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10/25/2010
Snooki costumes out of stock, Bob Vander Plaats opts for scary activist judge mask instead
Iowa for Freedom's Bob Vander Plaats continues to scare state voters into believing that marriage equality for same-sex couples is just step one on a road that will lead to repossession, empty gun racks, and death panels. This from The Sioux City Journal's Politically Speaking blog:
Vander Plaats grew impassioned as he told the crowd of 200 that the three justices must be removed to send a message, to essentially chill the judiciary.
“They don’t get to evolve our Constitution, only we the people get to amend the Constitution,” Vander Plaats. “If they do this to marriage — make law, execute law, amend the Constitution, hand out rights that our Founders could never have imagined — they won’t even blink an eye as they take your private property. They won’t even blink an eye as they take away your Second Amendment rights, they won’t even blink an eye while telling you how you have to educate your children. They won’t even blink an eye when they get to determine who gets to live and who gets to die, in regards to which life is valuable and which one is not.”
Vander Plaats says activist court heading down slippery slope will decide who lives, dies[Sioux City Journal]
Okay, well...
"Make Law"? The state Supremes did nothing of the sort. The unanimous panel of judges determined that the state's laws barring same-sex marriage did not hold constitutional muster. You know: They did THE VERY FLIPPING THING THAT COURTS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Execute law"? No, the courts didn't execute anything -- that would instead be the state and local officials who, after seeing what the court had determined, proceeded to comply. Because while the social conservatives might think that court rulings should be placed in a three-month holding pattern that allows for evangelicals to say whether or not they'll allow freedom to prevail forward, a fortunate reality is that American justice is far more even-handed than that. When a high court casts a unanimous opinion determining that a certain policy is unlawfully out-of-line and therefore should've never been put into place, compliance is not a suggestion: It's a must!
"Amend the constitution"? Uhm, actually: IT'S THE "PROTECT MARRIAGE" SIDE THAT IS TRYING TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION! The Supreme Court didn't amend anything. The Iowa state constitution does not speak to marriage: Not now, not before (although it says plenty about equal protection). So how astoundingly hypocritical for Bob Vander Plaats to claim that the seven Iowa jurists amended the state's most precious governing document when he and his cohorts are trying to do THAT VERY THING, hoping to turn that same state doc into their personal, heterosexist handbook!
"Hand out rights that our Founders could have never imagined"? Oh, you mean like the slavery's elimination, interracial marriage, women's voting rights, refrigeration, or a myriad of other now-commonplace, now-no-brainer, now-thank-god-the-courts-stepped-in-and-stewarded concepts that the Founding Fathers lacked the foresight to have imagined? Because let's be grown ups here for a minute and actually think critically about our 18th century forefathers: While the powdered wigs and capri pants were both sensible and lovely, some of the other social mores of their day were much less fully realized. That's why we refer to them as founders (as in the country catalysts to whom we are grateful and indebted) and not foundations (as in hardened concrete that is fully formed and immovable).
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