Mitt Romney Condemns Prop 8 Verdict, Claims Judges Misinterpreted Constitution
On Tuesday, the LGBT community scored a victory for equality when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriage in California. Not long after the ruling was handed down, Mitt Romney, eager to pander to ultra conservative anti-gay hate groups, made a statement, condemning the decision.
“Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”
The problem with Mitt’s statement is that the judges did indeed correctly interpret the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about marriage. It does not say that straight couples are the only ones who can marry, nor does it say that homosexuals can’t get married. What the Constitution does say is that everyone has the right to personal liberty, privacy, and equality under the law. Laws that ban consenting adults from marrying violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution. In other words, the judges made the right call. So basically, Romney is promising to appoint judges who will consistently misinterpret the Constitution, which is similar to what Newt Gingrich has promised to do.
Laws against same-sex marriage are similar to laws that once banned interracial marriages in the South. The Supreme Court struck all of them down. If the court remains faithful to precedent and the correct interpretation of the Constitution, the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court should be upheld by the nation’s highest court.
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Author: Stephen D. Foster Jr.
1:00 pm
Isin’t it kind of ironic that he would choose to use the word “prejudices” while speaking about how he would deny others rights? He really doesn’t have a clue as to how and why our constitution was set up the way it is, does he? His beliefs have more in common with the Taliban than with Jefferson. Him and Santorum are pandering to the christian taliban and have no right to claim any love for the freedoms in this country. Their whole agenda is all about what they will restrict. They are just hypocrites and their supporters fit into one or more of three catagories… religio-fascists who believe everyone should live by their rules, ignorant, lazy sheep that don’t bother to look at and take the time to understand the consequenses of what they actually SAY, or the ones that just can’t get past the fact that a BLACK MAN (gasp) actually got elected. (must have been some kind of fraud) given the congressonal republicans willingness to put the whole country into the toilet to keep him from doing anything good to get credit for, he has done an amazing amount to pull us out of the mess bush left us in. If we could get a democratic congress in to back him up, we will be back on top in no time.Put one of these clowns in, and we will be a third works nation where the top 5% owns almost 75% of the wealth. (Oh wait, we have that now…never mind)
12:24 pm
Memo to candidate Romney: Federal judges are unelected, and that is a good thing because we want them to make legally correct decisions, even if they are politically unpopular. The will of the people of California (actually a very narrow majority of 52%) cannot deny the Constitutional rights of minorities. You (Romney) are lying when you say that you will appoint judges who will interpret the Constitution as it was written. You want judges who will apply the Constitution the way you think it should be applied, regardless of how it was written. I don’t know if the 9th Circuit was correct in their ruling. However, I’m sick of politicians like Romney, who apparently doesn’t know squat about things like due process and equal protection undermining our legal system just to try to get votes.