Judicial Improv
THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:
I call attention to Jack Cashill’s article of today at The American Thinker, in which the author invokes a glaringly self-evident, but almost entirely unobserved, fact concerning the case of Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk whom U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning has jailed on a contempt citation for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Bunning asserts that Davis is in violation of her official duties and of his court for failing to comply with a law concerning “gay marriage.” Cashill, citing Davis’ own remarks, points out that there is no such law. Laws have effect under the Constitution only insofar as the House of Representatives has first written them and then submitted and enacted them by due process. No Supreme Court ruling can make law. Cashill writes: “One would think, though, that if the Fourteenth Amendment safeguards gays from suffering the ‘pain and humiliation’ of being denied marriage, the First Amendment should certainly protect practicing Christians, Muslims, and Jews from the pain and humiliation of being denied their very freedom.” (more…)



