August 9, 2010 5:54 AM

Remember, it's only "judicial activism" when a "Liberal" judge does it

The right wing is already calling for the impeachment of Walker, whose main crime seems to be issuing a decision with which it disagrees. The American Family Association (AFA) sent out one of its many action alerts yesterday, saying that Walker “frustrated the express will of seven million Californians.” Margaret Marshall, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, said that after her decision legalizing marriage equality, opponents “hired a small plane to fly for weeks over Boston” — including over her apartment building — trailing a banner reading, “Impeach Margaret Marshall.”

Amazing, ain’t it? A judge makes a ruling that Conservatives can get behind…and it’s “wise, considered jurisprudence”. Hand down a decision that Conservatives disagree with…and it’s “the worst sort of Liberal judicial activism” since the Dred Scott decision. Ah, the hypocrisy…you could almost slice through it with a butter knife. Then again, this is how Conservatives roll; one’s hypocrisy is another’s bedrock philosophy.

The news that California’s Prop 8 had been struck down by Judge Vaughn Walker seems to have been pretty much universally well-received. Walker, a staunch Conservative and a George H.W. Bush (not the evil one) appointee, constructed what appears to be a reasoned, rational, and virtually unassailable argument for striking down Prop 8. And it’s not as if the measure’s defenders (or mainstream Conservatives) have put up much of a fight. Yes, a majority of Californians voted for Prop 8, but Walker’s ruling clearly states that opinion, fear, and prejudice provide a damn poor basis for making settled law. It’s a damning dissection of a ballot initiative clearly designed to enshrine second-class status of a minority class of people as statute law.

A few fringe haters on the Far Right have seized on the fact that Judge Walker is…GASP!!! OMG!!! WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!!…gay. As if only heterosexual judges possess the perspective and wherewithal to rule on issues of equal treatment under the law, eh? No worries, though…this isn’t anything a good smear campaign can’t rectify, right??

Yes, according to those good, God-fearing, patriotic Americans at the American Family Association, Judge Walker should have recused himself because he’s an open homosexual. Never mind the fact that if this sort of standard was applied to judges across the board, nothing would ever be decided, because judges would be recusing themselves left and right. Women would be expected to recuse themselves in abortion cases. African-Americans would be expected themselves in civil rights cases. Whites would be expected to recuse themselves in immigration cases. Yes, it’s silly and phenomenally ignorant, but the homophobes at AFA really do think that their morality and their bludgeon-like version of Christianity trumps anything and everything else. Jesus uber Alles!!

Perhaps if they actually cracked a Bible every now and then, the uber-Jesus-y hatred might learn that their Lord and Savior wasn’t about hatred and repression. Then again, when you God is an angry, vindictive, mean-spirited God…yeah, this sort of rampant, unvarnished hatred is about what you might expect.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on August 9, 2010 5:54 AM.

Coming soon to a margarita near you.... was the previous entry in this blog.

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