I do not want to sound like an alarmist. I know there are some who will say that the only reason I feel this way is because I am a sore loser. It is important for us to now draw a distinction between people who are complaining because they see their world slipping away and those who are trying to warn about potential problems based on certain policy positions of politicians like the President of the United States.
I have come to believe in recent years that the office of President of the United States is the most overrated job in most American’s minds. Sure there are powers that go with the office: the power to declare war, the power of the bully pulpit, the power to sign executive orders that have the force of law for up to eight years, and the power to pardon anyone for any reason. The most important power of the President is the power to appoint federal judges and the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
First of all, federal judgeships must be a great job because it seems that everyone who gets appointed serves until they are in their mid to late eighties—we should all be so lucky. Second, these men and women have the power to define who we are as a culture like never before. In the past couple of decades federal judges have become drafters of law rather than mere interpreters of law. This means that their power has expanded beyond anything most of us can imagine. The Court certainly has power expanded beyond what the founders ever envisioned.
For most legal issues this distinction does not come into play. It is really only important in matters of conscience and religion—issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.
We only have to look to California to see why this is important. The protest around the country against Proposition 8 in California that acknowledges the traditional definition of marriage as the only legal form of marriage—one man, one woman—shows the new nature of American law. When the people vote to overturn activist judges the elitist in our culture are not satisfied and immediately turn to the streets to see change. This is how change often comes to Europe.
The next step for proponents of same-sex marriage is to go back to the courts and have them declare the will of the people invalid for any of a number of reasons. The main reason this happens is the courts are willing to write law. The Supreme Court of California has already begun the process of reviewing Proposition 8 and its constitutionality under California law.
In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States decided to add language to the Constitution of the United States. The issue was abortion and the Court decided that on the edges of the Constitution, not in the actual written language of the document, there was a right to privacy. This right to privacy included the right for a woman to control her own body without concern for the nature of the baby growing inside her. And thus we have legalized abortion on a national level.
Now several state courts have tried to do the same thing with same-sex marriage. They have looked at their state constitutions and declared that the language of those documents does not limit marriage to heterosexual couples. This will change six thousand years of tradition. It will change tradition regardless of the will of the majority of the people of the country or the rule of law that has served us so well for over one hundred years.
Soon, if the make up of the Supreme Court changes with the appointment of more liberal justices, we will see these same types of decisions from the highest court in the country. Liberal justices and judges have already turned to European Courts to help shape their decisions when it was necessary to get around American legal precedent.
This is all because of the judges that serve in our judicial system.
Here is the president’s greatest real power to bring change. Here is the place where a president who does not march to the beat of mainstream America can bring lasting change to the country.
Add to this the fact that Obama and other liberals think that the courts and cultures of Europe are more enlightened and more in step with modern, enlightened man. They easily turn to the courts of Europe to change American law.
This is an important point to understand; judges appointed by conservative presidents typically believe that the Constitution is a static document that must be interpreted by what is said in the document. It does not grow, and therefore it should not be changed with the evolution of the times—particularly on the moral issues of the day, like abortion, same-sex marriage, and religious expression in public places.
Liberal presidents appoint judges who believe that the Constitution is a living document that must be interpreted according to the mores of the modern culture. Thus, the Constitution should be changed to match the enlightened views of morals of the day. Thus, abortion is found in the right to privacy which can be assumed to be in the document even though the right to privacy is never mentioned in the United States Constitution. Ultimately, marriage can be redefined because that is what enlightened people do.
The European Courts are ahead of us on these matters. That is why, just a few years ago, the Supreme Court turned to Europe to help do away with American sodomy laws when the law was clear and the precedent was clearly established under accepted American law and legal precedent.
The argument goes like this: Europeans are more advanced or enlightened on these moral issues and liberal judges, interested in writing law rather merely interpreting it, rightly look to European legal precedents in order to move America to a less Christian moral based country.
This approach to the law is nothing short of giving up our sovereignty—something we have fought to avoid since our inception.
This is what we should expect to see under an Obama Presidency. This is what will be the Obama Doctrine on judges and justices. It will move us toward courts that write law and move the culture away from traditional Christian values respecting life and marriage and toward more liberal, less Christian based moral views on a variety of key issues.
Activist courts will do something no one else has been able to do—they will override the expressed will of the people; they will force a new, modern morality on us. A morality free from the dictates of Christian absolutes.
The fight is coming; we voted with our pocketbooks, now we will pay with our moral core.