This may well be premature, but the award for Best Subject Line in the category Histrionic Email Blast in the wake of the grand-slam Prop 8 victory (ruling here) goes to Brian S. Brown of NOM:
“Federal Judge Rules Marriage Unconstitutional!”
I say this as kindly as is humanly possible: Brian, you idiot. Marriage is not unconstitutional. What is unconstitutional is your demand that our civil government define marriage in the same strained, narrow, unrealistic, exclusionary way that you do. This trial represented an open invitation and opportunity for your side to demonstrate before the world why your demand should be met. Your side failed to do that – because the evidence in support of your position simply doesn’t exist. You did your best, but you fell short. That is not anyone’s fault, because not even the best lawyer, or the best witness, can present evidence that isn’t there. As Judge Walker puts it with regard to the absolute best expert witness your side could come up with (in one of those 21-word sentences legal opinions seem to require when a five-word sentence would otherwise suffice) “His opinion lacks reliability, as there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion Blankenhorn proffered.”
Some also-rans (thanks for playing!):
Wendy Wright of “Concerned Women for America” gets it partially right; the ruling does indeed go beyond the issue of marriage equality and pointedly addresses the question of what our Constitution and Judicial branch of government are for. The answer to this question is one that those of a certain authoritarian bent have never been able to accept; in another context, “(w)here the Bill of Rights really has its value is as a check against the tyranny of the majority,” and this applies to the Constitution as a whole. The unintentionally revealing comment from Newt Gingrich is a case in point: “…judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.” Back to civics class, Mr. Gingrich. Please show us where in the Constitution it says that “the Judicial Branch shall be a rubber stamp for whatever happens to be the current proclivity of ‘the American people.'” What do you imagine the phrase “independent judiciary” to signify, if not independence from some obligation to uphold majority political opinion?
Such faux-conservative outrage over the failure of “unelected judges” to rubberstamp the prejudices of those who didn’t elect them is nothing new. “Movement conservatives” of the Goldwater era wanted to vaporize the Warren court and “restore constitutional government” in part because the freedom of white people to engage in racial discrimination was being abridged. Today’s faux-conservatives can bray all they like that this is completely different, but their objection is exactly the same: Having their demand for special rights rejected by “judges who oppose the American people.” And we cannot find a stronger illustration of their intention than that provided by Chuck Colson of the Loudoun-headquarted Prison Fellowship Ministries. His response is a fundamental rejection of our form of government, which includes three independent branches. It is, frankly, a call to sedition.
We have a winner
“Federal Judge Rules Marriage Unconstitutional!”
I say this as kindly as is humanly possible: Brian, you idiot. Marriage is not unconstitutional. What is unconstitutional is your demand that our civil government define marriage in the same strained, narrow, unrealistic, exclusionary way that you do. This trial represented an open invitation and opportunity for your side to demonstrate before the world why your demand should be met. Your side failed to do that – because the evidence in support of your position simply doesn’t exist. You did your best, but you fell short. That is not anyone’s fault, because not even the best lawyer, or the best witness, can present evidence that isn’t there. As Judge Walker puts it with regard to the absolute best expert witness your side could come up with (in one of those 21-word sentences legal opinions seem to require when a five-word sentence would otherwise suffice) “His opinion lacks reliability, as there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion Blankenhorn proffered.”
Some also-rans (thanks for playing!):
Wendy Wright of “Concerned Women for America” gets it partially right; the ruling does indeed go beyond the issue of marriage equality and pointedly addresses the question of what our Constitution and Judicial branch of government are for. The answer to this question is one that those of a certain authoritarian bent have never been able to accept; in another context, “(w)here the Bill of Rights really has its value is as a check against the tyranny of the majority,” and this applies to the Constitution as a whole. The unintentionally revealing comment from Newt Gingrich is a case in point: “…judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.” Back to civics class, Mr. Gingrich. Please show us where in the Constitution it says that “the Judicial Branch shall be a rubber stamp for whatever happens to be the current proclivity of ‘the American people.'” What do you imagine the phrase “independent judiciary” to signify, if not independence from some obligation to uphold majority political opinion?
Such faux-conservative outrage over the failure of “unelected judges” to rubberstamp the prejudices of those who didn’t elect them is nothing new. “Movement conservatives” of the Goldwater era wanted to vaporize the Warren court and “restore constitutional government” in part because the freedom of white people to engage in racial discrimination was being abridged. Today’s faux-conservatives can bray all they like that this is completely different, but their objection is exactly the same: Having their demand for special rights rejected by “judges who oppose the American people.” And we cannot find a stronger illustration of their intention than that provided by Chuck Colson of the Loudoun-headquarted Prison Fellowship Ministries. His response is a fundamental rejection of our form of government, which includes three independent branches. It is, frankly, a call to sedition.