Other Columns by Doug Patton
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Liberals can barely contain their glee as they feign concern for the nation's security, even as they compromise it. Meanwhile, President Bush claims that recent leaks published in The New York Times are a much greater threat than any perceived violations of civil liberties resulting from domestic spying on Americans known to be communicating with terrorists.

Both miss the point that the courts continue to be the worst abusers of our rights. From abortion to homosexual marriage, from infringement of religious freedoms to abuses of eminent domain, for the last four decades, the erosion of our constitutional liberties has come not from the executive branch but from the judiciary. A few examples:

The courts foisted upon America a holocaust of abortion with 1973's Roe vs. Wade decision. In 2000, in a 5-4 ruling in Carhart vs. Stenberg, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Nebraska's ban on the gruesome procedure known as partial birth abortion. In 2003, President Bush signed a federal ban into law, but federal judges immediately barred its implementation.

Atheist Michael Newdow sued on behalf of his daughter, whom Newdow said should not be subjected to the Pledge of Allegiance at her public school. In the now-infamous case, a three-judge panel from the radical Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that recitation of the Pledge in public schools is unconstitutional because the words "under God" violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

Lawrence vs. Texas has a greater potential for disrupting the legal and moral order of American society than any ruling in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. This case struck down Texas' anti-sodomy laws and declared that consenting adults have a "right" to perform homosexual acts. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the high court has established a "right" to same-sex marriage. Can such a decision be far behind?

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America have a right to free association, radical groups have declared war on the Scouts. The ACLU sued the Boy Scouts and the City of San Diego, demanding that Federal Judge Napoleon Jones ban them from using a public park in that city. Incredibly, Judge Jones agreed, saying that the Scouts' exclusion of homosexuals and atheists makes them as a religious organization, and therefore they can no longer use the park.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that a monument depicting the Ten Commandments, placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court by Chief Justice Roy Moore, had to be removed. Judge Moore refused to comply. Federal officials first shrouded the monument like a porno magazine in a convenience store, and then finally wheeled it out of public view altogether. The U.S. Supreme Court, which felt obligated to interject itself into state law on the issues of abortion in Nebraska and sodomy in Texas, refused to review this decision.

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