Public Advocate of the U.S., Joyce Meyer Ministries, U.S. Justice Foundation, The Lincoln Institute, Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Pastor Chuck Baldwin in Support of Respondents: But adjusting the Constitution to conform with current social science consensus is not the rule of law, much less constitutional law. Indeed, the one thing that is self-evident is that social science consensus is not, and has never been, permanent. Prior to 1973, the American Psychiatric Association consensus was that homosexuality was a mental disorder. Now the consensus is that homosexuality is a positive virtue. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. Either way, reliance on social science to provide a foundation for constitutional law builds a house on shifting sands, perverts the rule of law, and seduces judges to function as oracles of self-righteousness, issuing orders requiring all other government officials to act according to their "judicial" opinions.
Public Advocate of the U.S., Joyce Meyer Ministries, U.S. Justice Foundation, The Lincoln Institute, Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Pastor Chuck Baldwin in Support of Respondents: It is one thing to understand, as a matter of original "principle," the word "arms" in the Second Amendment to include modern rifles as well as colonial muskets, as clearly the framers would have intended. It is quite another to contend that the word "equal" in the Fourteenth Amendment should be read, as a matter of principle, to mandate homosexual marriage, a subject that, on its face, the equal protection guarantee does not address and that its framers would never have intended.
Public Advocate of the U.S., Joyce Meyer Ministries, U.S. Justice Foundation, The Lincoln Institute, Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Pastor Chuck Baldwin in Support of Respondents: Indeed, it is one thing for this Court to deny to the states, in the name of privacy, the power to prosecute two consenting adults of the same sex for having engaged in the privacy of their home in unlawful sexual activity. It is quite another to require the states to license that behavior as right and good.
L. Gralia: [o]ver the past half-century the justices have chosen to make themselves the final lawmakers on most basic issues of domestic social policy in American society. These include issues literally of life and death and issues of public morality. In essence, the Court now performs in the American system of government a role similar to that performed by the Grand Council of Ayatollahs in the Iranian system.
Stephanie Laterza: Disclaimer: Despite discussions about law and literature and the like, nothing on this blog is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice.
