,” said the statement by the American Principles Project.
“We call on all federal and state officeholders: To refuse to accept Obergefell as binding precedent for all but the specific plaintiffs in that case. To recognize the authority of states to define marriage, and the right of federal and state officeholders to act in accordance with those definitions. To pledge full and mutual legal and political assistance to anyone who refuses to follow Obergefell for constitutionally protected reasons. To open forthwith a broad and honest conversation on the means by which Americans may constitutionally resist and overturn the judicial usurpations evidence in Obergefell.”
Robert George, founder of the project and the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, said: “We stand with James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in recognizing that the Constitution is not whatever a majority of Supreme Court justices say it is. We remind all officeholders in the United States that they are pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not the will of five members of the Supreme Court.”
They emphasize that what they want is not extreme. Nor is it, they write, “disrespectful of the rule of law.”
They quote from Lincoln’s first inaugural address, in which he explained that depending solely on the Supreme Court as a final arbiter would mean that “people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”
In the marriage case, the lawyers explain, the five justices who joined to create “same-sex marriage,” “by their own admission, can find no warrant for their ruling in the text, logic, structure or original understanding of the Constitution.”
The lawyers wrote that the majority “supplied no compelling reasoning to show why it is unjustified for the laws of the states to sustain marriage as it has been understood for millennia as the union of husband and wife.”
They noted the four justices who dissented didn’t simply disagree, they feared the damage the majority was doing.
For example, Justice Antonin Scalia called it “a naked judicial claim to legislative … power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.”
Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that it is “beyond dispute that the right to same-sex marriage is not among … rights” rooted in the nation’s history and tradition.
The lawyers warned that the consequences would include being denied the right to “hold out as normative, and particularly desirable, the only type of human relationship that every society must cultivate for its perpetuation.”
Further, those supporting traditional marriage could be “vilified, legally targeted, and denied constitutional rights.”
And additional redefinitions would come more easily and democracy would be undermined.
But “anti-constitutional and illegitimate”?
“Obergefell should be declared to be such, and treated as such, by the other branches of government and by citizens,” the statement says.
They include John C. Eastman of Chapman, Matthew J. Franck of the Witherspoon Institute, Stephen H. Balch of Texas Tech, Paul Moreno of Hillsdale, Lucas E. Morel of Washington and Lee, Wm. Barclay Allen of Michigan State, Scott FitzGibbon of Boston College, Watler Schumm of Kansas State, Michael D. Breidenbach of Ave Maria, Daniel Robinson of Oxford, Colleen Sheehan of Villanova and Carol M. Swain of Vanderbilt.
WND reported less than a week ago that in Alabama, routine procedures still have not been put in place confirming the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision, a federal judge demanded endorsement of “same-sex marriage,” and the Alabama Supreme Court issued a permanent issuing forbidding it.
When the Supreme Court’s ruling was announced, the state Supreme Court said it would accept comments on how the decision would impact in the state. But the state Supreme Court has not ruled yet.
The issue is coming to a head now because several probate judges – the only people in Alabama authorized to issue marriage licenses – are becoming concerned about their own constitutional protections and have asked the state’s high court to issue its decision.
Opponents pose a number of problems with the Obergefell decision.
For example, two of the justices in the majority were asked to recuse themselves from the case because they had openly advocated for same-sex marriage, violating standards to preserve judicial impartiality.
Then there was the U.S. Supreme Court’s own opinion just two years earlier, in the Defense of Marriage Act case, in which the court said states have exclusive power over marriage.
And there are those who point out that the Constitution doesn’t mention marriage but does dictate that everything not mentioned in the document is left to the states and the people.
Eunie Smith of the Eagle Forum of Alabama and John Killian Sr., former president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention contend in a newly published commentary that the judicial branch doesn’t have the constitutional power to legislate a right to same-sex marriage.
“Five ‘unelected judges’ – as Chief Justice Roberts called them in his criticism of Obergefell – dealt an arrogant blow to God, the family, nature, the rule of law, the Constitution of the United States and the democratic process,” they write. “Simply because their opinion has been accepted as the ‘law of the land’ by the media and the left, doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to close our eyes to the truth or pretend that the Constitution allows the judicial branch to legislate a new right to same-sex marriage.”
The dispute there now centers on a request by Washington County Probate Judge Nick Williams and Elmore County Probate Judge John Enslen to the state Supreme Court for an emergency “protective order” to address their sincerely held beliefs.
The request comes in light of the prosecution and jailing of Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis, who was who jailed by U.S. District Judge David Bunning for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The commentary by Smith and Killing noted the petitions from Williams and Enslen haven’t been answered. And they note the problems that already have been created by the marriage decision.
“Confusion has reigned in the wake of Obergefell. A Christian clerk [Davis] was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses. A physician was found guilty of warning patients about the dangers of homosexuality. Leading LGBT activist groups rallied for the legalization of prostitution. The Browns, of ‘Sister Wives,’ cited Obergefell in their fight to legalize polygamy. Protests are erupting over transgender boys being allowed in the girls’ bathroom. The Southern Poverty Law Center is pumping funds into their ‘Teaching Tolerance’ curriculum – aimed at brainwashing children to accept perversion in our public schools. Alabama probate judges who uphold what Alabama’s law demands when it comes to marriage, receive frequent hate mail and threats designed to intimidate them into violating their religious beliefs about marriage.
“This is only the beginning. Obergefell will be a catalyst for the further deterioration of the family, religious liberty and the values and principles that have made America great. Massive litigation fees will be incurred as Christians in Alabama stand firm on their convictions in businesses, churches, and in the public square. Judicial activism following Obergefell will only intensify as the sentiments of men and women – no matter how ‘supreme’ – are allowed to trump the rule of law found in the plain text of the Constitution and the ‘law of Nature and of Nature’s God.’”
WND reported after the Obergefell decision was released that Liberty Counsel, in a brief on behalf of several family groups, explained to the Alabama judges there is precedent in the U.S. for a state Supreme Court to reject a “U.S. Supreme Court mandate which is unlawful.”
“There is existing precedent for a state’s highest court to reject an unlawful mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman, Mat Staver. “The hope of our constitutional Republic rests upon state officials and American citizens who will refuse to allow five, black-robed judges to rob us of our free, representative form of government.
“A judicial opinion without constitutional basis is not law and should not be followed by any state or citizen,” he said.
The brief submitted by Liberty Counsel to the state court notes that the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to follow the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Dred Scott, which “said that blacks were not entitled to full protection as citizens.”
‘Not a judgment’
In the Wisconsin case, the brief explains that even though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the state Supreme Court, “in a final act of defiance,” the state court “never filed the mandates” which required people to return “fugitive slaves” to their owners.
At that time, the Wisconsin court opined, “I believe most sincerely and solemnly that the last hope of free, representative and responsible government rests upon the state sovereignties and fidelity of state officers to their double allegiance, to the state and federal government; and so believe, I cannot hesitate in performing a clear, an indispensable duty.”
The court also declared the federal law unconstitutional.
The Wisconsin court said, “Here is a distinct recognition of the power and duty of state judges, not to be bound by all the acts of Congress, or by the judgments and decrees of the supreme federal court, or by their interpretation of the constitution and acts of congress, but by ‘this constitution’ ‘and the laws made in pursuance thereof.’”
Simply put, they found, a Supreme Court opinion that wasn’t founded in the Constitution was not a judgment.
Impeachment
As WND reported, Ruth Ginsburg has performed same-sex wedding ceremonies and made supportive public statements. Justice Elena Kagan also has performed same-sex weddings and promoted “gay” rights at Harvard’s law school while she was at its helm.
Critics contend the two justice appear to be violating judicial ethics rules that require recusal from a case in which there is even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
A brief from the Foundation for Moral Law explained that Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges provides: “A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.” 28 U.S.C. sec 455(a) mandates that a justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
The foundation pointed out in a submission to the Supreme Court: “Four weeks after this court granted certiorari in these cases, Justice Ginsburg was asked whether parts of the country might not accept same-sex marriage being constitutionalized. She answered: ‘I think it’s doubtful that it wouldn’t be accepted. The change in people’s attitudes on that issue has been enormous … It would not take a large adjustment.’”
Ginsburg’s interview was with Bloomberg News on Feb. 12.
The controversy resurfaced, because even after being told of the appearance of a conflict of interest, Ginsburg again officiated at a same-sex wedding, as the New York Times reported.
The paper said that with “a sly look and special emphasis on the word ‘Constitution,’ Justice Ginsburg said that she was pronouncing the two men married by the powers vested in her by the Constitution of the United States.”
The decision, and the path the Supreme Court justices took to get to the point of mandating same-sex “marriage” across the nation, already has drawn warnings that God’s judgment has been delivered to other nations who flout his will, and it might happen again.
WND reported when Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association hinted that Barack Obama is deliberately setting himself up in opposition to God.
On his Facebook page, Graham, who has kept up a steady stream of comments on the “gay”-rights agenda, brought up the subject again.
He noted Obama’s decision to promote homosexuality with colored lights at the White House after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 26 the Constitution grants same-sex couples a right to marriage.
“He had the gall to disgrace the White House by lighting it up with the gay pride rainbow colors,” Graham wrote. “This is arrogantly flaunting sinful behavior in the face of Almighty God. My advice? He might want to have some extra lightning rods installed on the roof of the White House.”
His complete statement: “A lot has changed in three short years! Just three years ago, the president was on record as holding to the biblical definition of marriage. Now he can’t say enough about his support for the LGBT agenda – and right after the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage, he had the gall to disgrace the White House by lighting it up with the gay pride rainbow colors to celebrate. This is arrogantly flaunting sinful behavior in the face of Almighty God. My advice? He might want to have some extra lightning rods installed on the roof of the White House.”
‘Go to hell’
Graham is not the only leader to warn God will judge a nation that openly and willfully flaunts what the Bible for millennia has defined as sin.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of the New York Times bestseller “The Harbinger” and the inspiration behind the “Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” movie, criticized the Supreme Court’s assumption that it has the authority to redefine marriage.
At a prayer event in Washington, he said: “The justices of the Supreme Court took up their seats [in a hearing] on whether they should strike down the biblical and historic definition of marriage. That the event should even take place is a sign this is America of [George] Washington’s warning … a nation at war against its own foundation.”
Washington warned the smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation “that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself hath ordained.”
“Justices, can you judge the ways of God? There is another court and there is another judge, where all men and all judges will give account,” he warned.
“If a nation’s high court should pass judgment on the Almighty, should you then be surprised God will pass judgment on the court and that nation? We are doing that which Israel did on the altars of Baal,” he said.
See Jonathan’s Cahn’s message at Washington: Man of Prayer event at the Capitol.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/legal-experts-by-dozens-want-resistance-to-marriage-ruling/#ZRWu3ptyO5jdqgXz.99My comments: SCOTUS, Obama, and the Democrats are godless, Socialist, Secular Humanists--Against God and His Word, and they are taking America to Hell. They are among those who will Worship the Beast of Revelation and receive his "mark," damning themselves to and Eternal Hell.
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