Other Columns by Mike Bayham
Mike Bayham Bio

Printer-Friendly Version

The NJ Supremes Strike Again
By Mike Bayham
October 27, 2006

On behalf of conservatives across the nation, I would like to offer my most profound thanks to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

When word got out that the seven robed wise-guys and gals of Trenton were on the verge of making a decision on a case involving gay marriage, I knew they would not disappoint me and millions of other Republicans hoping to retain control of the Congress on November 7th.

I never once doubted their willingness to splash a few dabs of white-out and scribble some text into New Jersey's constitution. After all, there's excellent precedent for legal outrageousness with their 2002 ruling that ignored state law pertaining to replacing a party nominee on the ballot in deference to the state Democrats' panic-attack over then-US Senator Bob Torricelli's spiraling poll numbers.

My appreciation for their efforts to remind the voters the judicial lunacy that is part and parcel of Democrats' liberal social agenda will no doubt provide an edge to many Republican candidates in tight House and Senate races and make competitive those contests where GOP nominees are running significantly behind.

Back in 2004, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and a host of other local officials did wonders for President Bush's re-election prospects when they went merrily about marrying anyone to anybody without legal sanction.

Eventually the same-sex marriages they officiated over were thrown out along with any hope harbored by the national Democrats to win over that vast stretch of America known to them as "flyover land".

This appalling ruling marks the latest fiat issued by an activist judiciary forcing policy upon a state government, irrespective and contemptuous of the right of the New Jersey legislature to enact laws providing same-sex marriages or for that matter any other issue they deem a right.

It's not just that the court antagonized a majority of Americans who believe marriage should be reserved for couples of opposite natural genders. On that count, the court most certainly did.

(In light of the recent legal settlement between a transgender plaintiff and the New York City MTA over the right of individuals who dress like the opposite sex to enter their choice of either men's or women's restrooms, it is now important to delineate a person's original God/Darwin-made gender in such discussions.)

In addition to attacking traditional Judeo-Christian values and the millennia-old concept of marriage is a blast against constitutional-representative government from the unelected branch of the political troika that becomes increasingly out of balance with every mandate issued by power-gobbling turkeys in robes.

If the voters, legislature and governor of New Jersey wish to allow persons of the same gender to marry or form civil unions, it should become codified the same way the state's domestic partnership law was enacted.

However, for a judicial panel to treat marriage as a right, which it isn't, and then throw out an ambiguous order for the legislature to "do something" to appease the court's whims is reprehensible despite similar extralegal logic being accepted practice of judges from the Massachusetts State Supreme Court to the Ninth "Circus" Court of Appeals on the west coast.

Liberal judges have just about rendered the concept of constitutional government an anachronism to say nothing of the need to totally rework the Schoolhouse Rock classic "I'm Just a Bill" in order to make it conform to how "things" become laws in this day and age.

If Republicans are able to pick up the New Jersey US Senate seat, thus locking up minimum retention of Congress' upper chamber, the "2006 Gavin Newsom Award for Liberal Political Excess in an Election Year" should be presented to the New Jersey Supreme Court for giving a heads up to voters the consequences of entrusting government to Democrats.

--------------------

Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.