Ruth Institute Blog

When the so-called ‘justices’ of the California Supreme Court, in their ruling overturning Proposition 22, commanded the State to recognize same-sex ‘marriages’ immediately – in the face of warnings that those ‘marriages’ would be be the source of enormous legal confusion when Proposition 8 passed – it was a case of the judiciary attempting to deny the people their right to self-rule (Proposition 22 passed by 61%) and it was a very transparent attempt to influence the outcome of Proposition 8, and it was an obvious attempt to make the will of the people utterly irrelevant anyway by making same-sex so-called ‘marriage’ a fait accompli irrespective of any constitutional requirements. Read more…

From USA Today:

Three Iowa Supreme Court justices lost their seats Tuesday in a historic upset fueled by their 2009 decision that allowed same-sex couples to marry. Vote totals from 96% of Iowa’s 1,774 precincts showed Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit with less than the simple majority needed to stay on the bench. Their removal marked the first time an Iowa Supreme Court justice has not been retained since 1962, when the merit selection and retention system for judges was adopted.

People don’t appreciate judges legislating from the bench.

In a statement issued early Wednesday, the three justices said: “We hope Iowans will continue to support Iowa’s merit selection system for appointing judges. This system helps ensure that judges base their decisions on the law and the Constitution and nothing else. Ultimately, however, the preservation of our state’s fair and impartial courts will require more than the integrity and fortitude of individual judges, it will require the steadfast support of the people.”

It depends on your definition of “merit.” Other courts, state and federal, have failed to discover a right to same sex marriage. It is disingenous for these justices’ to try to brazen it out by claiming that they based “their decisions on the law and the Constitution and nothing else.” They are assuming the very thing that needs to be proven, and which Iowa voters believe cannot be proven, namely that there is an open and shut case for same sex marriage to be found in the Iowa Constitution.

I follow changes in the marriage debate across the country and around the world. I’m often surprised as I travel around that not everyone follows these things as closely as I do. So, one of my jobs is keeping ordinary people informed about strange goings-on in other parts of the country.

For instance, my audience in Kalamazoo Michigan last week was generally unaware that Iowa had same sex marriage. Yes, says I, same sex marriage in Iowa of all places. Judges did it in 2009 in a case called Varnum v Brien. I think it was a lousy decision.

So for the benefit of those new readers who joined the Ruth blog and the newsletter list in the last week or so, I am linking to a couple of articles I wrote about the Iowa same sex marriage decision when it was handed down. One of my articles was called “The Institution formerly Known as Marriage,” and was published by the Witherspoon Institute. The other was called, “How Marriage Lost in Iowa,” and was published in the National Catholic Register. If you have friends in Iowa, go ahead and forward these articles to them. Get their opinion of these articles and of the decision. I’d love to hear from some Hawkeyes about this!

The judges in Varnum v Brien made very clear what some of us have been saying for a long time: same sex marriage doesnt’ just let more people join in to the existing institution of marriage. Same sex marriage redefines marriage, downgrading its essential public purposes and leaving nothing but inessential private purposes. The judges in Varnum demonstrated this point, unwittingly, I am sure. Here is what I wrote about the case when it came out:

if the purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another, then the dual gender requirement is perfectly permissible. Same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are not the same with respect to this purpose. The Court had to come up with a very limited understanding of the purposes of marriage in order to maintain that opposite-sex and same-sex couples are in fact similarly situated. Read more…

The latest podcast is up–Dr J’s weekly Issues, Etc interview is one day early this week due to San Diego county’s June 8 elections.  She and Todd Wilken discuss judicial activism and how it’s given rise to many of the issues we’re hotly debating today in American government and culture.

Judicial Activism