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March 15, 2005

Another Attempted Coup by Judiciary: an Elected SF Judge Tries to Impose Gay Marriage on America

The majority of Americans oppose gay marriage.

The legislature of California enacted a law that says marriage is between a man and a woman.

But certain judges increasingly like to arrogate to themselves the ability to make the laws, rather than merely help ensure that existing laws are justly carried out. They don’t care what they people want or what laws the legislature has passed. Today a lower California court has ruled that gay marriage is just fine.

SAN FRANCISCO Gays and lesbians are entitled to marry under the California Constitution, a judge here ruled today in a decision that opponents to same-sex marriage vowed to appeal.

...The decision strikes down a provision of the state’s family law that limits marriage to “a man and a woman.”

If the majority of Americans don’t want it, too bad. If the legislature doesn’t want it, too bad. The liberal judge of this San Francisco court wants to force it on us.

His argument:

“No rational basis exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners,” wrote San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer.

Is that the standard now? Judges don’t have to seek a basis for their actions in the Constitution? They can ignore public opinion, and the laws officially passed, and just go by their own personal feelings of what’s “rational?” This is a land that has thrived under the rule of law. Those laws are passed by legislatures, and the job of the courts is to see that they are justly enforced—not to make them.

Judge Kramer was elected. He is trying to write a law that will appeal to those who elected him, so as to get re-elected. But this law he is seeking to write would affect all Americans, not just those in San Francisco.

The election of judges works very well when judges do what they’re supposed to do, making sure that existing laws are justly enforced. It helps ensure that the local people involved in a dispute feel that justice is being carried out. But when a judge like Kramer arrogates to himself the power to strike down a state law, on the basis of what is most in the interest of those who elected him, it is a grave miscarriage of justice.

Judges are not supposed to make law. If we let them have the power to do so, a local judge in San Francisco can make decisions that affect, not just those who elected him, and whose favor he is trying to curry, but all Californians and all Americans.

Such judges are abusing their power, their authority, and the public trust. They need to get out of the law-making business. Or we need to look into ways to get some new judges.

More comments on this important issue, as well as links to responses from around the blogosphere, are here, via Wizbang.