Supreme Court ruling same sex marriage
Marking the opening of the new US Supreme Court term this week, a group of over 60 prominent legal scholars has issued a major statement declaring that the notorious ruling from the last Court term which purported to redefine marriage in theObergefell v Hodges case is "anti-constitutional and illegitimate" and should not be treated public officials or citizens as binding precedent or settled law. The scholars, including NOM co-founder Professor Robert George and Chairman Dr. John Eastman, said that the decision is, "lacking anything remotely resembling a warrant in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution" and "must be judged anti-constitutional and illegitimate." They called on the other branches of government and American citizens to refuse to treat the decision as binding precedent or consider it to have settled the law of the United States.
"We stand with James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in recognizing that the Constitution is not whatever a majority of Supreme Court justices say it is," said NOM's co-founder Professor Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and one of the authors of the statement. "We remind all officeholders in the United States that they are pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not the will of five members of the Supreme Court."
The legal scholars called on all state and federal officeholders:
· "To refuse to accept Obergefell as binding precedent for all but the specific plaintiffs in that case.
· To recognize the authority of states to define marriage, and the right of federal and state officeholders to act in accordance with those definitions.
· To pledge full and mutual legal and political assistance to anyone who refuses to follow Obergefell for constitutionally protected reasons.
· To open forthwith a broad and honest conversation on the means by which Americans may constitutionally resist and overturn the judicial usurpations evident in Obergefell."
The sixty-four legal scholars who signed the statement when issued (four others have since added their names) emphasized that the course they are advocating is neither extreme nor disrespectful of the rule of law, relating their position to that of President Lincoln who regarded the claim of supremacy for the Supreme Court in matters of constitutional interpretation as incompatible with the republican principles of the Constitution. Quoting from President Lincoln's first inaugural address, the scholars said that if Americans succumb to the idea of judicial supremacy, "the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
The statement from the scholars including NOM's Chairman, Dr. John Eastman (the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service, Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University) said, "To treat as "settled" and "the law of the land" the decision of five Supreme Court justices who, by their own admission, can find no warrant for their ruling in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution, would indeed be to resign our government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. That is something that no citizen or statesman who wishes to sustain the great experiment in ordered liberty bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be willing to do."
This statement from some of the top legal experts in America is a major development, one that will help focus attention on the utter lack of legal authority the Supreme Court had to redefine marriage. Since the moment the decision was issued last June, NOM has declared it to be illegitimate because it completely lacks any constitutional basis. It simply represents the desire of five justices to cast aside constitutional principles and millennia of understanding about marriage in order to gain favor with popular culture and powerful constituencies.
