Judges Gone Wild: Judicial Activism Deactivates Rights

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We are a country of laws. Our Constitution’s goal, in part, to “establish justice” relies heavily on a handful of people across the country given the awesome power and responsibility as judges.

But alarmingly, many of these judges have no use for the law.

Even though their role is to interpret the law and make decisions based on the facts, too many have wrapped themselves in robes of activism. Their own ideology rips at the very fabric of justice, shredding the Constitution and state laws one fiber at a time.

I know this from personal experience as U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Jackson has decided the facts don’t matter and the First Amendment is unworthy of consideration in The Radiance Foundation v. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP is abusing trademark law to censor me, while Alliance Defending Freedom is fighting for my civil rights. Judges gone wild don’t care about the truth. They care about their worldview. Impartiality be damned.

Even the ACLU of Virginia has chosen to support us by filing an amicus brief, together with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, condemning the judge’s trampling of free speech rights.  The Life Legal Defense Foundation has also filed its amicus brief, along with Reverend Walter Hoye, Day Gardner, and Dr. Alveda King of the National Black Prolife Coalition, to denounce this judge’s actions with great historical substantiation and humor.

But judicial activism isn’t funny.

The existence of radically pro-abortion, anti-religious liberty Obamacare is the result of judges ignoring the facts and giving Congress the power to pass any legislation as long as it’s a tax. The Supremes also recently rejected to hear same-sex marriage cases that directly conflict with their own DOMA ruling in which they affirmed states’ rights to define marriage. The Constitution is being rethreaded by judges who fabricate “rights” out of activist whole cloth.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones trashed Pennsylvania’s Defense of Marriage Act declaring: “We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.” Sure. Supporting the only form of marriage that can produce a child—produce a society—is an anachronistic notion that should be torched. The facts don’t matter more than a purely emotionally driven sense of “equal justice”.

Perhaps the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause should be equally applied to anyone (of any age) who’d like to drive. Aren’t a driver’s test and license fees like a literacy test and poll tax?  What about “equality” for anyone who’d like to vote, at any age? Shouldn’t everyone have the “right” to park in any parking spot, including those designated as handicap? How can any college legally discriminate in its selection of any potential student? Shouldn’t it be everyone’s “right” to be accepted at any college or university?

The 14th Amendment was a Reconstruction Amendment that specifically pertained to the unequal treatment of black Americans. It finally ascribed to those of my complexion full personhood. If it were meant to be a panacea for all rights we wouldn’t have needed numerous subsequent amendments securing the right to vote.

In California, liberals forced “equality” upon the state, via SB 1172, by ensuring professional therapists and parents had no choice in counseling for children with unwanted same-sex attraction. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, unsurprisingly, denied this law violated the First Amendment and came to the predictably bizarre conclusion that, in therapy, there was no speech involved. Huh? Do counselors and their clients communicate telepathically?

Matt Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel has defended the Californian families in Pickup v. Brown whose state has violated their right to parent, their freedom of religion, their freedom of speech, their equal protection under the law and their access to therapeutic choice. Staver illuminates this outrageous situation: “Legislators and judges in the state of California have essentially barged into the private therapy rooms of victimized young people and told them that their confusion, caused by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky abuser, is normal and they should pursue their unwanted and dangerous same-sex sexual attractions and behavior, regardless of whether those minors desire their religious beliefs to trump their unwanted attractions.”

New Jersey passed the same legislation, and Governor Chris Christie signed it into law falsely claiming children faced “health risks” if exposed to such counseling. The American Psychological Association Report, used by both states to pass such an egregious attack on the First Amendment, actually found that some people benefitted from such counseling and had insufficient research showing the “efficacy or safety” of such therapy on minors. But the organization ignored its own findings and came to the conclusion that any therapy other than that which affirms homosexuality is harmful. Let’s keep in mind this is the same politicized organization that published a poorly conducted meta-analysis claiming that child sexual abuse did not negatively impact its victims.

Judges in both CA and NJ were given the most comprehensive scientific evidence regarding homosexuality and modern therapy in dealing with unwanted same-sex attraction, from the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity and the Narth Institute. The judges ignored the facts and chose politics and partiality.

These judicial opinions are brazenly reshaping our cultural and legal landscape at a frightening frequency. Whenever a judge activates a non-existent “right” they deactivate an actual civil right. But Congress can rein this in. Aside from confirming all federal judges, it actually has the power to abolish the federal court system. I’m not suggesting this, just emphasizing that Congress is not powerless in the face of judicial tyranny. The Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is still subject to Congress who has the Constitutional authority to determine the high court’s jurisdiction.

Judicial activism is a threat to our freedoms just as much as the apathy of the American public. Judges gone wild can only be tamed when American citizens choose to understand and embrace the power given to the People by the Constitution.

Ryan Bomberger is the co-founder and chief creative officer of the Radiance Foundation.