Our Dying Constitution

Our Dying Constitution

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/our_dying_constitution.html

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, who unilaterally redefined the millennia old definition of marriage in his California marriage decision, will not have the last word on this issue. However, it is troubling who will. Many constitutional "experts" from both sides of the marriage argument agree that this issue will inevitably be "settled" by Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. Thus, one judge (one man) may get to tell over 300 million people how they are allowed to order the very basis of their society. How did it come to this?

Our Constitution is dying. It is being killed by judges who ignore the actual text of the Constitution but find previously unknown devices in its "penumbras and emanations." When these judges do consider the text they usually redefine or replace it with other words that reconcile with the judge's personal beliefs and feelings. As a result our national compact becomes more and more meaningless.

For instance, the "Commerce Clause," which, inter alia, authorizes Congress to "regulate commerce ... among the several States..." was redefined in 1942 in the Wickard v. Filburn decision to basically no longer require "commerce" or "among the several states." In Wickard, the Supreme Court interpreted the Commerce Clause to mean anything "affecting" commerce can be regulated by Congress. Of course, an argument can be made that everything affects commerce in some way. Now, this once limited grant of power has become almost unlimited, which helps to explain why members of Congress think they can do almost anything.

When judges disregard or redefine the plain words of our Constitution or make up things with absolutely no textual support, they render the document meaningless. Proponents of these judges defend this chicanery by claiming the judges are only breathing life into our "living constitution" but in actuality they are killing it.

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