As most of you who know me know, my Masters Degree is in law, and I worked in the law field for some time. I feel like I need to clarify something that I overheard today in a passing conversation...if one person has the power to overturn what the people say, what is the point of voting....I see a growing apathy in the political arena, and it is stemming from an alarming lack of understanding of civics and the working of the Federal Government. This is not meant to invite hate-mongering or negativity, and Im not interested in a debate on gay marriage. This is about checks and balances of our legal system. 1) Gay marriage was not overturned. The Supreme Court never even heard it. They did not rule on anything. In fact, they in essence said that the states that ruled bans unconstitutional were correct by refusing to hear it. That is what the Supreme Court is for...to determine if legal precedence is so flawed that it should be overturned on appeal, or if society as a whole has spoken in such a defined manner as to say that they should consider the constitutional benefit of allowing a societal norm to emerge into law...that is the case here. 30 states of 50 have effectively decided to allow it in some form or fashion, and the Supreme Court has sided with those states to say that they are not violation of the Constitution, because the bans could not provide any legal reason to be overturned. That is ALL they said - they would not even hear appeal arguments. This falls along the same argument as saying the Supreme Court upheld Obama-care. They did not. They just said that the way the law was written, it constituted a tax, not a mandate. Had it been considered a mandate, it would have been unconstitutional. They never said it was a good law, a bad law, or even a viable solution to our health care problem. They ONLY said it was a tax, which cleared the way for its implementation. 2) The Supreme Court is not only one person. It consists of 9 well-tenured legal experts in Constitutional Law, from US law schools who hold US law licenses. They span the spectrum of liberal and conservative, and have a tie breaker with the Chief Justice in the event that both parties are evenly split. They are appointed by the President and many who sit on it today where elected by conservative and liberal presidents alike. Their sole purpose is to see if an appeal brought to them is legally flawed or not based on the argument presented. If they dont agree, but the argument is legally sound, they are ethically bound to return a verdict SOLELY on the legal argument. They can assent or dissent their feelings on why that is correct or not, but the ruling is based on legal precedent, just as the three or more courts who heard and ruled on it before it got to them had to do. Please make sure you know your facts before informing others incorrectly. Its always amazing to me that the most vocal about their dislike of politics or law usually only have about 10% of the story to begin with...
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 01:42:58 +0000
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