The granting of marriage licenses to homosexual couples by the order of the mayor of San Francisco and the issuing of the court order by the Massachusetts Supreme Court to force the Massachusetts Legi
Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 4, 2004
These actions, literally from coast to coast, have brought clarity to the danger that America is facing … a danger some think is more sinister than the threats we face from terrorism.
The actions of our own elected officials and our own judiciary are bringing about the demise of the rule of law and putting in jeopardy our most fundamental freedom, our right to self-government.
There is no better example of this than the case in California.
By issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples Mayor Gavin Newsome of San Francisco is directly violating the California law that declares that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.
Not only do his actions violate the law, but they also clearly deprive the people of California of their constitutional right to self-government.
After all, it was the people of California who created that law by a referendum that passed with over 60 percent support.
Yet neither California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Attorney General Bill Lockyer have as of yet done anything to uphold California law.
In addition, the state circuit court has allowed the mayor to continue his illegal activity unimpeded.
Am I mistaken, or didn’t the governor, the attorney general and the circuit court judges all take an oath of office that they would uphold California’s laws?
The situation clear across the country in Massachusetts is just as egregious.
There, the state Supreme Court is not only violating state law, it is violating the very state constitution it swore to uphold.
By ordering the state Legislature to legalize homosexual marriage, the court blatantly violated the right of Massachusetts citizens to representative government.
Moreover, the court is also violating the clear separation of powers that exists in its state constitution.
Contrast the actions of these public officials with the actions of Judge Roy Moore, the ousted chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who refused to obey a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judiciary building.
Moore based his actions on his view that the federal court order was a breech of state sovereignty and therefore a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Yet, despite his principled position, the activists who opposed the display of the Ten Commandments argued vehemently that he was obliged to respect the law and obey the court order.
You may think there is no connection here, but consider this: the same forces against the display of the Ten Commandments are at work defending the right of the mayor of San Francisco to illegally issue marriage licenses to homosexuals.
The same forces that applauded the removal of Chief Justice Moore are aligned behind Mayor Newsome.
The very same groups that demanded respect for the rule of law in Moore’s case are blowing it off in California.
Our system of government depends on our citizens and our governing authorities, whether elected or appointed, obeying and upholding the law.
It is important to note that there is a distinction between “obeying and upholding” that creates a specific obligation.
While we as citizens are all required to submit to (obey) the law and its authority, governing officials have taken an oath to uphold the law, that is, to defend it against its opponents.
But instead of defending the law, an ever-increasing number of public officials are violating it with impunity.
We are facing a tremendous loss of respect for the law by the public if those who are responsible for upholding it continue to refuse to enforce the law or do not obey it themselves.
In fact, public officials’ failure to enforce the law has already fostered a strategy among law-breaking citizens that simply ignores the law, that says in effect … until you stop us we will push the limits on pornography … until you stop us we will push the limits on gambling expansion … until you stop us we will push the limits on homosexuality.
By imposing their own standards, which are characteristically anti-religion and anti-tradition, the courts have taken away our constitutional right to self-government and declared that, at least on some issues, self-government is “unconstitutional.”
Judges across the nation have used the U.S. Constitution and the state constitutions to make the judiciary the superior branch of government making everyone else subservient to them.
They have denied the claim of the Declaration of Independence that the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” are superior to the laws of men.
They have assumed for themselves the power to call good “evil” and evil “good.”
When judges rule as they have in Massachusetts, it is tyranny; when elected officials violate the law as they have in California with no consequences, it is anarchy; when those charged with upholding and enforcing the law do nothing, it is dereliction of duty.
And when we as citizens sit in silence and do nothing, it is surrender.