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Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Social Progress from Abroad? In January of this year the European Union passed a resolution banning “homophobia”. Entitled “Homophobia in Europe”, the resolution condemns homophobia as an “irrational fear and aversion of homosexuality and of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people based on prejudice, similar to racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism”. So take that you straight Euro-bigots. Actually, it will be interesting to watch this play out, given that Europe’s birth-rates are below replacement levels, especially in the more “progressive” (liberal) countries in the west, and Muslim immigration into Europe is at all times highs. Not to be outdone by the European Parliament, the Dutch government has taken the next great leap forward in social progress and set up a committee to regulate the practice of euthanasia of terminally ill babies. So now we’re beyond euthanasia of people that make a conscious decision to commit suicide. And we’re well beyond abortion for mere medical reasons, whether for the mother or child, beyond abortion for convenience sake and beyond “partial birth” abortion. Now we’ve got “post birth” abortions. How much longer until it’s not just for babies? How much longer until it’s not just in “terminally ill” cases? What about cases involving deformities or non-terminal illness, or perhaps just a genetic predisposition to some types of disease? It is useful to point out that, among other things, several Nazi doctors were hanged after the Nuremberg trials for “disposing” of handicapped infants in the pursuit of purifying the master race. So what are the Dutch saying, that the Nazis were just a little ahead of their time? Then what was all that fuss in WWII about? And how about Canada? Just this past year the folks in the Great White North joined the Netherlands and upended thousands of years of human history and legal precedents by legalizing gay marriage without so much as a vote cast by a single citizen. Those liberals just love democracy, don’t they? This is also the same country that has made “hate speech” a crime, and included “anti-homosexual” language in the definition of such speech. In other words, preachers who openly condemn homosexuality from their pulpits on Sunday morning can be hauled into court – or jail. Now that’s tolerance for you. So why is all this relevant to what’s going on here in America? For at least two reasons that I can think of. First, we have a vocal and active minority of people in this country that think that everything I’ve just mentioned is wonderful, and they want to see such “progress” here. Second, we have a disturbing number of federal judges – some even on the Supreme Court – who are growing enamored with looking to foreign law and precedent to inform their own decisions, rather than relying exclusively on our own Constitution, legal history and Common Law. Former Supreme Court Justice O’Connor has said that “American judges and lawyers can benefit from broadening our horizons” and that “conclusions reached by other countries and by the international community should at times constitute persuasive authority”, referring to the outcome of US court cases. Justice Stephen Breyer has also argued in favor of taking foreign laws and world opinion into account when it comes to American justice. In a debate with Justice Scalia, he stated that “U.S. Law is not handed down from on high even at the U.S. Supreme Court. The law emerges from a conversation with judges, lawyers, professors and law students. …It’s what I call opening your eyes to what’s going on elsewhere.” Well that’s just dandy. And all along I thought those duly elected representatives of the people in Washington, DC and state capitals across America were in the law-making business, not judges. In some ways we’re already well on our way to emulating the “progress” abroad. Liberal activist judges in Massachusetts did their best to mimic their brethren in Canada by short-circuiting the democratic process and imposing gay marriage on their state by default. This action currently threatens to spill across state lines and has forced other states to shore up their marriage laws and prepare for legal challenges that could go all the way to the Supreme Court. Given the new attitude of the judiciary about practices in foreign countries, it would seem that such “progress” becomes a fait accompli. In other words, the Europeans do something “new” over there…then it happens over here and sparks a legal challenge…then the judges here decide it should be OK because they do it over there. Is it just me or is the law getting lost in there somewhere? Drew McKissick is a Columbia, SC based political consultant and maintains a blog at Conservative Outpost.
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