The upcoming SCOTUS marriage equality ruling is just another
opportunity for Republicans to challenge the constitutionality of the Constitution…
Time and again we have seen Republican pretender hopefuls display
their ignorance of the United States Constitution – or of even how our
system of government works. Heck, some of them, like Ted Cruz, can’t even figure out how the Senate works.
Or take Ben Carson the other day:
First of all, we have
to understand how the Constitution works, the president is required to
carry out the laws of the land, the laws of the land come from the
legislative branch. So if the legislative branch creates a law or
changes a law, the executive branch has a responsibly to carry it out.
It does not say they have the responsibility to carry out a judicial
law.
And who does he think determines the constitutionality of those laws? That’s right: the Supreme Court.
So he’s right about one thing: We do have to understand how the Constitution works.
Carson, lamentably, does not. But then, of course, neither does any Republican in Congress, seemingly.
I’ve been thinking about what Mike Huckabee
said to a group of Evangelicals
at the National Hispanic christian Leadership Conference on April 30.
Everyone made a big deal about how he says he “speaks jesus” but that
was not the important bit.
The mainstream media probably did not want you to notice it, but this was the part that mattered:
I respect the courts,
but the Supreme Court is only that — the supreme of the courts. It is
not the supreme being. It cannot overrule dog. When it comes to prayer,
when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage,
the court cannot change what dog has created.
Obviously, the Supreme Court can overrule dog. As should be obvious to Huckabee, the United States Constitution, and not the bible, is the law of the land.
Just as obviously, Huckabee does not respect the
courts. Or he would not have said such a thing to begin with. It’s like
when people say, “With all due respect…” No, no respect is intended. You
think the other person is an idiot.
Mike Huckabee thinks the courts are meaningless if
they don’t rule the way he wants them to rule. That they have somehow
de-legitimized themselves as though modern wingnut ideology is the
litmus test for every law passed since March 4, 1789, when the
1st United States Congress convened.
If that were not absurdity enough, he issued a direct challenge to the Supreme Court:
“Somebody’s got to be willing to take on the
institutions that challenge and threaten our ability to believe as we
believe, because when religious liberty is lost, all liberty is lost.”
Here, he is echoing Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver,
who said in 2013,
“The cult and people of faith and values need to rise up” if the
Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality. “We just simply
cannot allow this to become the law of the land.”
Can’t allow?
In fact, it is Staver who, earlier this spring
co-authored a pledge not to obey any Supreme Court ruling in favor of
marriage equality, and he told a gathering that he expected every wingnut
candidate for pretender to sign it.
Mike Huckabee has already done so. So has Rick Santorum, another perennial White House hopeful. The list of key signers is a literal hate group who’s who.
According to Staver, “We’re going to ask every
presidential candidate — Republican and Democrat — to sign on to this
pledge and it’s going to be very telling if they don’t.”
It will certainly be very telling. It will tell us
who respects the United States Constitution and intends to obey the laws
of the land – until now allegedly a pre-requisite for every Republican
(or so they have told us) – and who does not.
And consequently, who is ineligible to be President of the United States. After all, that is part of the
presidential oath of office, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
And according to
Article 3, Section 2
of the United States Constitution, the Supreme Court’s “judicial Power
shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this
Constitution, the Laws of the United States.”
All these men are members of the political party
that has been calling President Obama “lawless.” These same figures who
are now lining up to proclaim they will refuse to obey a pro-marriage
equality ruling from the Supreme Court.
Obama has to obey the laws of the land, but they do not?
Apparently not. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said recently, “Talk about a Civil War, we could have another one over this.”
Well hey, they didn’t want to give up their slaves
either, and we fought a war over that one as well. Guess what? They gave
up their slaves, even though dog told them they could have them.
The Supreme Court overruled dog then, too.
Because talk is cheap, and because there is
absolutely no risk at all to their well-being, these people who don’t
understand how the Constitution works are talking martyrdom, like the
Martin Bormann-like
David Lane, and
Sandy Rios of the American Family Association.
This sort of talk is like a porn addiction to them. It no doubt makes pissant little bigots feel important as well.
Yet even Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee have joined the
martyr chorus. Rand Paul, as is well known by now, has neo-Confederate
associations, so you can hardly expect him to pay much respect to the
Constitution (unless it’s the
Confederate Constitution).
Right Wing Watch
has observed that “Some activists are calling for an
anti-gay version of Rosa Parks.”
A fascist Rosa Parks is as much a logical impossibility as a
conservative revolution or a constitutional wingnut. Rosa Parks
fought for freedom
from bigotry, after all, not freedom for bigotry.
Wingnuts have never been comfortable with the
Constitution. It is, after all, a liberal document. It doesn’t preserve
the status quo. Rather, in proclaiming that political power derives from
the will of the people, it shatters it.
So none of these excuses to attack the Constitution
are all that surprising. They’re not the first and they won’t be the
last. But you would think all these attacks would draw some attention at
least from the mainstream media.
Even
so, there might be some awkward moments when the eventual Democrat and
Republican candidates debate, and the question comes up: Which of you
has vowed to violate the rulings of the Supreme Court, and therefore,
the United States Constitution?
by Janie Velencia
