To the editor:
Thomas Jefferson had some very grave concerns about the powers of the United States Supreme Court. In a letter he wrote in 1820 he voiced his concerns: “You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges . . . and their power [are] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.”
In 1962 the Supreme Court removed state-sponsored prayer from public schools (Engel v. Vitale). In 1965 it tossed a law preventing married couples from buying contraceptives by creating a “right to privacy” (Griswold v. Connecticut).
In 1973 it once again used its newly found right to privacy and used it to legalize abortion-on-demand for the entire nine months of pregnancy (Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton). In 2003 it threw out an anti-sodomy law in Texas once by again applying the right to privacy (Lawrence v. Texas).
Shortly the Supreme Court will be handing down its decisions on Prop 8 in California and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Considering the decisions listed above it won’t be a great surprise if they legalize same-sex marriage and toss DOMA.
The Supreme Court has replaced God as the ultimate law-giver and final arbiter of morality. Maybe we should change the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance from “One Nation Under God” to “One Nation under the United States Supreme Court.”
Jesus said, “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21).” God is the author of life and of marriage — not the United States Supreme Court or for that matter any branch of government.
Our Founding Fathers understood this by incorporating the words “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” into the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. They also mentioned “Creator, Supreme Judge, and Divine Providence.” Abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, and pornography, are all clear violations of God’s law.
Patrick Hardyman, Blanchardville