Re: Vaughn Walker

Nice hypothetical, Easy.  Here's a better one: what if space aliens came down and took over Dunkin' Donuts?  That's about as likely as our Congressional representatives passing legislation whose only purpose was to destroy the black family.  Can you say "Straw Man?"

But you actually high-light an important point.  A regularly passed Statute has a legislative history that can be used to interpret the Statute.  In essence, our elected representatives give actual testimony during the debates as to their intentions in voting for or against the Statute.  In this sense, a representative's psychological intentions can be, and often are, public policy as well.  Even in this context however judicial interpretation of a Statute is severely constrained.  Individual representative's intentions cannot change the plain meaning of the legislation, nor the obvious public policy it embodies. 

 These same limitations are even more constraining on the judiciary in the context of a referendum.  In a referendum, the people themselves vote, and there is nothing comparable to the legislative history of a Statute to appeal to.  Campaign ads and sound bites leading up to the vote are just not comparable to legislative debates, and the ultimate rationale followed in the voting booth proper can only be a matter of speculation.

 Proposition 8 merely codified a wide spread social organization that everybody understod was between a man and a woman.  It was not ambiguous, and clearly had only one purpose: to maintain the status quo.  As such, appeals to voter intentions for possible nefarious motives is ridiculous and a complete dereliction of Judge Walker's duties as a Federal Court Judge.

Re: Vaughn Walker

Thanks, Whit. It was getting a little stuffy down there.

As for Vaughn Walker, a question: you state that the psychological intentions of the "mouth-breathing racists" would not matter in a Constitutional challenge to the Welfare State. But what if the Congressional record showed in the passing of the legislation that the only rationale for such was to destroy the black family? Wouldn't that rate a Constitutional word or two?

Paging Ezra Yeats

Wow.  It's really true.  If you wake up the Longfellow clan, they can get really grumpy. They're gone, Easy.  You can come out of your bunker now.

Vaughn Walker

Vaughn Walker is a travesty of a Judge, as I detailed here.  The latest: Judge Walker's ruling against California Proposition 8 proponents, who simply exercised their constitutional right to amend their State constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.  For Judge Walker the citizens were not exercising their right to self-government, but diabolically seeking to advance "the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples." "Diabolical" because none of the principle advocates for Proposition 8 actually voiced such a rationale.  Nevertheless, their real agenda was secretly injected into the consciousness of the public which voted overwhelmingly in favor of Proposition 8.  In the nick of time, however, Judge Walker - who apparently can see into the very souls of the people around him - discovered the subterfuge.  This is what our Constitutional jurisprudence has come to? Continue ....