Tag Archives: 9th Circuit

News

Liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules traditional marriage unconstitutional

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Here’s the news from Big Government.

Excerpt:

Today, the 9th Circuit upheld the absurd ruling of Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, striking down Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that would uphold traditional marriage in the state. The ruling itself was highly political and in no way legally oriented. “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians,” wrote the Court, “and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior… the Constitution simply does not allow for ‘laws of this sort.’”

National Review assesses the decision to overrule the will of the people with the feelings and intuitions of two judges.

Excerpt:

2. For [Judge] Reinhardt, “‘marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults.” (P. 37.) The right to marry that the state supreme court conferred on same-sex couples “symbolize[d] state legitimization and social recognition of their committed relationships.” (P. 5.)

Notice what’s missing from Reinhardt’s description? Any recognition that the very institution of marriage arose and exists in order to encourage responsible procreation and childrearing.

3. On pages 56-63, Reinhardt does confront the argument that Prop 8 advances California’s interest in procreation and childrearing, but his analysis is badly flawed:

a. Reinhardt first undertakes to address the argument that “children are better off when raised by two biological parents and that society can increase the likelihood of that family structure by allowing only potential biological parents—one man and one woman—to marry.” But he somehow finds it dispositive that Prop 8 “had absolutely no effect on the ability of same-sex couples to become parents or the manner in which children are raised in California.” What he utterly ignores is that it is eminently reasonable to believe that the less marriage is centered around the concerns of responsible procreation and child-raising, the less well marriage will serve those goals. That’s an elementary lesson about mission confusion.

The redefinition of marriage to encompass same-sex couples fatally severs the link between marriage and procreation. That’s why Reinhardt has to misdescribe marriage (see point 2).

Over at Caffeinated Thoughts, Shane has the reactions from the two social conservatives still running in the Republican primary.

Excerpt:

Rick Santorum while campaigning in Missouri today said:

Today’s decision by the 9th Circuit is another in a long line of radical activist rulings by this rogue circuit – and it is precisely why I have called for that circuit to be abolished and split up. Marriage is defined and has always been defined as ‘one man and one woman.’ We simply cannot allow 50 different definitions of marriage.

The people of California spoke clearly at the ballot box that they wanted marriage defined in the traditional manner of one man and one woman. And for a court, any court, to usurp the power and will of the people in this manner on an issue this fundamental to the foundation of our society is wrong.

We need to have a Judicial Branch that acts within its Constitutional bounds. We need to have a President that is willing to stand up to the Judiciary. We need to have a President who will fight to protect marriage once and for all with a federal marriage amendment. I am committed to being that President.

Newt Gingrich blasted today’s decision as well:

With today’s decision on marriage by the Ninth Circuit, and the likely appeal to the Supreme Court, more and more Americans are being exposed to the radical overreach of federal judges and their continued assault on the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States.

I was drawn back into public life by the Ninth Circuit’s 2002 decision that held that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were unconstitutional. Today’s decision is one more example that the American people cannot rest until we restore the proper rule of the judicial branch and bring judges and the Courts back under the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States begins with “We the People”; it does not begin with “We the Judges”. Federal judges need to take heed of that fact.

Federal judges are substituting their own political views for the constitutional right of the people to make judgments about the definition of marriage.

Ben Shapiro thinks that defending marriage will be a winning issue in the general election for Republicans.

Excerpt:

President Obama has been able to elude the question of same-sex marriage overall. His slippery rhetoric indicates that he’s pro-civil unions but anti-same sex marriage but is “evolving.” This ruling will force him to take a side. He will likely attempt to suggest that this is a decision best left to the courts, but he’s never taken that position before – see, for example, campaign finance reform. It’s unlikely that the gay community or the religious community will allow him to get away with that.

If Obama is forced to answer for his position on same-sex marriage, he will be in serious trouble come election time. He is already suffering from low approval ratings among religious groups, and just this week he alienated Catholics with the Health and Human Services announcement that birth control coverage would be required from Catholic employers. Minority voters, especially Latinos and blacks, are anti-same sex marriage as a rule (which is why Prop. 8 passed in the first place – many blacks showed up to vote for Obama in California and voted in favor of traditional marriage at the same time).

While the press likes to complain about the right wing on social issues, the fact remains that same-sex marriage is not a popular movement in key states for Obama. In Florida, for example, 53% believe that same-sex marriage should not be legal, as compared to 37% who believe it should be; in Ohio, that split is 53% to 33%; in Pennsylvania, it’s 51% to 38%. Overall, Americans are moving in the direction of same-sex marriage (a Pew poll showed that Americans now approve same-sex marriage by a 46-44 margin), but older people and nonwhites are particularly against it (just 39% of nonwhites support same-sex marriage). In short, this is not a winning issue for Obama.

I think Rick Santorum is more persuasive than Newt Gingrich on the marriage issue, because marriage is Santorum’s core. He forms his economic policy around marriage and parenting. Mitt Romney actually has a record of opposition to traditional marriage. Ron Paul has a record of opposition to traditional marriage. Neither of them could be counted on to defend traditional marriage at the federal level.

My secular case against same-sex marriage is here, in case you find yourself debating the issue.

News

Four radicals left-wingers nominated to federal judgeships

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From Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Here’s one of the nominations:

Radical law professor Goodwin Liu was also renominated. As lawyer Ted Frank noted in the Washington Examiner, Liu once claimed that racial quotas are not merely permitted, but constitutionally “required.”  If confirmed, Liu would sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a sharply-divided federal appeals court with jurisdiction over a whopping one-fifth of the American people. Liu wrongly argued in the past that the Constitution requires some forms of welfare, although he denied supporting such a constitutional right to welfare in his more recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he experienced a politically-convenient confirmation conversion after his nomination became controversial.  Although Liu briefly worked for a law firm, Liu has no experience actually trying cases, despite the fact that judges are supposed to have “substantial courtroom and trial experience” (a fact that did not keep the staunchly liberal ABA, which shares Liu’s ideology, from supporting his nomination despite his lack of this basic qualification).   Liu has claimed that “‘free enterprise, private ownership of property, and limited government” are right-wing concepts and ideological “code words.” Liu is also a big user of politically-correct psychobabble, writing that a judge is supposed to be a “culturally situated interpreter of social meaning” rather than an impartial umpire who interprets the law in accord with its plain meaning or its framers’ intent.

What does the Heritage Foundation say about Goodwin Liu?

Excerpt:

Liu has a strong penchant for redistribution, and it is clear that he believes judges should play a role in it.  In an article titled, “Rethinking Constitutional Welfare Rights,” he lays out his vision for the creation of a constitutional right to welfare.  He desires a “reinvigorated public dialogue” about “our commitments to mutual aid and distributive justice across a broad range of social goods.”  Once this dialogue takes place among policymakers, Liu wants the courts to recognize “a fundamental right to education or housing or medical care…as an interpretation and consolidation of the values we have gradually internalized as a society.”In another article, he stated that “negative rights against government oppression” and “positive rights to government assistance” have “equal constitutional status” because “both are essential to liberty.”

Why would Obama want judges like these? Probably so that he can pass un-Constitutional legislation like Obamacare, that forces healthy people to buy medical insurance for things like abortions. He wants people who are pro-life to be forced to buy medical insurance for things that are completely voluntary, because he wants to appease his buddies at Planned Parenthood – they make money off of every abortion. The only thing in his way is that pesky Constitution.