For some time now, I’ve been asking whether California and the United States of America are still a republic and a democracy.
We already know that U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker last year violated his oath of office and attempted to craft a “new” U.S. Constitution when he ruled homosexual “marriages” were a constitutional right. That was a hot August day when I tried to hold the judge to account.
If you follow the news, you also know that Walker, now retired, recently announced he has been living the homosexual lifestyle for 10 years with another man. Now the Prop. 8 campaign has filed papers asking the federal appellate court to “vacate” (erase) Walker’s August 2010 ruling.
Of course it should be wiped out. Walker has proven he had a self-interest, which is why he should have recused himself. Walker had reason to seek and obtain a “same-sex marriage license” as a result of his biased ruling.
Good judges on a constitution-honoring court would vacate the anti-Prop. 8 ruling. But two of the three judges on the 9th Circuit panel, where the Prop. 8 case currently resides, are liberal appointees of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Sadly, I think it’s likely that this second court will “strike down” marriage licenses for “only a man and a woman.” Then the question would go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here, I can see a 5-4 decision, with Justice Anthony Kennedy the deciding vote. See my earlier blog, “Will Prop. 8 die on a technicality?”
Why should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Walker’s awful ruling? To review, Walker violated his oath of office in multiple ways:
1. He had sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” meaning the specific, written words and original meaning of those words contained in the Constitution. Yet America’s preeminent document doesn’t even contain the word “marriage.” Walker should have thrown out the challenge to Prop. 8, instead of taking the case.
2. He violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Marriage is not in the U.S. Constitution, and is therefore the jurisdiction of the states — in this case, in the hands of the People of California, who have sole power to amend the California Constitution.
3. He violated Article 4 of the actual Constitution, which reads, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government…” A republican form of government means states must act like a republic, not a dictatorship. A republic is a government based on written laws, such as Prop. 8. Here’s the applicable dictionary definition of a republic: “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.”
“Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention…If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.”
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States
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