The Christianist Attack on the Judiciary

With the courts proving to be the one arena where LGBT Americans are achieving success in the struggle for full equality under the civil laws, it's not a surprise that the Christianists and professional Christian set - who one could call Christians for pay (think Maggie Gallagher raking in over $250,000 a year) - have now targeted the independent judiciary in their effort to push the country more and more towards theocracy. I find the trend extremely troubling and ALL minority groups needs to wake up and realize that the power of a simple majority of voters to block judicial protection of minority rights is a step down the road to fascism where any minority group can be stripped of legal rights at the whim of the ignorant who listen to demagogues. This is precisely what Hitler did to the Jews in his lead up to the Holocaust. Evan Wolfson has a column in the Advocate that is a must read for anyone who gives a damn about the rule of law and constitutional protects of minority rights. NOM and similar organizations are a cancer on a society that supposedly honors the rule of law and constitutional government. If the Christianists are not stopped, I question how long it will be advisable for LGBT citizens to remain in the USA. Here are some column highlights:
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Election Day in Iowa saw a vicious attack from some of the nation’s most notorious antigay organizations and leaders. Politicizing for the first time ever a low-attention, normally routine down-ballot vote regarding whether to “retain” three of the justices, these groups flooded the state with an unprecedented amount of money — more than $700,000 — targeting judges who, out of respect for the judicial selection system, did not campaign for retention or run ads defending themselves. Sadly, the three went down.
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At the same time as they were warping the retention vote, NOM (the so-called National Organization for Marriage) and its fellow antigay groups (Focus on the Family and American Family Association) also went after Iowa attorney general Tom Miller, who was attacked by his opponent for not challenging the ruling that led to the freedom to marry.
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NOM’s real target was not just Iowa and the freedom to marry, but rather, the American judiciary. They will wave their bloody shirt around the country in a thuggish effort to intimidate courts and deter judges from fair and independent consideration of cases challenging antigay discrimination. The attack on the Iowa judges was a new low, even for NOM — a despicable and dangerous assault on bedrock American principles. The antigay forces’ desperate tactic displayed their contempt, not just for gay couples, but also for the court, our Constitution, and the American system of checks and balances.
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Without the courts, our country would not have made the changes we needed to end legal race discrimination, to advance the equality of women, to ensure freedom of speech, or to protect religious minorities against stigma and oppression. While courts do sometimes get it wrong, they have a vital and legitimate role to play in our American constitutional system.
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With the law clearly not on their side, without any facts to rely upon, and with a majority of Americans on the side of fairness, antigay forces are desperate and willing to lay waste to our courts and our most cherished American principles in order to get their way and punish same-sex couples. As the losses continue to pile up for these extremists, their attacks become more vicious and they resort to shoveling torrents of money into one-sided elections, as they have done in Iowa.
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There is a reason why everything does not get put up to a vote. There are certain basic rights and protections that belong to each individual and cannot be taken away — not even by the majority. As Americans, we count on our Constitution and courts to safeguard the inalienable rights guaranteed to all of us.
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America’s courts are under attack by antigay forces, and we can’t leave defending the Constitution to judges alone. All of us, gay and nongay, have to create the climate of receptivity in which judges, legislators, and politicians are emboldened, encouraged, and, indeed, enlightened to do the right thing. . . . We must not allow them [NOM and its allies]to trash the basic rules of the American constitutional system or subvert the courts whose job it is to protect those rules, including constitutional safeguards, for all of us.