Chief Justice Obama?

President Obama is a Harvard Law graduate with emphasis in Constitutional law.  He is a shrewd enough politician to get himself elected President.  He surrounds himself with advisers who, on paper at least, should be capable of simple tasks.  Apparently, at least one simple task is just too complex for President Obama's legal team:  understanding the difference between the executive and judicial branches of our Federal government.  If you retained attorneys who consistently advised you that you could do things that are unconstitutional, how long would you continue to pay for their services? Of course, if they advised you that you could ignore the Constitution and declare yourself the Commander-in-Chief, the chief executive of the Government, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court all rolled into one omnipotent juggernaut of personality, you might like what you are hearing from those attorneys. 

First the White House Counsel advised the President that a Democrat House and Senate, upon his signature, could enact a law compelling citizens to purchase health insurance.  Thankfully, federal judges are voiding that law as unconstitutional, most recently in Florida, and states are moving to halt implementation of government-mandated health care.  Ultimately "Obamacare" as many call it, will be adjudicated by the Supreme Court.  As it should be under our separation of powers.  The judicial system determines constitutionality of laws.  This power is, in no way, given under the Constitution to the executive branch, which is empowered only to nominate individuals to serve as judges.  Court decisions are steadily demonstrating that the President's legal advisers missed the mark.

President Obama's advisers, however, have convinced the President to take an unprecedented unconstitutional action that is even more alarming:  unilaterally declaring a law unconstitutional and intentionally refusing to perform his duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.  It would behoove President Obama and his advisers to review carefully the oath of office he swore to in January 2009 in light of his utter abandonment of a law:  The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Currently this law is in effect, signed into law by President Clinton.  It is the law of the land until the judicial system, rising to the Supreme Court, declares definitively whether it is Constitutional or not.  Instead, the President's advisers, driven by the smallest percentage of his constituents numerically but loudest vocally -gay rights activists- convinced the President to announce that his Administration considers the DOMA unconstitutional and has directed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the law by declining to defend it in legal actions brought against it by plaintiffs seeking for Federal recognition of same-sex marriage.  Naturally, this refusal to defend the law was not accompanied by a citation of constitutional authority permitting such action, nor could it have been, since the power to declare laws unconstitutional belongs to the Judicial and not the Executive branch.

The political left and willing accomplices in the media are currently attacking former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for pointing out the "Constitutional crisis" the President's action has created.  They have focused on one word Newt mentioned in an interview, "impeachment", and are portraying Newt, the impeacher of President Clinton, as simply being up to his old tricks, now calling for President Obama's impeachment.  However, as is usually the case in media coverage, the truth of what Newt actually said is being intentionally obscured.  Newt did not say that President Obama SHOULD be impeached at this time for his action.  What he DID say was that if a Republican president declared a law unconstitutional and directed the Justice Department to stop enforcing it, political liberals and the media would come unglued and certainly call for that president's impeachment.  Newt used an effective analogy in his NewsMax interview:

Imagine that Governor Palin had become president. Imagine that she had announced that Roe versus Wade in her view was unconstitutional and therefore the United States government would no longer protect anyone’s right to have an abortion because she personally had decided it should be changed. The news media would have gone crazy. The New York Times would have demanded her impeachment.

First of all, he campaigned in favor of [the law]. He is breaking his word to the American people. Second, he swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States. He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody. The fact that the left likes the policy is allowing them to ignore the fact that this is a very unconstitutional act.

The precedent that would be established by allowing a president to suspend a law, any law, that was passed by Congress and signed by a previous president, is indeed dangerous.  Capital Cloak believes that President Obama, in his heart, agrees with the DOMA, as he has spoken in favor of traditional marriage consistently until this sudden lurch off the Constitutional path.  The fact that he has agreed to this course of abandoning enforcement of law is a sign that in his Administration, the tail really does wag the dog.  A few loud voices representing gay advocacy groups appear to be convincing President Obama that their volume is indicative of how the entire nation feels about traditional marriage.  It is not, and if the President continues in this extra-legal action, he could find himself a one term President. 

Prop 8 vote breakdown in CA 2008

President Obama must keep in mind that 70% of African-American voters in ultra-liberal California supported Proposition 8Obama's advisers are already gambling that he can win reelection in 2012 with or without the support of traditional marriage advocates by steering him to suspend the DOMA despite having no Constitutional power to do so.

US Replaced As Family Values Champion

Many potential conservative voters are less than inspired by the current field of presidential candidates claiming to represent their values. Many are mysteriously enamored of Fred Thompson’s possible candidacy, although a careful examination of his abortion views should make him no more appealing than avowed pro-choice candidate Rudy Giuliani. However, through its recent reports from the World Congress of Families conference held in Warsaw, Poland, World Net Daily inadvertently identified a leader who sets a high standard in defending traditional families, marriage, and national morality. Unfortunately, that leader is not eligible to hold office in America due to a slight technicality: he is Roman Giertych, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland. By all accounts he is busy doing a much better job of preserving family values in his country than any American politician can claim to be doing here.

The disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the release of Communism’s grip over Eastern Europe produced amazing results. The embrace of democracy in the Czech Republic and Poland in particular, has shifted power and alliances away from Russia into the welcoming arms of Western Europe and America. Russia now fears having two staunch American allies on its borders and continues to threaten the Czechs and Poles if either installs American anti-ballistic missile defense systems over Russia’s objection. To their credit, the Czech Republic and Poland have stood firm in the face of Russia’s threats. Neither country is intimidated by a loud powerful bully, or willing to blink in the stare down with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

One of the unexpected consequences of freedom and democracy in Poland is that these forces appear to have led to a new international ally for American and European conservatives in the fight for preservation of the family and traditional marriage, two pillars of human society currently under relentless assault from gay rights groups and their willing liberal accomplices. Just as the Poles stand firm against the Russians on ballistic missile defense, they are similarly holding the line as Europe’s primary bulwark against immorality in its various forms, particularly the growing acceptance of the “homosexual agenda” and pervasive pornography.

Tthe World Congress of Families recently held its conference in Warsaw, and as Europe and America increasingly quiver before the loud (but tiny) minority who clamor for gay marriage and liberal moral policies, WND reported that the Polish government is moving to ban what it perceives as homosexual propaganda from its schools, restrict circulation of pornography, and promote traditional family structures (a husband, wife and children) as “the hope for the entire world.” The Polish family values platform resembles in spirit and theory many GOP campaign slogans and stump speeches to conservative Christian audiences, with one notable exception: Polish government officials are actually legislating the rhetoric into reality, while America’s government and presidential candidates continue to “cut and run” whenever faced with the prospect of offending the gay rights lobby.

The following are a few choice statements on morality offered by Polish Deputy Prime Minister Roman Giertych, who also serves as Minister of Education. Imagine (if you can) any American politician courageously expressing these views:

"Pornography is evil; it is an evil that touches the family and threatens the development of young people," the deputy prime minister said. "Its circulation should be treated as a crime, because it ruins what is most virtuous in a human being."

Giertych, whose father and grandfather were prominent Polish politicians, says Poland is threatened by "various ideologies … that have nothing to do with the well-being of children, that promote attitudes which are not true to life."

"This world of permissiveness, of certain attitudes which promote homosexuality, which promote pornography, this world is coming to an end, because our civilization is built on virtues, on Roman law … on the Decalogue," said Giertych, according to an English interpretation. "This civilization has great strength for rebirth. The rebirth will take place in the family, not only in Europe, but in the entire world."

"Please don't let people shut you down," he said. "Please don't be convinced that others who are promoting lies are telling the truth. The truth is on our side."

"Let's never accept mommy and mommy or daddy and daddy," he said. "There is only one truth."

The Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks on abortion were equally compelling and forthright:

The world will never be free from dangers threatening the family, he said, if there are no rights in place protecting life from the very beginning until natural death.

"Today we need a great charter for the rights of the family and nations that defines the right to life, that would define abortion as murder," Giertych told the World Congress delegates. "Whether three months old or three months before birth, whether 60 or 90 years old, murder is always murder. It is always a crime."

Perhaps the best indication that the Polish government is bravely holding to traditional family values while the rest of Europe discards them comes from the angry reactions of gay rights groups. Robert Biedron, president of the Polish gay rights group Campaign Against Homophobia, lamented, “Poland is like an island drifting away from the rest of Europe.” Giertych is depicted on homosexual web sites as another Hitler, including nasty cartoons, superimposed photos, and headlines decrying him as a fascist, the same tactics employed against family values advocates in America. While Poland’s government often stands alone, mocked as homophobic or extremist by the rest of Europe, that will not prevent its leaders from continuing to legislate for and speak on behalf of what in America would be called “mainstream family values.”

Unlike America’s politicians, the Poles are not intimidated by organized bullying or labeling from small internal lobbyists or interest groups or the behemoth European Union government. After all, throughout Poland’s history, it has fought against impossible odds and bested its enemies, even when it took decades to achieve victory. WND interviewed Robert Knight of the Media Research Center, an organization dedicated to defending the family as an institution, who attended the World Congress of Families meetings in Warsaw. Knight made it clear that his group and all family-friendly organizations are and should be inspired by Poland’s willingness to stand alone while the European Union promotes abortion, homosexuality, and pornography. According to Knight:

"We have taken our courage in what the Poles are doing," he said. "This is a nation that has suffered enormously over many decades. First from Nazism and then communism. They're a tough bunch of people who appear to have the strength to resist especially the homosexual agenda.

"If you've been victim of communists and Nazis, you're not going to run in fright from the forces from San Francisco."

In Poland “political correctness” is trumped by moral correctness and its people vote accordingly. They have not yet accepted the destructive and fallacious belief that simply because a practice exists in society, concessions should be offered to placate those who engage in it, such as abortion or homosexuality. They have not yet given up their religious conviction that right and wrong do exist and can be readily identified and labeled appropriately. It was not foreseen that Poland, hidden behind the iron curtain for so long, would emerge as the world’s most outspoken and active advocate of the traditional family, marriage, the pro-life movement, and moral clarity on the evils of pornography. It is to America’s condemnation that international moral leadership on such issues does not come from America.

It speaks volumes that none of the current candidates for the 2008 presidential election have a resume on family values issues that would be acceptable to Polish voters. That their resumes are acceptable to American voters demonstrates that America has drifted along with Europe into the sea of secularism and it is steadily allowing itself to be influenced by cultural currents determined to pull it further away from Poland, the island stronghold of moral sanity.