I’ve heard people claim that the courts act as a check and balance against law makers. Who, pray tell, acts as a check and balance against courts:
Last year, Utah couple Beckie Peirce and April Hoagland decided to get married. Last summer, in a decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, the Supreme Court confirmed that this was okay. Then, Peirce and Hoagland wanted to take in a foster child. So, because the Supreme Court had signed off on gay marriage, Utah child services officials licensed the couple earlier this year. And, in August, Peirce and Hoagland welcomed a 1-year-old girl into their home, where she joined the couple’s two biological children. Plans for adoption, approved by the baby’s biological mother, were in place — soon, this would be a family of five.
But on Wednesday, a Utah judge decided to end this plan, ordering the girl removed from her foster home because he said she would be better off with heterosexual parents.
[…]
A copy of the court order by Judge Scott Johansen, a juvenile court judge in Utah’s Seventh District, was not immediately available, but the Salt Lake Tribune confirmed its contents. Hoagland told KUTV that Johansen said that “through his research he had found out that kids in homosexual homes don’t do as well as they do in heterosexual homes.”
Some may argue that the law makers can act as a check and balance here by writing and passing a law allowing same-sex couples to adopt children. But such a process could take years if it would pass at all. Others may argue that higher courts can act as a check and balance but there’s no guarantee a higher court would overturn this ruling. In other words a man in a magic robe ruined a family and they have no recourse.
This is the problem with handing people power over others. Even though the couple, who are already raising children, and the biological mother (the child, being only one year-old, is unable to voice her opinion) agreed to the adoption it hasn’t been allowed to take place because it offends the delicate sensibilities of a single man who wouldn’t have a say in the matter if it wasn’t for his position of power.
One could build a battleship from the irony.
You take to task that one man “ruined” this family yet seemingly ignore that it is 9 such persons who ruin a nation time and again.
If you actually read through my blog you’ll notice that I rip on the nine robed ones of the Supreme Court frequently. In fact I even gave them a name to reflect my view of them: the Nazgûl.
Don’t mistake my lack of ripping one piece of the State apart in a single article for me never giving them their due ripping.
I should clarify my position. I am not talking of only the SCOTUS rulings from this past summer. I am talking of the many rulings, even Marbury, but especially of the last 60 years or so. It has been disastrous that T. Jefferson’s warning against supremacy of SCOTUS was not heeded.
Anytime you have a system where people enjoy power over others the people in power will use it to push their agenda. The mistake many people make is that people in power will act impartially. This mistake is especially common when discussing judges. But people have a remarkable ability to twist things to fit both their personal desires and the expectations of impartiality. I can, for example, make a ruling that fits my personal desires but base the justification entirely on impartial reasons (precedence from previous case law, shifts in what society deems acceptable, my interpretation of what human rights are, etc.).
The Supreme Court is the easier example to point to because they enjoy supremacy but it does happen on every level.