As long as I’m offering updates on pending controversies (see below), I thought I’d mention that Reps. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) have not yet formally unveiled their nutty “Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution.” They promised it’d be introduced this week; maybe they’re getting cold feet.
Last week, I explained that the Feeney-Goodlatte proposal was the latest in the long line of crazy attacks on the federal judiciary. This one addresses the conservative concern that the Supreme Court has, on occasion, cited international law and/or legal traditions in high court rulings.
To remedy this perceived scandal, Feeney and Goodlatte have created a congressional resolution that would express the sense of Congress that judicial decisions should never cite foreign laws, even in passing. Feeney, in particular, feels so strongly about this, he suggested he’d consider impeachment for high court justices who made note of international legal developments in their rulings.
Since the resolution hasn’t officially introduced, I can’t share the details like the bill number or co-sponsors. But two of my more clever readers raised a good point in response to the Feeney-Goodlatte proposal that I don’t think the lawmakers had considered.
One reader, whom I call Dan, noted that there’s at least one foreign source of law that conservatives want the Supreme Court to rely on more, not less.
[T]here is one body of foreign law that is repeatedly cited in and out of our courts, but is consistently at odds with the American Constitution. In fact, it goes beyond the clarification of obscure issues and instead as a whole contradicts the principles found in the Constitution and its inherent foundation of freedom and justice for all. Yet it is cited all the time, and it is even relied on as being more important than the Constitution. This is especially strange because it is also an unsettled source of law and often contradictory, having been interpreted and perhaps even manipulated by so many different people. So much so that it even comes in multiple versions such as the King James…
Another reader, Dave DeFreese in New Jersey, offered a similar critique, arguing that many of the conservatives’ legal demands are rooted exclusively in “quasi-religious matters of dogma,” which are foreign in origin.
In researching some of this ‘gay marriage’ business, I’ve read the history of some pertinent Supreme Court decisions including ‘Bowers v. Hardwick’, which affirmed the sodomy laws then in place in Georgia, and the Lovings case which overturned miscegenation laws then in place in Virginia. If I recall properly, both of those landmark cases relied on the historical context of other nations’ and religious law going back to Biblical times to justify their decisions.
Such a silly proposal by Feeney would throw out the basis for popular conservative decisions such as those which historically denigrated gay people and would also undermine the principles of the courts’ rulings on equality laws.
Do I have sharp readers, or what?