More Fertilizer from the Garden State Court

When asked about the controversial Kelo v. New London Supreme Court decision Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Fran) stated that she would do nothing to challenge the decision because when a court speaks it “is almost as if God has spoken.” While Representative Pelosi might give deistic powers to the courts, jurists are actually mere mortals, and as in the case of New Jersey, subject to getting things horribly wrong. Within the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision is the statement: “The State does not argue that limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman is needed to encourage procreation or to create the optimal living environment for children.” These arguments were the basis of our friend of the court brief and precisely the arguments that were successful in New York and Washington. That New Jersey did not even offer them suggests to me that the Attorney General or whoever argued the case for the State failed miserably in his duties.

The New Jersey High Court is known to be both political and liberal. In the past they have tried to order the Boy Scouts to accept gay scoutmasters. In 2002 they allowed the Democrats to make a last minute replacement of the ethically challenged Sen. Robert Torricelli with Frank Lautenberg as their U.S. Senate nominee. The NJ court is setting itself up as a “super-legislature,” mandating what the state legislature must and must not do. The New Jersey legislature is answerable only to the citizens of New Jersey, not a septet of black robed would be dictators. My suggestion to the state legislature is to ignore the ruling and move forward with the amendment process, protecting in their state constitution the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Twenty states have already done so, and eight more are prepared to do so this November (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.)

The ruling should be seen as a wake-up call for those who think that marriage doesn’t need constitutional protection. Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee have vowed to fight marriage defining amendments on both the state and the federal level. Additionally they have put their money where there mouth is by financing anti-marriage campaigns. Before November, candidates from both parties need to answer: will you stand up for traditional marriage or not?