Tag Archives: Judge

Who killed marriage? A look at the history of gay marriage activism

From National Review, a reminder from Ed Whelan on which political party pushed for the redefinition of marriage.

Excerpt:

In 1996, defenders of marriage respond to judicial mischief against marriage by drafting and proposing the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA wins overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress—85 to 14 in the Senate and 342 to 67 in the House. Among its supporters are many strong advocates of gay rights, including President Clinton, who signs DOMA into law, and then-senator Joe Biden.

This modest measure merely reaffirms and makes crystal clear what Congress had always meant by the term marriage in provisions of federal law: a male-female union. DOMA doesn’t intrude at all on a state’s authority to regulate marriage under state law. It doesn’t nullify or prohibit any marriages, or in any other respect preempt the operation of state law. On the contrary, it leaves the states free to define, or redefine, marriage as they please.

Initial litigation attacks against DOMA fail. But then President Obama is elected. First, the Obama administration, with the complicity of then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan, actively sabotages its purported defense of DOMA. Then, on the flimsiest of pretexts, it completely abandons its duty to defend DOMA and aggressively attacks DOMA. (See Part IV of my House testimony on the “First” proposition and the remainder of it on the latter.) The Supreme Court ends up invalidating DOMA in an opinion by Justice Kennedy that, in the course of breaking new ground, smears supporters of DOMA as mean-spirited bigots. To top off the farce, Kagan provides the decisive fifth vote.

The battle for marriage in California displays a similar pattern. In 2000, California voters adopt Proposition 22 to affirm that marriage in California remains what it has always been—the union of a man and a woman. In May 2008, the state supreme court, in a novel opinion and by a 4-3 vote, strikes down Proposition 22 as supposedly violative of the state constitution. Marriage supporters respond with Prop 8, which the voters of California adopt in November 2008. Intense and vicious bullying of supporters of Prop 8 ensues.

Proponents of same-sex marriage then run to their favorite federal courthouse to challenge Prop 8 on federal constitutional grounds. They draw as the judge in the case Vaughn Walker, who proceeds to engage in what is probably the most egregious course of misconduct ever by a federal district judge (and who discloses only after his retirement from the bench that he is in a long-term same-sex relationship and thus was ruling on his own right to marry his same-sex partner). The Ninth Circuit ruling on appeal, which also holds Prop. 8 to be unconstitutional, is written by notorious liberal activist Stephen Reinhardt. Judge Reinhardt’s wife, Ramona Ripston, directed an ACLU affiliate that filed briefs in support of the Prop. 8 challengers in the same case and publicly rejoiced over Judge Walker’s ruling. Yet Judge Reinhardt somehow refuses to disqualify himself from deciding the appeal.

As reprehensible is the unprecedented refusal of California officials to defend Prop 8—a refusal that ultimately leads five members of the Supreme Court (including Kagan, the decisive vote once again) to rule that the Court has no jurisdiction over the case.

So Obama’s selection of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, a known opponent of marriage, was decisive. She was confirmed to the court in 2010, so you might expect all the church-attending people who supported Obama to not vote for him again in 2012. I wrote about her pro-abortion views and pro-gay-agenda views in 2010, so we all had the opportunity to realize what Obama believed by nominating Kagan. But something tells me that the church people who voted for Obama in 2008 just went ahead and voted for him a second time in 2012. Because they were not interested in his record at all. They were moved by shallowness and appearances.

One thing that I would like to say to people who attend church, but who voted for gay marriage activists. The Bibles in the pews are there for a reason. If you formulate your decision on how to vote without it, then that is not authentic Christianity. You should not vote without reading evidence from research (e.g. – scientific research like the Regnerus study) to confirm the Bible and apply the Bible. I don’t think that God is pleased with people who disregard his Word and the evidence that confirms it. You are not here to be influenced by Hollywood or by public schools. You are here to know God and to puzzle these moral questions out using evidence.

Gay man who captured, chained up and repeatedly raped boy gets 11 year sentence

From Sun News Canada.

Excerpt:

David James Leblanc, 48, was sentenced to 11 years in prison Friday after he previously pleaded guilty to charges including kidnapping, forcible confinement and sexual assault. He also pleaded guilty to charges in an earlier case involving the sexual assault of two young boys.

The teen’s mother said her son was prescribed anti-HIV drugs and anxiety medication after he was chained and raped by two men in a cabin in Upper Chelsea, a rural area about 125 km west of Halifax.

“If there’s anything good that can come from this sickening crime against my son it would be to have David James Leblanc declared a dangerous offender,” the mother said in her victim impact statement.

“He has been filled with such an overwhelming amount of despair and hopelessness and to have your 16-year-old child tell you through tears and sobs that he doesn’t want to live anymore.”

While she spoke, Leblanc rolled his eyes, sighed and shook his head.

[…]In September, Leblanc promised the teen a painting job.

The boy said Leblanc conned him into getting into a van in Halifax, and drove him to a cabin in Upper Chelsea, where he met Leblanc’s partner, Wayne Alan Cunningham.

Leblanc gave him alcohol and offered him money to see his penis, and the boy said he was marched into a bedroom, chained to the floor and sexually assaulted.

Over the next 10 days, the teen said he was sometimes chained standing with his arms above his head and other times locked to the bed while Cunningham and Leblanc took turns raping him.

It seems to me that the responsibility of the criminal court system is to protect the public from predators. How much does an 11-year sentence for kidnapping, forcible confinement and sexual assault deter future crimes like this one? Something tells me that if the victim had been a woman, and the perpetrator a straight white male, then that would have drawn a much longer sentence.

Convicted criminal commits burglary, murder and rape hours after early release from jail

Here’s a sad, graphic news story from the NY Daily News that should make us all pause and reconsider whether the left-wing compassion crowd is right about giving lighter sentences to criminals. (H/T Dennis Prager)

Excerpt:

A 24-year-old man charged with killing an elderly couple and raping their 2-year-old great-grandchild had been released early from prison just hours before the attacks, state officials said on Tuesday.

Jerry Active was arrested on Saturday by police and has been charged in the murders of Sorn Sreap, 71, and her husband, Touch Chea, 73, and the rape of the toddler they were babysitting that night. Active is also charged with raping Sreap.

The elderly victims’ bodies had signs of blunt-force trauma, but autopsies will determine the cause of death, the Anchorage Police Department said in a statement.

[…]Active, who had pleaded guilty to breaking into a Dillingham, Alaska, home in 2009 and sexually assaulting a child and other residents, was released from prison on probation on Saturday morning after serving part of a seven-year sentence, said Kaci Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Corrections.

Do me, cases like this make it very clear that we need to be tougher on criminals. This would never have happened if this guy had been given the death penalty instead of early release for “good behavior”. What would the compassion crowd say to evidence like this? My guess is that they would say that the victims of the crime need to be more tolerant of criminals and not be so judgmental and vindictive. After all, the victims probably caused the attack and the attacker is the real victim. That’s how people on the left think.