[COMMENTARY] Clerks are bound to follow law

FRANKFORT  – A Republican attorney I know sees the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage and the reaction in Kentucky – where some county clerks refuse to issue marriage licenses – through the lens of history.

“It’s this generation’s Brown v. Board of Education,” he said, referring to the landmark court ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional.

“You don’t have to like it, but it’s the law,” my attorney friend continued.

The attorney is no Democrat. He’s not urban and he’s certainly not liberal. I have no idea how he feels about the morality of same-sex marriage. But he understands the law and how our system works.

There are similarities between the same-sex ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, and the Brown v. Board of Education ruling that threw out the “separate but equal” justification for school desegregation.

Even the phrase “separate but equal” resonates in some Kentucky county clerks’ explanation of why their religious beliefs should allow them to refuse to grant marriage licenses. After all, they say, a couple can obtain the desired license simply by driving to a neighboring county – but they didn’t ask opposite-sex couples to do that until the court ruling.

The court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. But it was 1964 before the Glasgow schools I attended integrated. Significant social change sometimes doesn’t happen overnight.

There are likely to be others who resist the ruling of the court. Just like some did in the civil rights era, some are now calling for changes to our court system and decrying a decision by “five liberal, unelected lawyers” (never mind a majority of the court is conservative and was appointed by Republican presidents).

Like civil rights and abortion, there will probably be more court battles as some resist the ruling. But supporters of same-sex marriage can probably draw hope from the history of the civil rights battles and from the general trend of American history to enlarge and expand individual minority rights rather than restrict them.

Via: Glasgow Daily Times

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Toledo judge refuses to perform gay marriage

A northwest Ohio municipal judge assigned to a courtroom where civil marriages are performed refused to marry two women less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, the judge’s office confirmed on Wednesday.

Toledo Municipal Judge Allen McConnell was on a three-week rotation assigned to perform civil ceremonies on Monday when Carolyn Wilson and her partner asked to be married. McConnell acknowledged the decision in a Wednesday statement.

“On Monday, July 6, I declined to marry a non-traditional couple during my duties assignment,” he said. “The declination was based upon my personal and Christian beliefs established over many years. I apologize to the couple for the delay they experienced and wish them the best.”

On June 26, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution provides same-sex couples the right to marry, handing a historic triumph to the gay rights movement.

Toledo Municipal Court judges performed 98 marriages in 2014 and 49 marriages so far this year. Deputy court administrator Michael Zenk said the request by the women on Monday was the first time the court was asked to perform a same-sex marriage.

After McConnell refused, Judge William Connelly, Jr. performed the ceremony for the women, Zenk said.

“It is the policy of the court to accommodate wedding requests and we will continue to do that for both opposite and same-sex marriage,” Zenk said.

McConnell said he will continue to perform “traditional marriages” and is, “seeking an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court of Ohio” about whether he can “opt out of the rotation” that would have him perform civil marriages.

Via: Columbus Dispatch

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[FLASHBACK] Q&A With Judge Robert Bork: Moral Life of Nation Could be Decided by One Judge

Judge Robert Bork with President Ronald Reagan (Wikimedia Commons)[Editor's Note: In this interview with CNSNews.com in 2009, Judge Robert Bork warned that just "one judge"--Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy--effectively had the power to decide "the moral life of the nation.” Bork made the assertion after warning: "But we are going to see in the near future a terrible conflict between claimed rights of homosexuals and religious freedom. You are going to get Catholic hospitals that are going to be required as a matter of law to perform abortions.  You are going to get Catholic or other groups’ relief services that are going to be required to allow adoption of a child by homosexual couples.  We are going to have a real conflict that goes right to the heart of the society.”] 

(CNSNews.com) - “Now, it’s a funny situation in which the moral life of a nation is in effect decided by one judge, because you have four solid liberal votes, four solid originalist votes, and one vote you can’t predict too accurately in advance,” said Judge Robert Bork, reflecting on the balance of the U.S. Supreme Court, in an interview with CNSNews.com.

Bork was pondering what the outcome might be if the court at some future point were to answer the question of whether the government has the constitutional authority to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

It is Justice Anthony Kennedy whom Bork believes holds the court’s deciding vote on such issues.

The judge spoke with CNSNews.com Editor in Chief Terry Jeffrey in a videotaped interview Jan. 8, 2009. Here is a transcript of the conversation.

Jeffrey: Welcome to “Online with Terry Jeffrey.” Our guest on this program is Judge Robert Bork. Judge Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He received both his bachelor’s degree and law degree from the University of Chicago. He was a law professor at the Yale University Law School. He served as solicitor general of the United States, and as acting attorney general of the United States.  He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan.

He has written several books, including “The Tempting of America” and “Slouching Towards Gomorrah.” His latest book is “A Time to Speak.” It is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, where I also happen to be a visiting fellow.

Judge Bork, thanks for agreeing to this interview and inviting us into your home.

Bork: Well, I am glad and I intend to enjoy it.

Jeffrey: Me too, sir. One of the essays published in the book is “Olympians on the March: The Court and the Culture Wars,” which you published back in 2004. I want to read you a passage that you wrote.

Bork: Oh my.

Jeffrey: I am going to hold you accountable. You said: “Only a draconian response to unconstitutional court decisions remains. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered the state’s legislature to amend its statutory law to permit homosexual marriage.  It is, or should seem, extraordinary that a court should order a legislature to amend and enact laws. The underlying decision is so self-evidently an act of judicial usurpation of the legislative function, and so wrong as a matter of constitutional interpretation that it might seem that any self-respecting legislature would simply refuse to comply, and if it did comply, that the governor would veto the bill. So accustomed have we become to judicial supremacy, however, that such a course sounds revolutionary. Yet there must be some means of standing up to a court that itself is behaving unconstitutionally in very serious matters.”

You have these issues—this is the issue of marriage—there’s not too many other issues I can think of that would go more fundamentally to what a culture and society is about.  It is being redefined by judges. What can the people do to respond to that kind of judicial usurpation?

Bork: Well, one thing they can do is amend the constitution, amend the state constitution. Of course, that doesn’t always work because the judges then--right now Jerry Brown in California is arguing, he’s the attorney general, he’s arguing that an amendment to the California constitution is unconstitutional.

Jeffrey: Right, this is Proposition 8.

Bork: Yeah. There’s no end to the gall of some of these folks. But amending the constitution is the clearest route.  Beyond that, the cures are longer term. They would involve replacing these judges with other judges.  If it’s an elective system, when they come up for reelection, vote them out and get new judges.  If it’s not, wait until they retire or die, and then get new judges.  But as long as we insist upon treating judges as the final word no matter what they say, we’re in trouble.

Via: CNS News

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Saving Bad Apples

Most people agree that bad apples—whether misbehaving police officers, state workers, or school teachers—should be removed from public service or at least disciplined. Yet a California legislature that couldn’t be bothered to consider serious pension reform or address a spate of coming municipal bankruptcies passed three union-backed bills that protect the state’s worst “public servants.” Talk about priorities.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the most offensive of the three bills, SB 313, which passed both legislative houses by a combined vote of 108-5. Republicans were just as likely as Democrats to back a bill that would forbid police agencies from relying on so-called Brady lists to reassign, demote, or otherwise punish police officers and deputy sheriffs. In a 1963 case, Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court required prosecutors to disclose any evidence that could be favorable to the person accused of a crime. As a Senate analysis of SB 313 explains, “If the prosecutor is aware of misconduct, past or present, on the part of a police officer who may be called as a witness in a case, and that misconduct could discredit or ‘impeach’ the officer’s testimony, the prosecutor has an obligation to turn that evidence over to the defendant.”

As a result, district attorneys compile lists of officers who have been found to have lied under oath or falsified police reports, used excessive force, or who have been convicted of certain crimes. There’s good reason to keep these individuals off the witness stand, given that their lack of integrity can cost a prosecutor a conviction. And police agencies will sometimes discipline or reassign officers found to have behaved so poorly.

Progressive-minded police officials, such as Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, have publicly supported the use of Brady lists to help assure that the public can have “a high degree of trust” in their officers, as he explained to the Sacramento Bee. But police unions and their allies, such as the Peace Officers Research Association of California—a group that pays the legal-defense fees of officers accused of horrific behavior—despise the Brady lists. SB 313 expands the Peace Officers Bill Of Rights, which already makes it nearly impossible to discipline or fire law-enforcement officials for anything other than criminal convictions.

Via: California Political Review

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Federal appeals court reinstates most of Texas' abortion restrictions

A federal appeals court issued a ruling Thursday reinstating most of Texas' controversial new abortions restrictions, just three days after a federal judge ruled they were unconstitutional. 

A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can take effect while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward. The panel issued the ruling after District Judge Lee Yeakel said the provision serves no medical purpose.

The panel's decision means as least 12 clinics won't be able to perform the procedure starting as soon as Friday. In its 20-page ruling, it acknowledged that the provision "may increase the cost of accessing an abortion provider and decrease the number of physicians available to perform abortions." 

However, the panel said that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that having "the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate" a law that serves a valid purpose, "one not designed to strike at the right itself."

The panel left in place a portion of Yeakel's order that prevents the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol for abortion-inducing drugs in cases where the woman is between 50 and 63 days into her pregnancy. Doctors testifying before the court had said such women would be harmed if the protocol were enforced.

Via: Fox News

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Chicago Lawmakers on Verge of Repealing Gun Registry

Owners of legal guns in Chicago may soon not have to register their weapons if lawmakers back a recommendation to repeal the decades-old requirement.

The Chicago City Council is expected to nullify a law established in 1968 by then-Mayor Richard J. Daley that required guns in the city to be registered, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The move follows last year's ruling by a federal appeals court that ordered Illinois lawmakers to allow the carrying of concealed handguns.

In July, the General Assembly approved a concealed carry law that turned over sole control of gun permits and licensing to the state.

That meant the end of the city gun registry, the Tribune reports.

Todd Vandermyde, an Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, told the Tribune that the changes were "a start," though he still questioned Chicago's continued bans on gun sales within the city, the sale of certain metal-piercing bullets, and the use of laser sights on guns.

Three years ago, the city had modified its gun registry to require all handgun owners to obtain permits. The move followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the city's handgun ban, which had been in place since 1982, the Tribune reports.

Via: Newsmax

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