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05/11/2012
Judge's views will destroy marriage, predict commentators (of 1926)
Judge Ben Lindsey might have been the first on the bench to be accused of "judicial activism" on marriage. An advocate for "companionate marriage," which backed the idea of couples living together in a trial marriage before embarking down the full road, Lindsey's views sparked something of an outrage from the same suspects (priests, "values" lawmakers, concerned groups, the Pope) that greet modern day thinkers on the subject. In fact, the criticisms were so loud and frequent, that they ultimately led to Lindsey's being removed from the bench, with most suggesting that it was the marriage thing that really did him in (see Iowa judicial retention vote of 2010 for modern parallel).
But while most who opined publicly seemed to have been of the view that Lindsey was destroying marriage at the peril of society, there were other public thinkers who were using Lindsey's views to suggest that this "evolving" view of marriage would reform marriage in a positive way, suggesting that the custom was already so tarnished by unfaithful heterosexuals that self-immolation was inevitable. I find this fascinating:
There really isn't anything new under the sun, is there?
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