David

Karki

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April 8, 2009

The Iowa Supreme Court's Thuggery

Last Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court, in a unanimous 7-0 decision, appointed themselves dictators of the consciences of all Iowans in forcing them to recognize gay “marriages”. In spite of their oaths to uphold both the U.S. and Iowa state constitutions, they blatantly violated both by usurping the power of the legislature and crushing the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Iowa to freedom of speech, religion, association and conscience.

The subject matter of the decision is not what matters most here, and I urge readers to put it aside for a moment and not get caught up in that to the point that the larger and more important point here is missed. The court could have been ordering anything into existence, and it would have been an equally heinous assault on the rule of law. No court has the authority to appoint itself sole arbiters of such things, placing themselves above both the people and the elected government of Iowa as a black-robed super-legislature.

And they certainly don't have the prerogative to effectively grab Iowans by the lapels, shake them and scream “you will acknowledge (fill in the blank) because we say so!” This is essentially what they said in their 69-page pile of blather and gobbledygook masquerading as a coherent legal ruling. For example, I quote from page 16-17: “The point in time when the standard of equal protection finally takes a new form is a product of the conviction of one, or many, individuals that a particular grouping results in inequality and the ability of the judicial system to perform its constitutional role free from the influences that tend to make society’s understanding of equal protection resistant to change.” What in the bloody blue hell does any of that mean?

The only thing that separates civilization from anarchy is the rule of law. There are specific procedures to follow, which keep power from getting out of hand and protect all of us from tyranny. Allow these processes to be steamrolled, and you have dictatorship – in this case, anyone who wishes to freely decide for themselves what they think about homosexual relationships will have their decision dictated to them.

Now this may not seem like a big deal to some, but once this genie has escaped the bottle it cannot be put back. Nor will it ever stop. Once we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and allowed the rule of law to be destroyed – be that due to the subject matter involved, or belief that we lack standing to criticize, or what have you – we are all in danger. What is to keep anybody from being the next target of such an untethered, all-powerful body? We cannot get so caught up in tangential matters nor so distracted by selfish interest in this or that specific policy outcome that we miss this or simply don't care.

Vermont, whatever else one may think about that state, is at least going about the issue in the right way. They are debating a bill in their state legislature, during which citizens can weigh in through their elected representatives. Should the outcome be other than what some want, the people are free to attempt to replace those legislators who voted other than how they may have liked. And if that proves unsuccessful, one can always move out of Vermont to another state to escape a law one finds morally wrong or with which one strongly disagrees, whatever the reason.

That ability to decide for oneself, be it with feet or voice or actions, is what the Iowa Supreme Court has stomped all over. And that ability is the same thing that a similar pursuit by liberal forces at the U.S. Supreme Court would perpetrate upon all of us. For all they wax rhapsodic about “the privacy of your bedroom,” those who would make judges into modern-day monarchs don't give a damn about the privacy of your mind, heart and conscience. And they have no problem trashing any legal or constitutional limitation that gets in the way of forcibly remaking society as they think it ought to be.

The entire Iowa Supreme Court should be immediately impeached for having abused the power of their offices to violate the First Amendment right of each individual Iowan to decide for him or herself what they will and won't legally recognize, as well as seizing the power of the legislative branch of government for itself, and in so doing flagrantly violating their oaths of office.

The self-congratulatory judicial thugs who patted themselves on the back (see pages 17-18 of the ruling) for having so trashed that which they swore to uphold are: Iowa Chief Justice Marsha K. Ternus; and associate justices Mark S. Cady (author of the opinion); Michael J. Streit, David Wiggins, Daryl Hecht, Brent R. Appel and David L. Baker.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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