NJ And You

Perfectly liberal. The problem isn't even the result, it's how they get there. Apparently now the Courts get to instruct the legislature what laws to write and when to write them.

No activism there, not much. Unfortunately, NJ is such a wasteland of Liberalism, I doubt they'll even challenge the ruling. As long as the lame ass politicians here get to keep their hand in the till, they'll run along and do precisely what the court dictates. Why should they care about separation of powers so long as the corrupt cash keeps flowing their way?

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual couples.

But the court left it to the Legislature to determine whether the state will honor gay marriage or some other form of civil union.

Advocates on both sides of the issue believed the state posed the best chance for gay marriage to win approval since Massachusetts became the only state to do so in 2003 because the New Jersey Supreme Court has a history of extending civil rights protections.

Instead, the high court stopped short of fully approving gay marriage and gave lawmakers 180 days to rewrite marriage laws to either include gay couples or create new civil unions.

Comments

[Fred Beloit]

Well, one must leave the arena sometime. It has been very thought-provoking and stimulating to participate in an elevated discussion such as we had today. Well, stimulating at any rate. Perhaps one day we can all realize we are Americans together and love each other again. One only hopes that it won't take an A-bomb on one of our cities to make this dream come true. May you all find and secure happiness.

[Phoenix]

Queenie,

"completely untrue by any wild stretch of history or reality." Wrong. It is true. (The nookie part I made up. Of course, anyone reading that would know that. I guess I actually have to tell you that as your mind is about as creative as a rock.) Though, I have little doubt I'm not far off the mark. If not sex, then dinner, at least. ha ha...

And please do not bother with any history lessons. Although, it might be fun to challenge you to do an era *without* interjecting any political bias into the events......

[Fred Beloit]

Oh dear, I was on my way out but don't want to be rude and not reply, yyy. My President may be opposed to gay marriage. But he is not involved in a discussion of gay marriage and the courts because, as you so serendipitously pointed out in your recent civics lesson, his job is to enforce the laws. If I am correct there is now no federal law against gay marriage. Therefore, he has no role in enforcing one. Further, he is not partaking of this discussion. And so I must perforce (pardon my redundancy) conclude, rightly or wrongly, he is not involved.

[Shalimar]

Hey Dan, I thought you were someone who treated everyone equally and it was the evil liberals who were anti-gay? I guess not.

[Tulkinghorn]

"
Oh, bullshit. You and I both know that when the document was written, the authors had absolutely no intention of granting the alleged right in question.

Posted by: Dan Riehl | Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 08:55 AM "

So you are going to ignore the plain text and will rather put yourself in the supposed mind of the archetypal 18th century founder, and will interpret the text in light of the prejudices you suppose that founder had? Maybe you are going to filter through that recreated mind everything society has learned over the last 200 years, as well? Nice black box there buddy; I like how you get to pull whatever result you like out of it.

THAT is activism! You are just making shit up and using the old "original intent" ruse for cover. Scalia retreated from that position 30 years ago - I admire your bravery in claiming it now.

[Tulkinghorn]

Jaime:

Teh Declaration of Independence talks poetically about "men". The Constitution refers only to 'persons'.

[Jane]

"Of course "your" president is involved, he's against gay marriage isn't he?"

MY president takes pretty much the same position as the NJ Supreme Court. Funny how people who hate him are clueless about what he actually says. I guess that makes all that hate so much easier.

[jaime]

OK so all this is proving my point.

HOW CAN JUDGES JUST CHANGE MEANING OF WORDS?

My response was they're not changing, they are interpreting and clarifying. Freddyboy took out his dictionary to prove that one word can mean different things. But you can not wholesale change blue to pencil. You can have a different interpretation of what a 'civil right' is and that can change over time. It's not the judiciary's job to hold up your white christian middle class middle american Walt Disney version of tradition. You're just gonna have to live with that.

Or, you can threaten to shoot a judge in the face or force him to lose his job, if he doesn't rule in favor of what George Bush's political base prefers.

[larry]

good god, what a crock.

there ya go, folks. directly overhead, left-wing *logic* and their true, secret, actual, sinister agenda revealed for all to see.

item 1: no, they're not 'changing' the words. they're merely 'interpreting' and 'clarifying' them. ignore that man behind the curtain! nothing to see here! just interpretation and clarification going on, not wholesale attacks on the foundations of western society! move along, move along.

item 2: the actual agenda. as noted above, the left finds it difficult to make massive changes in the long-accepted status quo, in their neverending fight to topple western civilization. ergo - as the lefty above (shockingly) admits: incrementalization. just a little bit at a time, and always ALWAYS keep coming back for more. when faced with an intractable foe, and a policy that no one will ever vote for, try to get just a 5% nudge towards your goal. jusr 5%, sounds reasonable, right? who could argue over a lousy 5%?

and lo and behold, in 15 or so years, you've gotten your entire agenda passed. (passed by the courts, of course, not the legislature, but liberals don't care. the rubes will DO as they're TOLD!)

polisci 101, courtesy of lenin and others. you might wanna bookmark it: the left doesn't admit it very often.

[jaime]

What entire agenda? Do you feel pissed that you can't tie gays to fence posts anymore and beat them to death.

All this piss and vinegar Larry and you're still too much of a coward to take a bullet for this country.

[Officious_Pedant]

larry opines:

item 1: no, they're not 'changing' the words. they're merely 'interpreting' and 'clarifying' them. ignore that man behind the curtain! nothing to see here! just interpretation and clarification going on, not wholesale attacks on the foundations of western society! move along, move along.

That's cute. You do realize, I hope, that judges have to interpret the law, don't you? The Framers were aware of it. Alexander Hamilton, for one, wrote:

"The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents."

Your argument proceeds from the basis that laws passed by the legilators are, by default, fair, representative of all the people, and Constitutional. (Oddly, you don't seem to recognize that laws themselves stem from legislators interpreting the will of their constituency.) Unfortunately, for you, the Founders knew this to be a fallacy. That the minority could, and most likely would, be subject to the tyranny of the majority, so they gave the courts the authority to protect the people from their government. Then limited the scope to only cases brought before them. It's that whole "petition for redress of grievances" thing.

[Rhymes With Right]

You folks miss a minor detail with the decision -- while the case was 4-3, the minority opinion did not want to leave the definition of marriage as it has been, No, they objected to giving the legislature 180 days to decide between marriage and civil unions, and instead demanded that the court IMPOSE gay marriage by judicial fiat, like in Massachusetts.

[jaime]

"IMPOSE gay marriage by judicial fiat, like in Massachusetts."

So you're forced to marry a guy? Oh, you're marriage will now collapse? Wait. No. Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh will now have a marriage that lasts. No...

I'm sorry, what is being imposed on YOU?

[larry]

officious, i appreciate your well-written, non-hysterical, reasoned arguments (as opposed to that despicable racist jaime), and you quoted a founding father to boot!

so ok, let's give it a shot. while hamilton did indeed seem to be calling for (some) judicial interpretation of laws, A) there's nothing he's written that would seem to indicate he'd approve of 4 or 5 robe-wearing lawyers thrusting upon society a policy that society didn't approve of, had long viewed as immoral, and didn't vote for. my reading of hamilton is that he saw judges able to block certain laws - not imposing them by judicial fiat. B) and hamilton, is, after all, just 1 of the founders. i haven't read much that would indicate the others thought quite so highly of judicial tampering in the lawmaking process. maybe that's why they went and had him WHACKED. C) i highly doubt you'd be quite so approving of the activist judges if 5 of them got together and decided that henceforth....oh.....henceforth all illegal aliens could have all their money and property summarily confiscated , as a national security issue.

i rather suspect you'd be among those loudly decrying excessive judicial power were that to happen.

then too, after careful review, i *still* can't find the part in the constitution where it says the supremes are the final arbiters of a laws constitutionality. much less the part where they get to order the legislature around. if i remember my history rightly, that "right" was just appropriated for themselves by.....5 or 6 lawyers wearing robes.

who the heck elected THOSE guys? the answer would be, "nobody did". which is my problem with them.

[Officious Pedant]

No worries, Larry, I'm here for you.

For instance, while it took a great deal of digging, I found this rather esoteric and poorly refenced section in the Constitution:

Section 2.

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects."

While the really pertinent stuff is buried in the first line, I'm sure you get my point. Particularly when you realize that the only power they were granted, while nearly absolute, was to compare the law before them to the law of the land.

And I have disagreed with no few SCOTUS decisions of late, not to mention appointments, I get the reality of a generational court. In the same way equal parts agitation and patience, and a heaping mound of violence, were required to defeat slavery. I endure the set backs as part of the cost of addressing bad law in the only place you can; the courts.

Do you honestly think they used the words "...power shall extend to all cases..." and then meant for them to be silent observers to a process with which they could not interfere? That seems...silly. It's almost as if John Adams knew that when he appointed Marshall to the position of Chief Justice, huh?

Maybe a clue can be found here:

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch17s22.html

24 Oct. 1787Papers 10:207--15

"Yet wherever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy. Even the Boundaries between the Executive, Legislative & Judiciary powers, though in general so strongly marked in themselves, consist in many instances of mere shades of difference. It may be said that the Judicial authority under our new system will keep the States within their proper limits, and supply the place of a negative on their laws."

The Papers of James Madison. Edited by William T. Hutchinson et al. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1962--77 (vols. 1--10); Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977--(vols. 11--).

I'm pretty sure James managed to avoid getting whacked, too.