America: What Have We Become?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the U.S. This follows this post about supergerms. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

What Have We Become?

 by Arthur Suckling Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

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What Have We Become?

Founding father John Adams said that the Constitution of the United States was made for a moral and religious people. That if ever the nation stops being moral and religious, the Constitution would be broken as a whale goes through a net.
He was right. Sadly, we have stopped being a moral and religious people to too great a degree!
Consider the following tragic facts:  54.5 million abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973 (National Right to Life Fact Sheet). Homosexuality and same-sex marriage is supported by a majority of Americans , half of marriages end in divorce, the highest officers in the nation blatantly lie, laziness is rampant, we have astronomic individual and national debt and there is an overall lack of virtue. These selfish mentalities are the harbingers of the decline of a nation.
Of course, that list doesn’t describe everybody , but in all too many cases it seems the majority of people fall into the description above.

Why are we declining morally?

We have departed from God’s fundamental principles of life.
Our theologians have turned the clear and concrete Ten Commandments into abstractions. The Bible is viewed as full of allegory, story and poetry.
Even as people talk about what would Jesus do (WWJD), hardly anybody actually does what Jesus did do (WDJD).The end result of the latter results in a moral society and the former does not! WWJD leaves the situation open to speculation and convenience.
Whenever mankind departs from the example of Jesus as stated in Scripture, it leads individuals away from the simplicity and clarity of godly principles.
How have we changed from a moral and decent people into an increasingly godless society? How do we biblically justify the murder of millions of babies? We can’t—so we just throw out the Bible.
We change incrementally. A little at a time. Slowly, a tiny step at a time over a long period. Somebody will challenge an established principle with an argument against it.  The thin edge of the wedge of argument and debate is driven in. Everyone has a reason and justification for their position. A war of attrition pursues the goal of changing for the “rights” of non believers. A liberal legal climate encourages loose interpretations of a law and the split of the principle slowly grows wider and wider with each blow on the wedge.
What was once a moral principle firmly established in a mostly religious culture is changed by people pushing for tolerance and compassionate understanding. There is always a reason, always a justification, always a plea. It never ends.  Eventually, people accept the new position and the road to moral decline continues. Things like abortion, divorce, adultery, fornication and “Jimmy has two mommies” become the norm.
The cause of this sad situation is that America is becoming more and more secular.  Fewer and fewer people adhere to Scriptural principles, like the Ten Commandments.  Discipline within churches declines because pastors depend on numbers for their salaries. They don’t hold the line for fear of offending people and a loss of income, and so the moral slump continues.
How do we reverse it? By each individually acknowledging our own faults, sins and shortcomings, and fall on our knees before God in repentance. Return to God and obey Him.

national repentance moral decline moral compass Same-Sex Marriage decline News and Prophecy Human Nature Doctrinal Beliefs

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• 

  Arthur Suckling

  United Church of God Pastor

  Arthur began this journey in 1962 when he was in the Royal Navy. That was at 21 years old, and now he is almost 70. He is still growing and following Jesus. Education: BA and MA. Taught at high school, college and university. Ordained minister for 38 years. Happily married for almost 29 years. Father of two sons and grandfather of five granddaughters. He has traveled to many countries in the Middle East, Africa, India, Australia and has lived in the U.S.A. since 1982.
  

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Many immigration 'step victories' in U.S. House last 24 hours‏

An urgent post from http://www.numbersusa.com/ about immigration Amendments in the Homeland Security Appropriations bill. This follows this previous post about the process happinging.  This follows this post about congressional redistricting and this follows this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso, where President Barack Obama recently bashed immigration enforcement! On a related note, you can read about Miss Kentucky Latina here, an interesting article about Jessica Alba here or another article about Salma Hayek here. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!

Many immigration 'step victories' in U.S. House last 24 hours‏

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action.htm

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA






VIEW ALL THE IMMIGRATION-ENFORCEMENT

STEP VICTORIES FROM LAST 24 HOURS HERE!!!



U.S. HOUSE PASSES SEVERAL AMENDMENTS

TO DHS SPENDING BILL THAT IMPROVE

ENFORCEMENT AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION



Send Free Thank-You or Shame-on-You Fax

To Your Representative For His/Her Voting



See fax on your customized NumbersUSA Action Board.
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action.htm







Thanks to all of you for what you did to bring about these victories in the last 24 hours.



The House just finished voting on all amendments to the 2012 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security. We/you won on every immigration vote.



I'm happy to report that the Cravaack amendment about which you have phoned all today passed 288 to 130 a few minutes ago! (See description below.)



Large and broad bi-partisan majorities of the U.S. House last night and today agreed to put significantly more money and oomph into key programs to reduce the illegal population of this country.



The amendments were proposed by both Republican and Democratic Members.



In each case, money that was added to enforcement was taken from another part of the Department of Homeland Security budget so the effect of the approved amendments was zero increase in overall spending.



ACTION: Go to your customized Action Board and find the fax to send to your Representative about his/her key vote. (If you don't find one, your Representative is one of the 7 Republicans and 7 Democrats who didn't vote.)



Click here www.numbersusa.com/actionbuffet



Pouring faxes into the Members' offices on this key vote on the Royce amendment will improve chances of good votes on amendments in the future. (We'll provide you some other faxing opportunities tomorrow. Some of you may already have sent the new fax above if you happened onto it while visiting your Action Board this afternoon.)



I'm pleased to tell you that your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team was involved with each of the congressional offices in crafting and introducing the following amendments that were approved by the U.S. House.



NEARLY 20% INCREASE IN FUNDING

FEDERAL TRAINING OF LOCAL POLICE

TO ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS UNDER 287(g)



This was a tremendous step victory for all of you who want to see more immigration enforcement from local police.



Although the open-borders groups constantly try to end the federal 287(g) program, we won this amendment 267 to 151.



And 36 Democrats bucked their Party's general opposition to local police enforcement of immigration laws, voting with all but one Republican to actually increase local participation.



This was the first immigration amendment that came up last night in a two-day marathon of appropriations amendments. It was offered by Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) who asked to move money from the Office of the Secretary of Management at DHS and add it to money already included for DHS to facilitate new agreements with local governments under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.



Lots of city, county and state law enforcement agencies have asked to be part of the program but can't because of a huge waiting list for training.



The holdup is lack of money appropriated by Congress for the training that must take place before local agencies are allowed to enforce certain immigration laws.



Royce's amendment would add nearly 20% to the funding for such training.



The opposition on the floor was led by Rep. Price (D-N.C.) who was in charge of these appropriations the previous four years and tried to starve the 287(g) program. He took the microphone and argued not only against Royce's amendment but against allowing the local enforcement program to continue at all.



Fortunately, Price is no longer in charge.



HOUSE CRUSHES REP. POLIS' EFFORT

TO END LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF IMMIGRATION LAWS



Late this afternoon, Boulder's Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) surprised us by taking advantage of the open amendment process and offered an amendment that not only would negate our victory from last night on the Royce amendment but would remove ALL FUNDING for the 287(g) program.



This set up a wonderful opportunity for voters nationwide to find out who stands with the open-borders lobbies who oppose virtually every kind of enforcement against illegal immigration. They have been calling for Pres. Obama to just shut down 287(g) by executive fiat. So, Rep. Polis gave every Member of the House a chance to stand in solidarity with the open-borders groups.



Distressingly 107 Members of the U.S. House were willing to do that. We will provide the list of these pro-illegal-immigration Members on our website as soon as we get it.



But reassuringly, Rep. Polis' attempt to show Pres. Obama that doing away with local enforcement is politically popular failed miserably.



U.S. Representatives voted 312 to 107 to continue the federal program for local enforcement of immigration laws.



All 231 Republican votes were for 287(g) local enforcement.



And 81 of the 188 Democratic votes (43%) also stood behind local enforcement.



While the open-borders groups may be able to brag to Pres. Obama that they are the voice of the majority of Democrats in the House, it is a very narrow majority in the minority Party.



What we can say is that there is an overwhelming majority (74%) of the entire House -- a BROAD BI-PARTISAN majority -- that backs local enforcement of immigration laws.



And we now know the names of the fringe minority who don't.



These votes should be reflected on our NumbersUSA Immigration-Reduction Report Cards later Friday.



$5 MILLION MORE FOR FEDERAL CENTER THAT ASSISTS

LOCAL POLICE WHEN THEY ENCOUNTER ILLEGAL ALIENS



John Barrow, the Democratic Representative for Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, is a great leader of that "43% Pro-Enforcement Wing of Democratic Representatives).



He championed a great amendment last night that would move $5 million from the DHS administration budget to add to the salaries and expenses for the Law Enforcement Support Center.



This is the national call center that provides assistance to state and local law enforcement when they are dealing with illegal aliens.



The Center has been woefully under-manned and under-funded.



While there remains quite a debate about how much state, county and local law enforcement should be REQUIRED to do in enforcing immigration laws, surely nearly everybody can agree that the federal government should assist those jurisdictions that ASK for help in identifying and processing illegal aliens.



Rep. Barrow's amendment augments beautifully Rep. Royce's amendment on 287(g), which is also about helping those jurisdictions that don't want to put the welcome mat out for illegal aliens.



LEADERS OF BOTH PARTIES APPARENTLY DECIDED THEY DIDN'T WANT MANY ROLL CALL VOTES ON IMMIGRATION AMENDMENTS



Interestingly, after the lop-sided win for Royce's 287(g) amendment early last night, both Democratic and Republican leaders basically quit asking for roll call votes on immigration amendments the rest of the evening.



Rep. Barrow's amendment was approved by voice vote, with nobody challenging and asking for a recorded vote.



I am most pleased to see Democratic leaders decide that recorded votes showing the majority of Democrats opposing enforcement would be bad politically. This shows that the Democratic leaders are aware that the current Party line of opposing most immigration enforcement (unless tied to an amnesty) is politically unpopular.



My guess is that Democratic leaders were not particularly pleased with Rep. Polis' grandstanding late this afternoon and putting so many of the anti-enforcement Democrats on record.



HOUSE FINALLY BACKS OUR ROSEMARY JENKS'

CRUSADES TO ATTACK ARIZONA 'SPOTTER NESTS'

AND SUPPORT THE 'SHADOW WOLVES'



This was really quite a savory moment for Rosemary Jenks, your NumbersUSA Director of Government Relations.



By voice vote and after colorful descriptions by the sponsor, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the House approved by voice vote two amendments that would:

set aside $1 million for the Border Patrol to use to eliminate the Mexican drug cartels' look-out posts along the borders,





set aside $1 million for hiring additional Shadow Wolves, the extraordinarily and uniquely talented Native Americans who track illegal aliens and foreign para-military along the Mexican border.

Over several years, Rosemary has taken Congressman King and other Members of Congress to the border to show them the outrageous "Spotter Nests" atop scores of desert hills and mountains in Arizona that are used by the Mexican drug cartels.



Rosemary has led these "tours" in climbing to the nests in the blazing summer sun and occasionally in dramatic helicopter hoverings that get to the nests more easily but less safely. They often didn't know until they were near the nests whether the well-armed spotters were absent. Of course from their vantage point, the spotters had plenty of time to leave once they saw the delegation approaching.



The "Spotters" use the nests to watch all movements by our Border Patrol and then radio to smugglers of drugs and people where to avoid and where to hide based on the location of the Border Patrol.



The Native American Shadow Wolves have played a key role in our understanding of the problem of the Spotter Nests and other issues along the border. On-the-ground federal personnel in Arizona have also confirmed the nest locations (off the record, of course). They have told us that higher-ups will not authorize eliminating the Spotter Nests.



We always thought government officials and the news media would find it outrageous that foreign criminal agents are occupying U.S. territory so cavalierly with little challenge.



We were wrong.



A number of Congressmen have tried to get first the Bush Administration and then the Obama Administration to take out these Spotter Nests. But for unexplained reasons, both Administrations have preferred not to challenge the drug cartels.



Rosemary (with me in hand at times) has tried to "sell" this story over the years to many news media outlets, including NBC and Fox. This story is ready-made for dramatic TV investigative reporting. But again NOTHING. We suspect that the government in each case has scared reporters off the story by denying the existence of the Spotters.



Nobody has pursued this strange situation of sovereignty infringement like Rep. King. His amendment is one more effort to push the feds into either doing something about the Spotters Nests or taking Congress into its confidence as to why our government is willing to have drug cartels greatly improve their ability to move illegal aliens (and drugs) past our Border Patrol on a daily basis.



THE FACT THAT 130 MEMBERS VOTED TO ALLOW VIOLENT ILLEGAL ALIENS TO BE RELEASED INTO OUR POPULATION SHOWED THE NEED FOR THE AMENDMENT TO STOP THE PRACTICE



We won 288 to 130 on the amendment to block funding that allows the Administration to release violent illegal aliens into the U.S. population while awaiting deportation.



The amendment came from freshman Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.). Some of our NumbersUSA members wondered if this wasn't just a creampuff amendment that would allow 435 Members of the House to get a pro-enforcement vote. After all, who could be in favor of releasing violent illegal aliens into our communities?



But 130 Members opposed the amendment. You'll see their names on our website as soon as we get them.



OTHER OF OUR AMENDMENTS THAT PASSED BY VOICE VOTE

Amendment by Rep. Poe (R-Texas) to withhold certain federal funds from cities that have sanctuary policies that prohibit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.





Another amendment by Rep. Poe that prohibits the President and Administration from using the "deferred action" tool to give temporary amnesty to large numbers of illegal aliens. As defined by law, deferred action on deportation of an illegal alien is supposed to be case-by-case based on very special circumstances. Instead, the Administration's use of "deferred action" last year has grown from an average of 900 cases a year to 12,000 last year.





The final bill included an amendment by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) requiring all contractors with the federal government to use E-Verify. Although this is already required by Pres. Obama's executive order in 2009, this amendment would eliminate the ability of this or any future President to cease the requirement. We were pleased that this amendment was so persuasive that appropriations leaders added it to the underlying spending bill before it was brought to the floor.

'STEP VICTORIES' ARE ONLY THE BEGINNING OF THE ROAD TO TRUE IMPROVEMENT -- BUT WE CAN'T GET THERE WITHOUT THESE ESSENTIAL FIRST STEPS



I hasten to explain that we call the votes "step victories" because they are just a step in the process. Until they are part of legislation signed into law, nothing actually gets better. Improvements that are still there in a signed bill are the only things that can truly be called "victories."



(1) The House has the responsibility of starting appropriations bills. (2) Then the Senate takes up the passed bills and either approves them in entirety or (3) amends them and (4) sends them back to the House (5) or to a Joint Conference committee to iron out the differences (6) after which the compromise conference bill goes back to both Senate and House for another approval vote, (7) and at the end of whatever scenario a bill goes to the President to sign or veto.



Nonetheless, you can't get to the President's desk unless somebody somewhere first approves what you want. That happened last night -- SEVERAL TIMES!



THANKS AGAIN, AND I HOPE YOU FEEL A DEEP SENSE OF SATISFACTION WITH THESE 'STEP VICTORIES.' WE'LL KEEP YOU INFORMED AS THE APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS MOVES FORWARD.
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action.htm

Urgent: Phone your U.S. Rep. to Support Cravaack Amendment for Interior Enforcement

An urgent post from http://www.numbersusa.com/ about immigration Amendments in the Homeland Security Appropriations bill. This follows this post about E-Verify in the Texas state legislature.  This follows this post about congressional redistricting and this follows this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso, where President Barack Obama recently bashed immigration enforcement! On a related note, you can read about Miss Kentucky Latina here, an interesting article about Jessica Alba here or another article about Salma Hayek here. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!

Please call your U.S. Representative and urge him/her to support the following amendment.






It is very important that Members of Congress hear from their constituents. Also, check the NumbersUSA website for updates.







•Cravaack Amendment (proposed by Rep. Chip Cravaack) to ensure that funding from the DHS spending bill complies with current federal law requiring the detention of illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes.

Pronounce his name kruh-VACK, with the accent on that second syllable.



 



This is a series of immigration amendments expected as the U.S. House of Representatives works on the FY2012 DHS Appropriations Bill.

California & Marriage

I wanted to send this article which describes the recent California Judicial ruling that is scheduled to go into effect this summer. For a previous update on this you can read here http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/california-supreme-court.html and our church's book Marriage and Family is great to know what the bible says here http://www.ucg.org/booklets/FM/.


California and Marriage: Tarnished Days in the Golden State
By Rebecca Hagelin

If you’ve ever wondered why some fight tooth and nail whenever it comes to confirming judges, just look to California.There, in another outrageous example of judicial over-reach and social experimentation, the state Supreme Court ruled on May 15 in favor of homosexual “marriages.” Specifically, it overturned a 2000 referendum on Proposition 22, in which California voters -- i.e., the people --affirmed, nearly 2-to-1, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.Sorry, voters: You only think you know best. Your judicial overlords know better. Now run along, like good subjects.Whatever happened to government, “for the people, by the people”? Seems the judicial elite reign supreme in California.It’s fairly obvious what is at work here -- a desire on the part of liberals to level the basic building block of society: the family. California already has a domestic-partner law on the books that grants same-sex couples all the benefits and privileges accorded to opposite-sex couples. The real agenda behind the decision to redefine the word “marriage,” as I point out in my book, “Home Invasion,” is to destroy the very institution itself.Sound too strong? Then explain why a domestic-partner law wasn’t enough. No couple was being discriminated against. No one was hiding from the law. Homosexuals could set up house wherever they liked, and the law treated their relationship as if it were normal. But that wasn’t enough. All of us heterosexual yahoos had to go all the way -- and call their unions marriage. That’s what they really wanted. And it signifies nothing less than a societal sea change.In a compelling analysis of the Court’s decision, The Heritage Foundation’s Jennifer Marshall, Daniel Moloney and Matthew Spalding, spell it out:What is happening now is no minor adjustment, nor a slight change in degree that just extends benefits or rights to a larger class, but a substantive change in the essence of the institution. The court's decision does not expand marriage; it alters its core meaning. To redefine marriage so that it is not intrinsically related to the relationship between fathers, mothers, and children formally severs the institution from its nature and purpose, remaking the institution into a mere contract between any two individuals.This helps explain why it’s wrong to assume this ruling centers on discrimination. It doesn’t. We’re doing more here than just renaming an already existing arrangement. What we call -- or don’t call -- marriage actually matters. And there has to be some objective criteria. It can’t be left to each individual to decide what marriage is; the state has a crucial role to play. Otherwise, why can’t a man marry his sister? Or his daughter? Or his dog, for that matter? Why can’t he have multiple wives?The fact is, the California Supreme Court has indulged here in the purest form of judicial activism -- operating not from a desire to interpret the law as written, but to force the result it wanted from the beginning, regardless of whether it was correct (or whether it violated the will of the people).According to the Heritage experts:As with Roe v. Wade, this decision is troubling from three angles: on the process, on the reasoning, and on the substance.* It was an instance of the judiciary usurping the political process. * It was poorly reasoned, abandoning the original meaning of California's constitution in order to invent a right to same-sex “marriage.” * It was wrong on the substance, comparing support for traditional marriage to racism, disregarding the nature and purpose of marriage, and ignoring the reasons for which the state has always set marriage apart from other household forms. There’s a good reason marriage has always been set apart like this. It is, quite simply, the cornerstone of civilization. It is deeply rooted in nearly every society, blessed by all the world’s major religions, and proven over centuries to work best when it’s limited to one man and one woman. Study after study, many of which you can find on familyfacts.org, show marriage’s unique value. Raised in its loving embrace, children thrive.That apparently means nothing to the judges who handed down this decision. But then again, they haven’t even shown respect for their own profession. They’ve abused their authority to do what they want -- never mind what the law actually says.But their tactics may well backfire, says Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Robert Alt. “By removing the issue from the political branches and constitutionalizing the policy question, the court's decision makes compromise less likely and leaves a state constitutional amendment as the only possible response -- one in which same-sex marriage advocates are not likely to prevail,” he writes in a recent commentary.In short, it’s up to the people. Let’s hope they rise to the challenge.

California Supreme Court

If you hadn't heard, the Supreme Court of California overturned a law that had been passed by the people of that state which defined Marriage as between a man and a woman. This is the danger of the Judicial branch making laws as the book I previously recommended "Men In Black" http://www.amazon.com/Men-Black-Supreme-Destroying-America/dp/1596980095/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210960145&sr=1-1 describes. Anyway, I'm sending an article describing the ruling below, so you can know what happened.


Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Damage Done By CourtsPosted by: Hugh Hewitt at 1:49 PM
Today's decision by the California Supreme Court is yet another judicial putsch. It is appalling. Incredibly, a feverish will to power on the part of small numbers of judges is rapidly eroding a citizen's standing as the ultimate lawgiver. Courts unbound by any sense of limits, by any sense of restraint, threaten the basic understanding that has long undergirded the Republic --that the laws proceed from the open consent of the people, and that the ultimate laws, the federal and state constitutions, are documents of fixed meaning and structure, not merely window dressing on the rule of judicial elites or empty phrases waiting for elites to fill them with meaning.Today's ruling framed the question before the California Supreme Court this way:

The question we must address is whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution.
That was not in fact the central question. The central question was whether the representative nature of the California state government, including its initiative provisions, would be upheld.They were not. The California Supreme Court asserted its ultimate power today in a way that is shameful and deeply destructive of the ability of a free people to govern themselves. UPDATE: From Justice Baxter' opinion partially concurring and partially dissenting:
Only one other American state recognizes the right the majority announces today. So far, Congress, and virtually every court to consider the issue, has rejected it. Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majority’s startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage —an understanding recently confirmed by an initiative law — is no longer valid. California statutes already recognize same-sex unions and grant them all the substantive legal rights this state can bestow. If there is to be a further sea change in the social and legal understanding of marriage itself, that evolution should occur by similar democratic means. The majority forecloses this ordinary democratic process, and, in doing so, oversteps its authority....But a bare majority of this court, not satisfied with the pace of democratic change, now abruptly forestalls that process and substitutes, by judicial fiat, its own social policy views for those expressed by the People themselves.Undeterred by the strong weight of state and federal law and authority, the majority invents a new constitutional right, immune from the ordinary process of legislative consideration. The majority finds that our Constitution suddenly demands no less than a permanent redefinition of marriage, regardless of the popular will....I cannot join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the Legislature’s own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the People’s will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference. Though the majority insists otherwise, its pronouncement seriously oversteps the judicial power. The majority purports to apply certain fundamentalprovisions of the state Constitution, but it runs afoul of another just as fundamental— article III, section 3, the separation of powers clause. This clause declares that “[t]he powers of state government are legislative, executive, and judicial,” and that“[p]ersons charged with the exercise of one power may not exercise either of the others” except as the Constitution itself specifically provides. (Italics added.)
History confirms the importance of the judiciary’s constitutional role as a check against majoritarian abuse. Still, courts must use caution when exercising the potentially transformative authority to articulate constitutional rights. Otherwise, judges with limited accountability risk infringing upon our society’s most basic shared premise — the People’s general right, directly or through their chosen legislators, to decide fundamental issues of public policy for themselves.
Judicial restraint is particularly appropriate where, as here, the claimed constitutional entitlement is of recent conception and challenges the most fundamental assumption about a basic social institution.
The majority has violated these principles. It simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice.

Thursday, May 15, 2008
ProtectMarriage.com
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 7:53 PM
A constitutional amendment to the California Constitution will almost certainly qualify to be on the ballot in November as more than a million signatures had already been turned in even prior to the Caluifornia Surpreme Court's putsch today. You can contribute to the effort and volunteer to help pass it and thus rebuke the out-of-control California Supreme Court at ProtectMarriage.com.See Justice Baxter's ringing denunciation of the majority's usurpation of the People's rights below. Then get involved. You don't have to live in California to help deliver this message. Advocates of judicial imposition of same sex marriage will be pouring millions of dollars into defeating the amendment, and it will require an enormous effort to send the message that despite the ambitions of judges and cultural elites, majorities do matter in a Republic built on constitutional majoritarianism.This will be an enormously important election for the future of the country. Marriage is of course a central institution that society must protect and nurture, but the idea of separation of powers and accountability for courts is also a bedrock principle of the rule of law, and it is eroding before our eyes. The California electorate will be asked to decide if it is willing to be ruled by judges, whether it will simply accept being told what they will do and when they will do it. I hope every interested citizen in the country, every religious leader fond of religious liberty, every legislator who takes his or her job seriously will grasp that the vote on the marriage amendment on the Califoria ballot is really much much more than just a marriage amendment and concerns far more than just California law --it is a vote on who rules, judges or the People, and its result will mark a decisive beginning of a rollback of judicial imperialism or a capitulation to the courts on this and on any other issue the courts decide to impose their will upon.