A while back:
Is Vicky Hartzler the Most Anti-Gay Candidate in America?
She’s hitting her Dem opponent-an architect of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell-for caving to the “extreme agenda” of the “gay movement.”
-By Nick Baumann
| Wed Oct. 20, 2010 4:30 PM EDT….In 2004, Hartzler drew national and international attention for her work in the campaign for a constitutional amendment in Missouri to ban gay marriage. The amendment was the first of its kind and passed-by a huge margin-in August of that year. The Human Rights Campaign and other national gay rights groups had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the state to campaign against the amendment. Hartzler was quoted in national and international media celebrating her victory for “traditional marriage….”
[….]
“….Since the Missouri amendment’s passage, Hartzler’s been a go-to quote machine whenever there is national news about gay marriage rights….”
[….]
Representative Vicky Hartzler’s comment on the issue via Twitter:
Nope, nothing there.
Representative Hartzler’s (r) comment on the issue via Facebook:
Nope, nothing there, either.
“….Since the Missouri amendment’s passage, Hartzler’s been a go-to quote machine whenever there is national news about gay marriage rights….”
Strange silence. Times have changed.
Update:
Well, there was a release from Representative Hartzler’s (r) congressional office the day before:
Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (MO-4) has issued the following statement regarding a St. Louis Circuit Judge’s ruling that Missouri’s natural marriage amendment is unconstitutional:
“I am disappointed that a judge has overturned the will of the Missouri people by striking down the state’s natural marriage Constitutional amendment recognizing marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Missouri citizens overwhelmingly approved this amendment with 71 percent of our citizens supporting it. Now it is up to the Missouri Supreme Court to uphold the will of the people. I am hopeful the Court will respect the people’s Constitutional right to determine their public policy.”
[….]
Is it possible that public opinion has changed in the ensuing ten years? Just asking. But go ahead, and cling to whatever you wish.
It would be interesting to read comments in response. Oh, wait…
Meanwhile, there’s the dissent this week in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (14a0275p.06 14-1341 2014/11/06 April DeBoer v. Richard Snyder [pdf] Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit):
MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
“The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course to pass the judges by.”
Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy. But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise-that the question before us is “who should decide?”-and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it. Because I reject the majority’s resolution of these questions based on its invocation of vox populi and its reverence for “proceeding with caution” (otherwise known as the “wait and see” approach), I dissent.
[….]
Today, my colleagues seem to have fallen prey to the misguided notion that the intent of the framers of the United States Constitution can be effectuated only by cleaving to the legislative will and ignoring and demonizing an independent judiciary. Of course, the framers presciently recognized that two of the three co-equal branches of government were representative in nature and necessarily would be guided by self-interest and the pull of popular opinion. To restrain those natural, human impulses, the framers crafted Article III to ensure that rights, liberties, and duties need not be held hostage by popular whims.
More than 20 years ago, when I took my oath of office to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, I solemnly swore to “administer justice without respect to persons,” to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich,” and to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” See 28 U.S.C. § 453. If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams.
“…I am hopeful the Court will respect the people’s Constitutional right to determine their public policy…”
“…If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams.”
The vox populi in a low turnout August primary election ten years ago is not supposed to trump the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At least not at this moment.
While watching the movie “The Book Thief”, as the Nazis were burning books in the town square, I found myself thinking how eerily similar it seemed to a world in which Vicky Hartzler were calling the shots. Yikes! Did you vote?
I always vote.