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Elected Legislators Making Efforts to Stem Judicial Activism

"Level of antagonism towards judges is pretty high right now," says law professor

By Hilary White

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - US lawmakers are taking legal steps to curtail the use of the federal courts by special interest groups to alter or overturn existing state laws.

On Wednesday this week, the House of Representatives voted 260-167 for a bill prohibiting most federal courts from hearing constitutional challenges to the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 2004, the House of Representatives approved a bill by Rep. John Hostettler to block federal court involvement in state laws banning same-sex marriage. The Marriage Protection Act passed by a 233-194 vote. The bill proposed to prevent rulings by all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to force states to recognize same sex “marriages” contracted in Massachusetts, a favorite tactic of the homosexual lobby.

Hostettler decried the anti-democratic principle behind the efforts to re-make society using the courts. “As few as five people in black robes can look at a particular issue and determine for the rest of us, insinuate for the rest of us that they are speaking as the majority will. They are not.”  Hostettler’s bill has yet to pass in the Senate.

It has become routine, since the success of the landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion decision, for leftist groups such as the American Civil Liberties Association and a host of others to use lawsuits to contrive social changes away from the traditional Judeo-Christian values that have governed US society.

The use of court decisions to abolish religious expression at public events is being addressed by lawmakers in other states, who are introducing bills prohibiting federal courts from denying citizens the right "to acknowledge God openly and freely.”

Public support is growing for finding ways to stop the judicial attacks on marriage orchestrated by homosexual political activists. Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor and author of the book "When Courts and Congress Collide," commented to the Indy Star that a bill to curtail the power of activist judges has a good chance of passing.

“My sense is that the level of antagonism toward judges is pretty high right now,” Geyh said. “And in some congressional districts, people running for Congress will be made to look good if they do something to yank the chains of judges.”

A 2004 Washington Post and ABC News poll showed 59 per cent of Americans felt homosexual “marriage” should be illegal with nearly half the respondents saying they felt “strongly” about the issue. The same poll found that 53 per cent believed state laws, not the courts, should govern such questions.

Many of these contentious cases have been brought about by lobby groups such as the ACLU, which is the largest and most vocally anti-Christian leftist organization in the US. In nearly every case where a court attempts to abolish religious expression from the public sphere, the ACLU is the driving force behind the suit.

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