Judge’s Law Clerk Resigns After Saying Trooper’s Death Was ‘Not Sad,’ but the Dead Deer He Hit Was

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The callous New Jersey law clerk who said last week’s death of a state trooper was “not that sad” and instead mourned the deer he hit has resigned from her job.

Leslie Anderson, who worked for the Middlesex County Superior Court, came under fire last week for posting multiple Facebook comments blaming New Jersey State trooper Anthony Raspa for his own demise.

The 24-year-old trooper died on-duty last Saturday after his patrol car hit a deer and careened off Interstate 195, veering into trees.

“Not that sad, and certainly not ‘tragic.’ Troopers were probably traveling at a dangerously high speed as per usual,” Anderson wrote . . .

Anderson resigned Wednesday after initially being suspended with pay for two weeks pending an internal probe, a New Jersey Judiciary spokeswoman said. She was hired in August 2014. (Read more from “NJ Law Clerk Resigns After Saying Trooper’s Death Was ‘Not Sad,’ the Dead Deer Was” HERE)

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Down Syndrome Screening Isn’t About Public Health, It’s About Eliminating a Group of People

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Upon delivering my first child 11 years ago, I heard the words “Down syndrome,” and my world collapsed. Visions of children sitting passively in a corner watching life go by, not participating, kept me awake those first nights as a mom.

It didn’t take me long, though, to figure out that my ideas were based on negative, outdated information that had nothing to do with the reality of life with Down syndrome today. My daughter April is an active, outgoing girl. She’s my nature child, wildly passionate about anything with four legs. Although April uses few words, she’s a master communicator. Through her, I’ve learned that Down syndrome is not the scary, terrible condition it’s made out to be.

But while governments (rightly) ban gender selection, selective abortion continues to be encouraged for children with Down syndrome. In the United States and abroad, screenings are a routine part of health-care programs, and the result is the near-elimination of these children.

When pregnant with my daughter Hazel, tests showed she, too, would be born with Down syndrome. I was shocked when an acquaintance asked me why I did not choose abortion — as if she were a mistake that could be easily erased. Although my personal prejudices have radically changed since the birth of my first daughter with Down syndrome, I realized that negative attitudes about the condition remain deeply rooted. To many, my children and their cohort are examples of avoidable human suffering, as well as a financial burden. Knowing that individuals look at my daughters this way hurts, but seeing governments and medical professionals worldwide reinforce these prejudices by promoting selection is horrendous.

Denmark was the first European country to introduce routine screening for Down syndrome in 2006 as a public health-care program. France, Switzerland and other European countries soon followed. The unspoken but obvious message is that Down syndrome is something so unworthy that we would not want to wish it for our children or society. With the level of screening among pregnant Danish women as high as 90 percent, the Copenhagen Post reported in 2011 that Denmark “could be a country without a single citizen with Down syndrome in the not too distant future.” (Read more from “Down Syndrome Screening Isn’t About Public Health, It’s About Eliminating a Group of People” HERE)

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Second Wildfire Prompts More Evacuations in Alaska

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Photo Credit: AP [Editor’s note: For updates on Alaska’s fires, please click HERE] Fire crews are battling a second wildfire in Alaska and officials say hundreds of homes have been evacuated and six structures have burned.

The fast-moving blaze erupted Monday on the Kenai Peninsula, roughly 100 miles south of a major wildfire that started a day earlier near Willow in the heart of the state’s sled-dog community.

The new fire was first reported in the early afternoon as a 1-acre grass fire near the community of Sterling, but by early evening it had expanded to 640 acres was threatening some 200 homes.

Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources says in a news release that the “explosive wildland fire on the Kenai Peninsula forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes,” but did not provide a more precise figure. The statement said that it’s still unclear if the burned structures are homes or some other type of buildings . . .

The Willow fire has led to the voluntary evacuation of up to 1,700 structures and has struck the heart of sled dog country, including 15 or so mushers who call Willow home. (Read more from “Second Wildfire Prompts More Evacuations in Alaska” HERE)

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Alaskan Mushers Risk Lives to Save Dogs

By Michael E. Miller. The dogs were the first ones to smell the smoke.

As a raging wildfire crept closer and closer to the Alaskan town of Willow on Sunday, the animals began barking before the alarms sounded.

But as smoke blackened the midnight sun over a community known for its dog sledding, the sport’s heroic stars couldn’t flee: They were stuck inside cages or bound with chains.

So their owners stayed, risking their lungs and lives and homes to rescue their beloved animals. Even as the smoke poured in. Even as the rest of their belongings went up in flames.

“The troopers may not have been very happy, but we had to go” help the dogs, DeeDee Jonrowe, a veteran dog musher, told local TV station KTUU. “The concept of any animal burning is just almost too much to bear.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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“Explosive Papal Intervention”: Pope Calls for International Government to Avoid Environmental Cataclysm from Global Warming

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Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical. In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have “grave consequences for all of us”.

Francis also called for a new global political authority tasked with “tackling … the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”. His appeal echoed that of his predecessor, pope Benedict XVI, who in a 2009 encyclical proposed a kind of super-UN to deal with the world’s economic problems and injustices.

According to the lengthy draft, which was obtained and published by L’Espresso magazine, the Argentinean pope will align himself with the environmental movement and its objectives. While accepting that there may be some natural causes of global warming, the pope will also state that climate change is mostly a man-made problem.

“Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it,” he wrote in the draft. “Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases … given off above all because of human activity.”

The pope will also single out those obstructing solutions. In an apparent reference to climate-change deniers, the draft states: “The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.” (Read more from “”Explosive Papal Intervention”: Pope Calls for International Government to Avoid Environmental Cataclysm from Global Warming” HERE)

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Franklin Graham: Obama Freed Radical Muslim Brotherhood Prisoner in Egypt, Why Not Innocent Christian Pastor Saeed in Iran?

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From Rev. Franklin Graham’s Facebook post:

Mr. President, American pastor Saeed Abedini has been imprisoned in Iran for 2 ½ years, and last week he suffered another severe beating at the hands of inmates. His life is continuously threatened not only because he’s an American, but also because he’s a Christian. This was why he was arrested—and he has been told his only way out is to deny Jesus Christ. New reports stated that the White House worked extensively to have Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan released from an Egyptian prison last month where he had been sentenced to life for accusations of affiliation with the radical Islamic terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. Soltan worked on your campaign and his father was a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. President, I hope you’ll do the same to help Saeed Abedini—who is guilty of nothing, was sentenced to 8-years in prison, and whose only affiliation is with the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians, pray with me for Saeed’s protection and for his release.

And from the Christian Post story that Franklin Graham cited:

American pastor Saeed Abedini has reportedly been “viciously beaten” by fellow prisoners in an unprovoked attack in the Iranian prison where he’s being held. The pastor was punched in the face, leaving his eyes beaten black and blue, but prison guards intervened and prevented further injury.

The American Center for Law and Justice, the law group which represents his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, and the couple’s two children in the U.S., said that the prisoners also demolished a small table that the pastor had used to study and read during the beating that he endured last week.

Abedini was allowed to see a prison doctor, who determined that he does not have any broken bones. On Wednesday, he was able to see a family member who came to visit him and see his injuries first hand.

“It is heartbreaking to me and my family that Saeed was again beaten in prison. Saeed’s life is continuously threatened not only because he is an American, but also because he is a convert from Islam to Christianity. It’s time to get Saeed home before it is too late,” Naghmeh Abedini said in response to the news.

Back in May, Abedini marked his 35th birthday in prison, where he has spent over two and a half years for his Christian faith. He was arrested in Iran in 2012 while working on an orphanage for children, and later sentenced to eight years in prison.

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Strange Earthquakes Strike Across the United States

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Alabama Earthquakes Stun Residents And Geologists Alike

By Weather.com. Early one morning last November, Jim Sterling was frightened when the ground began shaking outside his 156-year-old antebellum home in Alabama. . .”I heard a boom and felt the shaking,” Sterling said. “It really upset me.”

Since that day, more than a dozen weak earthquakes have shaken western Alabama’s Greene County. Geologists are now working to find out what has caused this swarm over the last seven months, in an area of the South that’s used to large tornadoes but not light tremors.

“It is interesting that recently there has been more activity there than in the last four decades,” said Sandy Ebersole, an earthquake expert with the Geological Survey of Alabama.

Records from the U.S. Geological Survey show the first of 14 earthquakes occurred on Nov. 20, when a magnitude 3.8 earthquake was recorded about 10 miles northwest of the community of Eutaw. The second occurred in mid-December, followed by another in January and three within a few hours of each other on Feb. 19.

The tremors have continued ever since, with the most recent occurring June 6, when a magnitude 3.0 quake rattled the area. All the tremors have been weaker than the initial jolt in November, and Ebersole said some have been too slight for residents to detect. (Read more from “Strange Earthquakes Strike Across the United States” HERE)

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Mysterious Quake Hits Wyoming, One of the Deepest in History

By Matt Walker. A mysterious earthquake that struck the centre of the US was one of the deepest earthquakes of its type ever recorded, say scientists.

The quake, known as the Wind River Earthquake, struck the state of Wyoming in 2013 with a magnitude of 4.7 Mw (Moment magnitude scale). . .

The Wind River area of Wyoming is usually quiet, seismically speaking. In the past 60 years since records have been collected, few earthquakes in the region have been recorded with magnitudes of 4 Mw, while just one surpassed 5 Mw. . .

[T]he region is also tectonically quiet – that is, there is little movement in the Earth’s tectonic plates below the site. The nearest tectonic movement occurs 200 km away to the northwest, at the so-called Yellowstone Hotspot, an area that produces volcanic activity across the states of Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming. . .

Now scientists have evidence that the Wind River earthquake actually occurred deeper within the Earth, in its mantle, rather than within the Earth’s crust.

Their measurements suggest the earthquake occurred at a depth of 75 km.
In the local area, known as the Wyoming Craton, the Earth’s crust is no deeper than 40-50 km, forming part of the cold, stable lithosphere that underlies much of North America. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Public School LGBT Programs Don’t Just Trample Parental Rights, They Also Put Kids at Risk

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Through his executive appointments, President Obama has helped expose American schoolchildren to activism that places them at risk.

On May 19, 2009, a few short months after his inauguration, Obama gave the green light to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to appoint Kevin Jennings to a top position to influence school policy: the post of Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, also known as the “safe schools czar.” Jennings, a powerful LGBT rights activist who is himself a gay man, was the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN is one of the largest LGBT activist organizations in the nation and is devoted to promoting homosexuality in K-12 schools. Jennings served as “safe schools czar” from 2009-2011.

[Listen to the author’s compelling discussion of his own experiences here:]

Given his connection with the organization, we should not be shocked to discover that GLSEN received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control in 2011 for $1.425 million over five years to promote the LGBT agenda in public schools at taxpayers’ expense. Through these publicly funded in-school programs, kids are being bombarded with the message that same-sex attraction and gender-identity confusion are innate and therefore not changeable.

Those who design these programs probably believe that they are offering hope to children who may feel different, flawed, or unlovable. They believe that if they affirm children’s LGBT identities as something positive, something that makes up the core of who they are, the children will fare better.

This is not the case. No matter what well-intentioned teachers and administrators believe, these programs ultimately entail an agenda that hurts kids. The messages these programs send do nothing to combat the tragically high suicide rates among the LGBT community. Data indicate that kids are actually put at risk when schools encourage them to identify themselves as gay or transgender at an early age. For each year children delay labeling themselves as LGBT, their suicide risk is reduced by 20 percent. (Read more from “Public School LGBT Programs Don’t Just Trample Parental Rights, They Also Put Kids at Risk” HERE)

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Coming Attractions at the Supreme Court Theater of the Absurd

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As usual in mid-June, the hearts of Supreme Court junkies beat ever more rapidly as they eagerly await “blockbuster” ex cathedra diktats from on high. Of great interest is whether Justice Anthony Kennedy meant what he said just two years ago, when five justices overpowered and insulted (Scalia, pp. 21, 25) four justices to declare unconstitutional an overwhelmingly enacted federal law restricting marriage to opposite sex couples. Writing for the five justices, Kennedy promised (pp. 25-26) that they had “confined” their ruling to requiring federal recognition of same-sex marriages in states choosing to make them lawful. However, what is now awaited is whether five justices will further abuse their power by barring any State from making same-sex marriage unlawful.

Justice Scalia added yet another warning (24) regarding a Kennedy promise. “As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.”

The five-justice fiat two years ago was itself predicted (5-6) by Scalia a decade earlier: “… Every single one of these State laws … against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution … bestiality, and obscenity … is called into question by today’s decision….” His then scoffed-at prediction was vindicated in 2013.

If five justices, including Kennedy, again prove Scalia prescient, this “raw judicial power” spectacle will not be over.

Organizations long-advocating sex between men and boys, and between humans and animals (see also) doubtless anticipate their turn at having five human beings who happen to sit on the Supreme Court proclaim that the Constitution protects their “lifestyle choices”—regardless of duly enacted laws, historic beliefs and traditions, and the wishes of millions of Americans, often majorities, who still adhere to those beliefs.

Fanciful you say? Shortly after the last “confined” gay marriage decision, a group wedding for police dogs took place halfway round the world, as

nine pairs of police sniffer dogs dressed in shawls, hats and socks were placed on a decorated platform like those used in traditional Buddhist weddings.

* * * *

The dog marriages were registered by an official in the presence of a crowd of veterinary surgeons, medical doctors, top police officers and the public at a ceremony …. Local television showed the dog couples later being driven away in a decorated police jeep for their “honeymoons.”

Yes, it did take place halfway round the world. But in this age of instant worldwide communication, rest assured that once anyone anywhere concocts any far-out scheme, it will arrive here sooner or later, probably sooner.

And don’t be surprised if five justices give it serious consideration.

What is NOT Stated Here

The probable coming same-sex marriage decision will be but the latest illustration of a long history of judicial abuse of power. Nothing above should be misconstrued or—more likely—misrepresented as endorsing or opposing either side’s position(s) in the same-sex marriage decision by likely no more than five out of nine human beings who happen to be Supreme Court justices. Rather, the position taken here is that these five power-wielding mere mortals have no business deciding this at all. They have absolutely no legitimate Constitutional authority whatsoever to impose their personal moral values upon well over 300 million people in what was founded as a representative democracy.*

Dog-marriage is a reductio ad absurdum of what all too often has been perpetrated by justices, whose happenstance occupancy of high court black robes does not confer upon them superior morality, wisdom or rationality—contrary to their inflated opinion of themselves. Justices Scalia and Thomas and Chief Justice Rehnquist were once left breathless (p. 12) by fellow justices’ “arrogance.” More recently, Scalia objected to (2) five justices’ “jaw-dropping … assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive.”

Not infrequently, judicial arrogance is accompanied by absurdity. With little effort, one can write a long article, or perhaps even a book, filled with examples of justices’ absurdities. A few should suffice to show that these are not confined to same-sex marriage, not by a long shot.

First, justices once declared (p. 41n) that raping a sixteen-year-old, under threat of death three weeks after she gave birth, was—unharmful! Second, few Americans realize that justices have created what they call a constitutional right exclusively for depraved human beings already convicted of the most gruesome acts to commit additional depraved violence free from any punishment whatsoever. (If five justices want something, they label it a “constitutional right,” regardless of whether or not highly literate people can find it in the actual Constitution.) Third, justices declared that a young man, who sexually assaulted four elderly women—including his grandmother—and murdered one of them, should be allowed to “succeed with the argument” that he should not be executed because he was only dangerous to old ladies (pp. 9-10) and would not be a threat if sentenced to life without parole (which, in reality, cannot be guaranteed). Even so, three out of four opinions on behalf of the rapist-murderer, occupying 19 pages, did not mention “grandmother” at all! Fourth, it is beyond absurd for justices to decree that no judge or jury can ever find (15-19) that a young man nearly 18 years old is mature enough to fully understand that premeditated torture-murder is immoral and unlawful, but that judges may rule (pp. 899, 970) that 12-year-old girls are mature enough to decide to have an abortion. (It should not surprise anyone if, not long from now, five justices rule that 12-year-old boys can be mature enough to validly consent to have sex with 45-year-old men.)

Popular Support Seeking Judicial Fiats

If popular support for same-sex marriage is growing, as advocates claim, why don’t they just ask elected legislators rather than unelected judges to write or re-write laws? Moreover, in states with initiative and referendum, a popular majority can change the law without legislators. After a California majority voted for Proposition 8 to restrict marriage to one man and one woman, it was beyond passing strange when opponents of that proposition went to court seeking its nullification by judicial fiat while, at the same time, claiming that a majority of voters now supported same-sex marriage. Why wasn’t another referendum sought for repeal? Recently, Catholic Ireland adopted same-sex marriage by referendum. Also, advocates already have obtained much from elected officials. If support is as widespread as claimed, it should be unnecessary to short-circuit the political process through judicial fiat, whose legitimacy is neither respected nor accepted by millions. (Of course, polls are always open to manipulation, and at least one recent poll was recently exposed as a fraud, in purporting to show wider than actual support for same-sex marriage.)

The advantage of legislative over judicial lawmaking is that justices “pre-empt [p. 20] the democratic debate” by “inscribing… current preferences…into our Basic Law.” These are made unchangeable (p. 567) by “remov[ing them] from the democratic process and writ[ing them] into the Constitution,” which is thus judicially amended to include sweeping rules embodying any five justices’ personal values.

For example, when they constitutionalized a right to homosexual sodomy, justices declared (p. 11): “liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.” As quoted above, Justice Scalia objected that this called into question all state laws concerning sex. More recently, Justice Alito suggested that, if States are constitutionally prohibited from restricting marriage to one man and one woman, the same constitutional rule would require the States to permit incest (p. 33) and group marriage (pp. 17-19).

These examples illustrate Judge (and later Justice) Benjamin Cardozo’s famous reference to the “tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.” That often happens when justices usurp the prerogatives of elected officials by deciding hotly contested political issues about which the Constitution is silent. By contrast, if these issues are left to elected officials to resolve after public debate, the law can be adjusted and re-adjusted. Some laws can then be left in place and others changed, without trying to turn them into irrational one-size-fits-all legislation. To have same-sex marriage, there is no need for blanket principles that apply to all sex matters, including man/boy and human/animal sex, incest, bigamy, polygamy—or dog weddings.

Justice Scalia repeatedly has told audiences that, when the Constitution says nothing about an issue, “persuade your fellow citizens.” Instead, many activists, apparently lacking confidence in their own persuasiveness, prefer to short circuit the process. Two decades ago, Scalia (joined by Rehnquist, White and Thomas) warned (p. 1002):

[B]y foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions [abortion] arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.

And two years ago, Scalia repeated (p. 26):

We might have let the People decide. But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat.

For decades, justices have been arrogantly, illegitimately —and absurdly—usurping legislative prerogatives, forcing their personal morality down the throats of everyone else.

Justice Thurgood Marshall’s former law clerk, Harvard Professor Mark Tushnet, asks: “Why do we let them get away with it?”

Why indeed!!

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Same-Sex Marriage: The Sanctity of an Oath and the Duty to Disregard

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The U.S. Supreme Court will issue its opinion in the Obergefell v. Hodges case later this month. The complainants in the four cases consolidated under Obergefell ask the Supreme Court to, in effect, strike down state laws limiting recognition of “marriage” to the union of one man and one woman. Their complaints allege violation of equal protection and/or due process safeguards found in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. State officials in my home state of Indiana, as well as the other sovereign states, are duty-bound, as a result of their oath of office, to disregard such meddling in state marriage policy by the federal government – especially by the Supreme Court.

It’s a well-established principle in government that personnel subordinate to a higher command authority are required to follow only “lawful” orders directed to them. This principle is made express in the military, where the Uniform Code of Military Justice (Title 10 of the U.S. Code) requires that “any person subject to this chapter who … violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation … shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Note that a member of the Armed Services of the United States is subject to court-martial if he “violates or fails to obey” a “lawful” precept directed to him. The obvious inference is that a member of the armed services is not subject to punishment for his refusal to obey an order which is not “lawful.” At least since Nuremburg, military law does not allow a soldier to argue in a court martial proceeding that he was “just following orders” if those orders were unlawful.

How do these principles apply in the context of the judiciary? Article III of the U.S. Constitution expressly only creates “one supreme Court,” and then authorizes Congress to create courts “inferior” to the Supreme Court. Section 27 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 mandated that “a marshal shall be appointed in and for each [judicial] district …, whose duty it shall be … to execute throughout the district, all lawful precepts directed to him, and issued under the authority of the United States.” Once again, marshals are empowered to execute only “lawful” orders issued by the judiciary. If in enacting the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress considered all judicial orders to be lawful, it would have not included the word “lawful” in that statute. If federal officials are bound to execute only those “precepts” which are “lawful,” how then should state officials consider their duty to faithfully execute their offices under the U.S. Constitution?

In order to understand the duty of a state official, it is necessary to understand the doctrine of federal “preemption.” Constitutional law scholars and lawyers routinely assert that federal law and federal judicial edicts “preempt” state and local law and state judicial edicts. That is, whenever the federal government takes an action, any state or local action to the contrary is “preempted” by the federal action. The doctrine of preemption is grounded in the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause states:

“This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;… any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Should the majority of Supreme Court justices believe that the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from defining marriage as only between one man and one woman, it will be widely assumed that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution “preempts” the “constitution or laws of any state to the contrary” solely because of the opinion issued by the High Court. However, the doctrine of preemption is not unlimited, as those lawyers and politicians who embrace the doctrine of judicial supremacy seem to believe. Let’s re-examine the original plan.

In explaining the supportive role that the states would play in the proper operation of the federal government, Alexander Hamilton put it this way in Federalist Paper No. 27:

“the legislatures, courts and magistrates of the respective members [i.e., states] will be incorporated into the operations of the national government, AS FAR AS ITS JUST AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY EXTENDS; and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws.” [Capitalization original.]

Thus, properly understood, preemption only applies to the “JUST and CONSTITUTIONAL authority” of the federal government. Given that (i) the law of domestic relations and marriage policy has never been made the “JUST and CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY” of the federal government (except for the District of Columbia and federal territories) and (ii) the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies only to a limited set of protections in state-administered legal processes, there is no “lawful” basis for a claim of preemption in this case.

The duty to disregard any federal judicial usurpation of the states’ lawful jurisdiction of marriage policy flows from another constitutional clause which invokes a duty to an even higher authority than any temporal legal system, federal or state. Immediately following the Supremacy Clause, Article VI of the Constitution provides that “the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers … of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution.” Known as the “Oath or Affirmation Clause,” this provision requires every state official to swear or affirm their fidelity to the U.S. Constitution. In explaining the profound relationship between the Supremacy and the Oath or Affirmation Clauses, Alexander Hamilton highlighted the limited application of both. Once again in Federalist Paper No. 27, Hamilton remarked,

“the laws of the Confederacy, as to the ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land; to the observance of which, all officers legislative, executive and judicial in each State, will be bound by the sanctity of an oath.” [Capitalization original.]

It’s clear that state officials are “bound by the sanctity of an oath” to observe “the laws of the Confederacy.” However, that oath is limited in its application to the “ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of” the Confederacy’s jurisdiction. The power to overrule the states’ restrictions on marriage policy has never been added to the “ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of” the jurisdiction of the United States. Therefore, without the future addition of such authority through the process set out in Article V for amending the federal Constitution, no order pursuant to any such opinion is “lawful.”

Finally, it cannot be overemphasized at this juncture that no provision of the U.S. Constitution elevates an opinion issued by the federal judiciary — including an opinion issued by the U.S. Supreme Court — to the level of the “supreme law of the land.” Indeed, there is only one time that I have ever heard that the U.S. Supreme Court was so consumed with pride to have even uttered such a radical principle. See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 18 (1958) (“[T]hat the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by this Court in the Brown case is the supreme law of the land, and Art. VI of the Constitution makes it of binding effect on the States ‘any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’”).

This aberrational statement of the Supreme Court should be viewed as a very lonely exception to the view of Blackstone as embraced generally by our Framers that “the law and the opinion of the judge, are not always convertible terms, or one and the same thing; since it sometimes may happen that the judge may mistake the law.” I. W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 71 (Univ. Chi. facsimile ed. 1765).

Additionally, no provision of the U.S. Constitution obligates any elected official — federal or state — to “be bound by oath or affirmation, to support” an opinion issued by the federal judiciary.

If it had been the intention of the Constitution’s framers to exclusively delegate all questions of Constitutional finality to the unelected, life-tenured members of the U.S. Supreme Court — and to relegate every other elected office — federal and state — to a position of subservience to the decisions of that Court, Article VI of the United States Constitution would have been the place in the U.S. Constitution where this peculiar doctrine would have been made obvious. From its omission, it is clear that this was never the Framers’ intent.

Therefore, state officeholders remain bound by the sanctity of the oath they took which binds them to uphold their respective state constitutions and the laws which define and regulate marriage in their particular member of the Confederacy. They cannot be considered “good soldiers” by doing anything else.

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John Hostettler served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-2007; he is author of Ordained and Established: A Statesman-Citizen’s Guide to the United States Constitution (www.ordainedandestablished.com).

This article is part of a series on “Building Resistance to Same-Sex Marriage.” Should you want to help support this important work, contributions may be made to the U.S. Justice Foundation.

Permission is freely granted to publish, copy, reproduce, distribute, or excerpt from this article for any purpose.

Repulsive Display of Child Abuse: Young Boy Grinds, Twerks at Gay Pride Festival While Bystanders Watch [+video]

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A young boy was filmed grinding and twerking at a Gay Pride event, while a group of attendees stood around him and watched.

In the controversial video (below), the boy was seen with his shirt off and wearing shorts while dancing in the middle of a circle of people. The onlookers encouraged the child as he grinded and twerked to the music playing throughout the festival . . .

“If this were a 12 year old girl, everybody would be sh**ting all over the parents and the festivalgoers encouraging them,” one viewer wrote on Reddit. “The fact that it’s a boy doesn’t make it somehow acceptable.”

(Read more from “Young Boy Grinds, Twerks at Gay Pride Festival While Bystanders Watch” HERE)

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