What with my previous, less than flattering posts here about the past decisions of the Supreme Court of Washington State, I have to say a big thank you to the Justices for their 5-4 decision yesterday in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act.
As I said yesterday, as well as previous to that, courts have no right in writing law, only in interpreting it. This decision will lead to a more peacable State of Washington, in regards to this issue. It has shown those who wish to push the politics they can’t get passed via the people through the judiciary that they will have to actually do some legwork to legalize same-sex marriages is Washington.
In fact, if they would only try to get a Citizens Initiative movement going, not only would I sign the petition, when it made it to the ballot, I would vote for it.
Here in Washington, only around 250,000 signatures are necessary to get an Initiative onto the ballot, and if the organizers of this issue cannot get that many signatures, what with the Pride Parade right before singature turn in time, then they really should just STFU about it.
Which really makes me wonder whether it was laziness or if they really don’t think the votes, since they tried to push it through the courts first.
The news story about the decision is here
There are a number of briefs on this decision, due to a number of justices deciding to not only sign onto the brief of the side they decided with, but also their own. It is a bit dry, but if you’re interested, they are here in pdf form.
“Which really makes me wonder whether it was laziness or if they really don’t think the votes, since they tried to push it through the courts first.”
This one is easy, AK. The courts are the first choice because they have been perverted so far out of their traditional roles of adjudication and into legislation from the bench that they are the go-to legislative mode for any radical idea.
In the Next Republic, we’re going to have to work very hard, when we draft the Second Constitution, to prevent this sort of line-crossing by the Judicial Branch. The Vox Populi must be heard, and laws must derive from it, but the ONLY proper role for the judiciary is interpretation/correction of the language of legislation, and never of the intent.
When we do all the forefather’s work again, we will have to make sure that intent of properly-passed legislation is NEVER altered.
Personally, I think that the way to accomplish this is to require citizen juries instead of permanent judges.