Jonathan Turley

Bans Against Polygamy Unconstitutional (Updated w/Incest)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Greased Up Slide down Slope

…If Christianity and the Christian moral and societal framework is no longer viewed as normative in laws governing sexual practice, then the slippery slope to legalizing polygamy is here. We already know from the Lawrence ruling that the state may not regulate private consensual sexual conduct; if the principle that privileging Christian marital norms* is impermissible is accepted, by what standard do we prevent polygamy? I suppose you could say it harms society in some way, but this judge rejected that argument. Scalia’s Lawrence dissent was correct. We’re just seeing the logic of the majority opinion play out in the courts. That, and the collapse of Christianity as the basis for Western society. (The American Conservative)

* Actually, the argument for fidelity to one person of the opposite sex pre-dates Christianity as well [not just Judaism either]… see my “Point #3“

Incest!?

HotAir will catch us up on the “haps” in our court system, and then we will let GP comment on the situation as these guys [only] can:

Jonathan Turley set quite a few tongues to wagging yesterday when he published an article with the provocative title, “Federal Court Strikes Down Criminalization of Polygamy in Utah.” It involves the case of Brown v Buhman, where Turley himself is one of the lawyers involved. The introduction to his announcement certainly fanned the flames of those who follow this subject closely.

It is with a great pleasure this evening to announce that decision of United States District Court judge Clark Waddoups striking down key portions of the Utah polygamy law as unconstitutional. The Brown family and counsel have spent years in both the criminal phase of this case and then our challenge to the law itself in federal court. Despite the public statements of professors and experts that we could not prevail in this case, the court has shown that it is the rule of law that governs in this country.

If the name Brown when related to the subject of polygamy is ringing a bell for some of you, that’s because the family in question is one and the same as the stars of the TLC series Sister Wives. This differs significantly from HBO’s highly successful, but completely fictional series Big Love, in that Sister Wives is a reality TV show based on the lives of actual polygamists.

A I mentioned above, this announcement set some people off immediately, including Professor Bainbridge.

  • Next stop on the slippery slope express, I assume, will be consensual adult incest marriages.

He followed that up with a tweet saying, “Robert Bork was right. We are Slouching Towards Gomorrah.”

…read more…

Indeed! Part of Utah`s Admittance

One of the comments in the GP post that makes TOTAL sense in its conclusions:

Well we went from “Does the sex of the partner really matter?” to “Does the number of partners really matter?”, so my money is on “Do the ages of the partners really matter?”, followed by “Does the genetic proximity of the partners really matter?”, followed by “Does the species of the partners really matter?”, but I think we have a good 50 to 100 years on that last one.

How long do you think it will be before we’re hearing about a 30-something single dad and his teenaged identical twin sons having a three-way wedding?

Another commentator on FreeRepublic notes well that “…wasn’t outlawing polygamy a condition of Utah’s statehood?”

Here is Gay Patriot layin’ down the intelligent commentary on the progressive left in our country being at the center of this rot, not exclusively gays, but gay leftists and hetero leftists:

“Don’t be ridiculous,” they said. “No way does same sex marriage lead to legalized polygamy. The slippery slope argument is a complete fallacy, because enactment of one liberal social policy has never, ever led to the subsequent enactment of the logical extension of that liberal social policy. Ever!”

Well, they may have been wrong about the coefficient of friction on that particular incline. Commenter Richard Bell notes the following: Judge Cites Same-Sex Marriage in Declaring Polygamy Ban Unconstitutional.

Interestingly, the judge’s 91-page opinion cites a series of legal precedents that have gradually redefined marriage, and limited the ability of the state to define it. Almost as though there had been some kind of negative gradient, and the law had been gravitationally drawn to the lower end of the gradient as a result of the lack of adhesion on that gradient.

Since marriage is no longer about creating a stable environment for children, and has become (and this mainly the fault of heterosexual liberals) about personal fulfillment, validation, and access to social benefits, there literally is no constraint on how much more broadly it can be redefined.

(emphasis added)

Ouch! So on the money! Liberalism in political philosophy, scientific paradigms, theology, and the like, all have the same outcome from the affect. Dilution to the point of relativised thinking, to wit Tammy Bruce cogently says — and for those that do not know, she is a lesbian:

★ Even if one does not necessarily accept the institutional structure of “organized religion,” the “Judeo-Christian ethic and the personal standards it encourages do not impinge on the quality of life, but enhance it. They also give one a basic moral template that is not relative,” which is why the legal positivists of the Left are so threatened by the Natural Law aspect of the Judeo-Christian ethic. (Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values, 35.) [read more]

The same arguments in the case SCOTUS decided (Brown v. Buhman) will be used in an incest case here in the states (See the NY Times, as well as Time Magazine). With the fertilization choices, the fact that it takes multiple generations for “webbed feet,” and the idea that a sister-and-sister, or brother-and-brother cannot have children, leave the incest case open, as the Brown case has already been used to argue against polygamy.Incest Star Wars SMALL

Here is the last paragraph of the Time Magazine article that notes the players in the “incest” battle:

The ACLU has filed suit in several states to challenge the few remaining statutes that prohibit unmarried couples from living together. This is the sort of case that may have a better chance of expanding Lawrence’s reach, said Katine.

Here is Scalia, as quoted via U.S. News and World Report:

In his dissent of that ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia angrily warned that if the court was willing to strike down sodomy laws, other state laws on moral choices could soon be lifted, among them gay marriage. He wrote:

State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity … every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision.

He further argued:

If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is ‘no legitimate state interest’ for purposes of proscribing that conduct … what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising ‘[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution?’

INDEED!

Thin-Skinned Over the Redskins ~ Warnings of Government Overreach

Published by Papa Giorgio

I am going to start this post with a very STRONGLY WORDED rant on the asinine political correctness found on the professional Left. Again, language warning, but you should be just as flabbergasted as these men (via THE BLAZE):

Jonathan Turley (via THE WASHINGTON POST) gets into the mix in his now patented warning from the left about the excesses of government size, growth, and overreach. Some of which I have noted in the past HERE. But here is the column from which Dennis Prager touches on, and Goldberg’s will follow:

…It didn’t matter to the patent office that polls show substantial majorities of the public and the Native American community do not find the name offensive. A 2004 Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found that 90 percent of Native Americans said the name didn’t bother them. Instead, the board focused on a 1993 resolution adopted by the National Congress of American Indians denouncing the name. The board simply extrapolated that, since the National Congress represented about 30 percent of Native Americans, one out of every three Native Americans found it offensive. “Thirty percent is without doubt a substantial composite,” the board wrote.

Politicians rejoiced in the government intervention, which had an immediate symbolic impact. As Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Wednesday: “You want to ignore millions of Native Americans? Well, it’s pretty hard to say the federal government doesn’t know what they’re talking about when they say it’s disparaging.”

For the Washington Redskins, there may be years of appeals, and pending a final decision, the trademarks will remain enforceable. But if the ruling stands, it will threaten billions of dollars in merchandizing and sponsorship profits for NFL teams, which share revenue. Redskins owner Dan Snyder would have to yield or slowly succumb to death by a thousand infringement paper cuts.

The patent office opinion also seems to leave the future of trademarks largely dependent on whether groups file challenges. Currently trademarked slogans such as “Uppity Negro” and “You Can’t Make A Housewife Out Of A Whore” could lose their protections, despite the social and political meaning they hold for their creators. We could see organizations struggle to recast themselves so they are less likely to attract the ire of litigious groups — the way Carthage College changed its sports teams’ nickname from Redmen to Red Men and the California State University at Stanislaus Warriors dropped their Native American mascot and logo in favor of the Roman warrior Titus. It appears Fighting Romans are not offensive, but Fighting Sioux are.

As federal agencies have grown in size and scope, they have increasingly viewed their regulatory functions as powers to reward or punish citizens and groups. The Internal Revenue Service offers another good example. Like the patent office, it was created for a relatively narrow function: tax collection. Yet the agency also determines which groups don’t have to pay taxes. Historically, the IRS adopted a neutral rule that avoided not-for-profit determinations based on the content of organizations’ beliefs and practices. Then, in 1970, came the Bob Jones University case. The IRS withdrew the tax-exempt status from the religious institution because of its rule against interracial dating on campus. The Supreme Court affirmed in 1983 that the IRS could yank tax exemption whenever it decided that an organization is behaving “contrary to established public policy” — whatever that public policy may be. Bob Jones had to choose between financial ruin and conforming its religious practices. It did the latter.

There is an obvious problem when the sanctioning of free exercise of religion or speech becomes a matter of discretionary agency action. And it goes beyond trademarks and taxes. Consider the Federal Election Commission’s claim of authority to sit in judgment of whether a film is a prohibited “electioneering communication.” While the anti-George W. Bush film “Fahrenheit 9/11” was not treated as such in 2004, the anti-Clinton “Hillary: The Movie” was barred by the FEC in 2008. The agency appeared Caesar-like in its approval and disapproval — authority that was curtailed in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.

Even water has become a vehicle for federal agency overreach. Recently, the Obama administration took punitive agency action against Washington state and Colorado for legalizing marijuana possession and sales. While the administration said it would not enforce criminal drug laws against marijuana growers — gaining points among the increasing number of citizens who support legalization and the right of states to pass such laws — it used a little-known agency, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, to cut off water to those farms. The Bureau of Reclamation was created as a neutral supplier of water and a manager of water projects out West, not an agency that would open or close a valve to punish noncompliant states….

…READ IT ALL…

Here is the article from THE NATIONAL REVIEW — in part — that has Jonah Goldberg likewise raising alarm about the bureaucracy that Turley speaks to in the above article.

…Now, I don’t believe we are becoming anything like 1930s Russia, never mind a real-life 1984. But this idea that bureaucrats — very broadly defined — can become their own class bent on protecting their interests at the expense of the public seems not only plausible but obviously true.

The evidence is everywhere. Every day it seems there’s another story about teachers’ unions using their stranglehold on public schools to reward themselves at the expense of children. School-choice programs and even public charter schools are under vicious attack, not because they are bad at educating children but because they’re good at it. Specifically, they are good at it because they don’t have to abide by rules aimed at protecting government workers at the expense of students.

The Veterans Affairs scandal can be boiled down to the fact that VA employees are the agency’s most important constituency. The Phoenix VA health-care system created secret waiting lists where patients languished and even died, while the administrator paid out almost $10 million in bonuses to VA employees over the last three years.

Working for the federal government simply isn’t like working for the private sector. Government employees are essentially unfireable. In the private sector, people lose their jobs for incompetence, redundancy, or obsolescence all the time. In government, these concepts are virtually meaningless. From a 2011 USA Today article: “Death — rather than poor performance, misconduct or layoffs — is the primary threat to job security at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Management and Budget and a dozen other federal operations.”

In 2010, the 168,000 federal workers in Washington, D.C. — who are quite well compensated — had a job-security rate of 99.74 percent. A HUD spokesman told USA Today that “his department’s low dismissal rate — providing a 99.85 percent job security rate for employees — shows a skilled and committed workforce.”

Uh huh.

Obviously, economic self-interest isn’t the only motivation. Bureaucrats no doubt sincerely believe that government is a wonderful thing and that it should be empowered to do ever more wonderful things. No doubt that is why the EPA has taken it upon itself to rewrite American energy policy without so much as a “by your leave” to Congress.

The Democratic party today is, quite simply, the party of government and the natural home of the managerial class. It is no accident, as the Marxists say, that the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the IRS, gave 94 percent of its political donations during the 2012 election cycle to Democratic candidates openly at war with the Tea Party — the same group singled out by Lois Lerner. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the VA, gave 97 percent of its donations to Democrats at the national level and 100 percent to Democrats at the state level…

…READ IT ALL…

Rep. Gowdy’s Floor Speech In Favor Of ENFORCE The Law Act

Published by Papa Giorgio

This first video is another wonderful Trey Gowdy anthem. Click his name in the “TAGS” to see other “music to your ears” speeches:

Video description: Rep. Gowdy’s floor speech in favor of H.R. 4138 the ENFORCE the Law Act.

And this is a recent Jonathan Turley statement before Congress (do the same, check out Turley in the “TAGS”):

Video description:

Via The Blaze ~ I did turn the volume up from the original file… so prep your volume control.

A constitutional law expert warned Congress during a hearing Wednesday that America has reached a “constitutional tipping point” under the watch of President Barack Obama.

Jonathan Turley, professor of public interest law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said the legislative branch of the U.S. government is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the face of continued executive overreach.

“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,” Turley said. “I want to emphasize, of course, this problem didn’t begin with President Obama, I was critical of his predecessor President Bush as well, but the rate at which executive power has been concentrated in our system is accelerating. And frankly, I am very alarmed by the implications of that aggregation of power.”

“What also alarms me, however, is that the two other branches appear not just simply passive, but inert in the face of this concentration of authority,” he added….