As the American Family Association continues in its quest to become the most annoying of the conservative gadfly organizations, they couldn’t have come up with a better pick for patron saint than Newt Gingrich. Last year, Gingrich provided them with $350,000, more than a third of their funding to “defend traditional marriage” in Iowa by recalling judges whose marriage ruling they disagreed with.
The cheap shots at Gingrich’s own troubled marital traditions are too easy and numerous, and frankly they distract from a more important criticism. To court the right wing, Gingrich has to feign for them the same obsession with same-sex marriage that blinds them to issues of real importance. I don’t think Gingrich is, in fact, so blinded, but his generosity certainly won their admiration, and bought them success. Iowa’s voters did throw out the three targeted Iowa Supreme Court justices, and they’re gunning for more.
This offense is a dangerous kind of defense – of marriage or anything else. The justices were not accused of misconduct, of incompetence, of corruption, or any kind of scandal, defect or misbehavior. They were accused, and found guilty, of a result.
Far more than that, they were found guilty of only a single result. No other cases in their long careers, no positions they had taken, no opinions they had joined, but that one, were at issue.
This is politics in full fury, the very thing the founders wanted to protect the third branch of government from. Every day, judges across the country deal with an infinite number of problems, and do their best to solve conflicts that seem to have no other solution. Appellate courts, in particular, get only the most developed of these cases, and the time to consider them fully. Multiplicity is what makes reviewing courts work: multiplicity of judges, multiplicity of cases, multiplicity of parties.
A recall election like this is not without precedent, but there are damn few others. That’s because of their inherent nihilism. This is political vindictiveness of a special kind, a frenzy of unconcern. No possible opinion on this one matter, not even a unanimous one, could be persuasive or correct if it comes to the disfavored conclusion.
This isn’t, perhaps, a definition of bias or prejudice, but it’s awfully close. It cannot exist without a necessary prior assumption that any justice joining the opinion is somehow acting in bad faith. There is only one correct answer here, and judges had better get it right.
That undermines the entire role of the judiciary as an institution. We need our courts to resolve conflicts, both personal and political. Few cases have split the nation like Bush v. Gore, but after all the political poison was aired, we accepted the result. That respect for the institution, however grudging, is one of the things that holds this nation together.
Gingrich is aiding and abetting the AFA, and many others, in a rancid enterprise. Maybe right now, the only judges who need to worry are those who think the constitution’s specific enumeration of equality applies to same-sex couples. But it’s short-term victories like that that can lead to the next single-issue recall, and the one after that. Perhaps that sort of judiciary, driven by the politics of the moment, is the one a President Gingrich would want. But it’s nothing like the judiciary the constitution gave us, or the one this country needs.
8 Comments for “Total Recall”
posted by Carl on
“To court the right wing, Gingrich has to feign for them the same obsession with same-sex marriage that blinds them to issues of real importance. I don’t think Gingrich is, in fact, so blinded, but his generosity certainly won their admiration, and bought them success.”
I think gay marriage and homosexuality are important issues to him. I might be wrong but I remember him making comments about homosexuality in the early 90’s, and he’s never taken any position since that time which seemed moderate to me on this issue.
Of course that’s always the question. Is it better for someone to truly be opposed to homosexuality or is it better if they aren’t and just go along with homophobia politically?
The nearly 100 members of the House who want to defend DOMA, many of them are in the “Tea Party”, which is supposed to be about small government. Sean Duffy, who was called a “libertarian-leaning” Republican, is a co-sponsor.
There is nothing “libertarian” about this type of bill. This is another case of the GOP pretending to care about small government when it’s really just small government for THEM and big government for ANYONE who is an “other” or who is unworthy.
posted by Infovoyeur on
Maybe this artikals stance, its tone, its position, is goodexample of why we need sites like this and good not bad conservative thought, which inter alia can help optimistic overenthusiastic frenzy without being arthritic.
At least so says CHESTER, flaneur, former member of an colledge English Dept. so you can imagine I had to bleech out the tunnle vision of the “intolerant inclusionists” and all that ironie.
CHESTER
posted by Jorge on
The cheap shots at Gingrich’s own troubled marital traditions are too easy and numerous, and frankly they distract from a more important criticism.
(I’ll say. I have a governor who’s taking communion while living in sin, and his bishop won’t do anything because the Church is snobbish and corrupt.)
To court the right wing, Gingrich has to feign for them the same obsession with same-sex marriage that blinds them to issues of real importance. I don’t think Gingrich is, in fact, so blinded, but his generosity certainly won their admiration, and bought them success….
…Perhaps that sort of judiciary, driven by the politics of the moment, is the one a President Gingrich would want.
I agree.
Gingrich is aiding and abetting the AFA, and many others, in a rancid enterprise. Maybe right now, the only judges who need to worry are those who think the constitution’s specific enumeration of equality applies to same-sex couples. But it’s short-term victories like that that can lead to the next single-issue recall, and the one after that. Perhaps that sort of judiciary, driven by the politics of the moment, is the one a President Gingrich would want. But it’s nothing like the judiciary the constitution gave us, or the one this country needs.
Actually the judiciary established by the Constitution was almost shuttered by Thomas Jefferson as it decided Marbury v. Madison. It was only the political and legal talent of Chief Justice John Marshall that established the tradition of judicial review while handing down a decision technically favorable to Jefferson.
This tradition has served us well for hundreds of years and I do not think you are exaggerating at all.
Just like the drive to amend the constitution to bar gay marriage, the recall elections are a legal and legitimate exercise of legislative and popular will, and a valid check on what is perceived to be an abusive and overreaching exercise of power by the judicial branch of government acting against the traditions of the American people. Chalk it up to another reason in favor for winning the gay marriage fight socio-politically rather than legally.
posted by BobN on
Let’s not give Mr. Gingrich more credit than he is due. The money wasn’t his. He was a conduit. In other words, someone hates us enough to dump hundreds of thousands into a campaign to hurt us and they like Newtie enough to let him take the credit.
posted by Tom on
The effort to rid Iowa of its judges, might be an extreme example of far-right social conservative willingness to destroy the judicial system, but he’s not alone, by any means.
Gingrich is a toad, but he’s not going anywhere in the Republican primaries, no matter how much he touts his religious conversion and anti-gay credentials for the benefit of Iowa’s Republican caucus voters. At best, the Gingrich act is a sideshow, demonstrating how anti-gay a Republican needs to be these days to have a shot at making it through the caucuses, but not much more than that. Tim Pawlenty, otherwise reasonably sensible, already proved that by walking over the edge on DADT a few weeks ago.
Gingrich certainly isn’t alone in his support of Bob Vander Plaats & Company. Vander Plaats has already lined up Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, as I understand it, and Huckabee can’t be far behind.
Iowa is just the most recent battleground in the social conservatives’ war to rid the country of “activist judges” and constitutional review of culture war issues.
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but the Marriage Protection Act (which would strip federal courts of jurisdiction to hear same-sex marriage cases) is back. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), Rodney Alexander (R-La.), Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), Joe Barton (R-Texas), Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Ralph Hall (R-Texas), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Bob Latta (R-Ohio), Ron Paul (R-Texas), Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) are co-sponsors. Now there’s a motley crew if I ever saw one.
posted by John Howard on
Dale Carpenter didn’t allow comments in the thread below this one, but I have to point out his major revisionist history about DADT. He writes that he “could note bitterly that President Clinton was primarily to blame (by incompetence, at the very least) for the codification of the ban”
DADT did not ban gay soldiers, in fact it allowed gay soldiers to join by protecting them from being asked if they were homosexuals. It didn’t change the policy, which was that known homosexuals would be discharged. That was the policy before Clinton and after Clinton, but Clinton made it possible for gays to enlist and serve, without having to reveal if they were homosexual. He certainly did not make it harder to serve or ban gays from serving.
The same reversal of reality regarding Clinton’s actions can be seen in how he’s now suddenly to blame for DOMA, as if it was actually a defense of marriage. At the time, DOMA was what enabled states to begin same-sex marriages without the country falling into a tizzy and enacting an FMA. It was a first step in establishing same-sex marriage, just as DADT was a first step in allowing gays to serve.
I wonder if Dale realizes this or not? Which is scarier?
posted by BobN on
revisionist history
Yeah, I remember Clinton holding a gun to the head of dozens of GOP politicians, forcing them, forcing them to vote to stop open service for gay people.
posted by John Howard on
There was never open service for gay people, BobN. Remember, the policy used to be that people were asked if they were homosexuals (remember the scene in Stripes at the recruitment office, when they are asked if either of them is homosexual? They look at each other thinking it might be a requirement, and answer “no, but we are willing to learn!”). Homosexuals weren’t allowed in the military prior to Clinton, Clinton came up with a way to allow them to enlist and integrate themselves into the military.