Opportunism As a Principle

From the right-wing folks who oppose the right to abortion (which to me translates into the much broader right of privacy) and gay marriage, I hear over and over again a passionate complaint. It’s no longer the legislature who sets the rules, it’s the activist judges, they cry. This is echoed by the supposedly impartial President who not once, but twice swore on the Constitution that grants equal rights and equal opportunities for all the citizens.

For a second, forget the Jeffersonian “wall of separation” between the State and Church as a principle. Obviously, this issue would not appear on the plates of the legislators as a bitter dessert, should we strictly believe that the churches and their reps have no say in what is "right" or "wrong" for all of us before the law, and should we, i.e. Congress and the President act upon that belief.

If gay marriage was strictly an objective legal issue, there would be no argument against it and lots of arguments to support it as a basic civil right of equality. As “sacred” as marriage may be for many different faiths, the fact is that the Government would simply have no right to impose those religious beliefs on its citizens because those beliefs are not universal and because the Constitution itself defends the citizens against making those beliefs universal.

So, here we go. The extreme right imposes their religious doctrine but since they know the vulnerabilities of waving the Bible directly, they use the “activist judges” scare. Let the legislators speak! Should legislators be in charge, the religious conscience would do the job, they hope. A little lobbying here and there from the religious right, and the job is done. Wouldn’t the representatives vote at the end of the day as their conscience (read: his/her pastor) would tell them?

Sounds reasonable. Let the legislature decide. Representatives voice the will of the people, don’t they? Well, here comes my problem. Listen to these two stories.

Story one: When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in the fall of 2003 that marriage cannot be denied to gay and lesbian couples (“identifying no constitutionally adequate reason to deny them the right”), the Christian zealots through the Republican Party and the President cried foul because it was apparently up to the legislature of the state, not the Supreme Court to make that decision.

The reasoning behind it was obvious: It seems logical that the legislature as the law-making body, directly elected by and responsible to the voters, should make the law, not the Court. (Forget for a minute that the Court did not make a law in Massachusetts; it only defended the constitutional right of equality, which is its job.) At the same time, they obviously assumed that a majority of legislators would never gather behind the court’s decision. The religious right made it clear that they ostentatiously stood for the principle of the division of powers between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the Government. Gay marriage was in their books a matter that should only be resolved by the state legislature.

Story two: In September 2005, California’s legislative body passes a bill which through their directly elected representatives expresses the will of the people. Exactly the way the principled Republican defenders of the division of powers suggested it should have happened in Massachusetts. Clapping your hands yet? Wait a second! The Republican Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will veto the bill legalizing same-sex marriage “out of respect for the will of the people”. In other words, he is inevitably sending the bill to the court for the activists in robes to decide. Republicans and California’s extreme right applaud their Governor.

Great! Consistency, or sticking to a principle is what makes principled people principled. Right? The opposite to consistency is called hypocrisy. Or opportunism.

Are you still following me? Am I missing something here? The godly Aahnold and his Republican cohort are bashing the legislative body in California for doing exactly what they so vehemently promoted for Massachusetts! He is effectively banning the legislative body to have an overriding say in the decision whether gays in California can marry or not, and he is sending the bill right into the hands of the ugly “activist judges” to decide! What happened? Death, where is thy sting? Dear fellow Republicans, where are your principles?

Something stinks here. Royally stinks! I think I can smell opportunism and hypocrisy at a mile’s distance. The same applies to bigotry. But let me tell you: This country can be saved and it doesn’t need Ahnolds-the-Saviors to do the job. All we have to do is to convince some of the other fifty percent that opportunism is short-lived. Definitely, its term should not be longer than four years.

Comments

[Rob Welcher]

Right on! When conservatives complain about activist judges they are complaining that the ruling didn't go the way they wanted it. Does anyone truly believe that the judges that end up on the supreme court under are not going to be as much "activist judges" as other judges? Of course, conservatives won't be complaining about it because the rulings will go in a direction they think is 'right'!