What is Law? 2

Definitions are important to law. The phrase “rule of law” has been bantered about in the marriage debate. As a protection against the rule of man, the rule of law applies to all, even judges.

But what happens to the meaning of “the law” if a judge doesn’t consider himself or herself bound by it? With an opinion, the judge changes “the law.” What if a federal judge were to order Alabama’s government to become Marxist, opining that is the best way under the U.S. Constitution to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility? What if the change were ordered implemented in two weeks, even before the state could appeal? This would not be the rule of law; it would be the rule of man.

Another phrase in the debate is “equal protection,” a principle of constitutional interpretation. According to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe, equal protection can’t logically apply to different things. Therefore, if I’m refused a license to kill eagles, I have no equal protection claim if another person receives a duck-hunting license. Not only is an eagle-hunting license different from a duck-hunting license, it doesn’t exist. It is the same with same sex marriage.

Yet judges have applied equal protection to something that didn’t exist until recently as if it’s no different from marriage. The court redefines marriage to mean “two committed people,” which has never been the definition of marriage in any state, then the court says, “See, you’re denying this same sex couple the right to marry.” The court redefines the institution to justify redefining it. The court picks the state’s pocket as it walks into court, then won’t even let the state roll its dice because it has no money now. It’s law roulette, not the rule of law.

The definition of “good” and “evil” has changed in recent years. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that a state must stop criminalizing consensual, homosexual sodomy, even though the states had been criminalizing it since their founding. That opinion, Lawrence v. Texas, led to where we are today.

This imposition of five justices’ personal morality upon the states plus the court-enforced sanctioning of same sex marriage means changing the definition of “custodial parent” in a divorce. If your spouse leaves you and marries someone of the same sex, they become the “stable couple” and will be awarded custody of your children. Also, you can’t talk badly about your ex-spouse in front of your kids, which means you can’t teach them the bible’s condemnation of homosexuality. You’ve lost your chance to raise a godly heritage. Your future generations belong to the homosexuals.

“Federalism,” a key constitutional principle based upon states’ rights, changes too. When does a state have the right to define marriage? Apparently, only when the federal court says so, like the U.S. Supreme Court said in the DOMA case of the summer of 2013, when it said the federal government can’t write a law defining marriage differing from the law of certain states.

But in the summer of 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court said the opposite – that the states cannot define marriage. The experts said it would happen even before it did happen, as if the U.S. Supreme Court had already made up its mind, even before reading the briefs or hearing arguments – the definition of an illegitimate court. At least, that’s how an illegitimate court used to be defined.

One summer you think the law is this, but now the justices says it’s the opposite. But in Alabama, it was this: "Let’s not even wait until that Court rules; let’s obey a federal trial judge in Mobile." This “law roulette,” according to the advocates of the new “law,” is the “supreme law of the land.” Now you see it, now you don’t. Law is redefined into the opinion of five unelected individuals and is like playing “freeze-tag” or “Mother, may I.”
Isn’t “law” supposed to be fixed, definite, discernible by the common man, not variable, waiting to trap you? How often can you change “the law” and it remain “law?”
So as words change meanings, obeying Alabama’s law becomes breaking it and love of heterosexual marriage becomes hatred and making a moral distinction between good and evil becomes bigotry. The question becomes: “Who is justice?” instead of “What is justice?”

Not just marriage, but the entire house of justice is at stake. If definitions are so malleable that the cards’ definitions can be pulled out of the deck and reshuffled, the house of cards will fall. You’re a partner to the reshuffling of the deck if you think “the law” is defined as whatever a federal trial judge says.