Federal judges acting like ‘King George’
Akin: Can’t tell difference between Adam, Eve and Adam, Steve
By Allen Palmeri
Staff Writer
August 3, 2004
WENTZVILLE – America has come to a point in history where the federal courts must be stripped of their jurisdiction over the legal definition of marriage, U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., told an audience attending the “Christianity as a Worldview” conference July 17 at First Baptist Church, Wentzville.
“We’ve got a bunch of people (federal judges) who are just like King George who are basically going to tell us everything,” Akin said. “That means there are no more rights.”
The move to restrict the jurisdiction of federal judges based on Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution was applied to the culture war for the first time July 22 when the U.S. House of Representatives voted, 233-194, to strip the federal judiciary of its authority in matters related to homosexual “marriage.”
Akin has led the fight in the House against activist federal judges for three years. His Pledge Protection Act of 2003 has 224 co-sponsors — six more than the number of votes needed for passage — and would keep federal judges from removing the words “one nation under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. While Akin’s bill has been upstaged by the current Marriage Protection Act of Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., he is gladly co-sponsoring the Hostetter measure as a way to begin a long-awaited “check” on an out-of-control judiciary.
“It’s too hard for them (too many federal judges),” Akin told the Wentzville audience, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Adam and Eve, Adam and Steve — they get them all confused.”
At various points of his speech and subsequent interview with The Pathway, Akin said too many federal judges were “wild, wacky, weird, dumb, the bad guys, a bunch of gods” and “idiots.”
Akin’s rhetoric was intended to get people thinking about judges like the ones who legalized homosexual “marriage” in Massachusetts.
“When the judges get weird, and they start not doing their job but functioning as legislators, it is the job of the legislative and the executive branches to rein those judges in,” Akin said, referring to the U.S. Constitution which give Congress the authority to restrict federal judicial rulings.
Akin says Congress has the right to apply Article III, Section 2, which states that “the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and to fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.” He noted that Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has interpreted this to mean that he can strip the authority of federal judges to prevent the clearing of undergrowth in the forests of the Black Hills.
“We think marriage is more important than forests,” Akin said.
Article III, Section 2 motivated Judge Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, to push for the Constitution Restoration Act. Moore was removed from office after a federal court ruled he could not acknowledge God by refusing to remove a monument at the court’s entrance that featured the Ten Commandments. Moore persuaded Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., in February to introduce legislation stripping federal courts of jurisdiction in cases where the acknowledgement of God is at issue. The Shelby bill has seven co-sponsors in the Senate.
The Constitution Restoration Act also makes mention of Article III, Section 1, which states that judges shall hold their offices “during good behavior.” Akin explained the legitimacy of impeachment that the legislative branch may constitutionally use on the judiciary. He is in favor of the move by state Rep. Ed Emery, R-Lamar and a member of First Baptist Church, Lamar, and 52 other Missouri state lawmakers to impeach U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright of Kansas City over his handling of abortion cases.
“When you’re in a war, you shoot everything you’ve got at the bad guys,” Akin said.
He said congressional leaders have told him they would like to schedule a vote on the Pledge Restoration Act between now and the election. With the House on a five-week break starting July 23, the focus will be on building momentum for a vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment in September that hopefully will result in the two-thirds majority needed for passage, Akin said.
As lawmakers in Missouri, both state and federal, begin to take seriously their duty to check what Emery calls a “perverted” judiciary, the executive branch may take notice. President Bush, if he would choose to walk in the footsteps of such Presidents as Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln, has a clear opportunity to shape the debate and even tip the balance of power back toward a republican form of government, Akin said.
As author Pat Robertson has noted, while the principle of judicial review was recognized by our forefathers and implied in the Constitution, the limits of that judicial review are not clearly stated. In other words, as Akin explained in Wentzville, a lawmaker places his hand on the Bible and swears to support the Constitution, a president places his hand on the Bible and swears to support the Constitution and a judge places his hand on the Bible and swears to support the Constitution. All three of those public officers have equal authority. Or, as President Jackson put it, each public officer swears that he will support the Constitution as he understands it, not as it is understood by others.
“What happens when the President looks at the Supreme Court and says, ‘You guys have the power to write opinions, I have the power to enforce them, I’m not going to enforce that opinion because it was dumb?’” Akin said. “That’s a pretty good-sized weapon. If I were the President in a second term and some court tried to impose homosexual ‘marriages’ based on the opinion of five liberal judges at the Supreme Court and four liberal judges in the state of Massachusetts, I don’t think that’s Jefferson’s idea of a free country.”
On July 22, President Bush issued a statement in favor of the Marriage Protection Act passed by the House.
Akin said that citizens have had to put up with dumb Supreme Court decisions for more than 30 years now. He cited Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion on demand, as an example.
“You know, politicians don’t do too well on abortion, but if you leave it at the state level it can be fought out there, and if you don’t like your state rep or your state senator, work against them, throw the governor out, throw some judges out,” Akin said. “At least when it was a state-by-state thing, people felt like they could have something to do with it. But now, a bunch of gods claim that they’ve found three trimesters in the U.S. Constitution! I mean, they’ve got to smoke some funny-looking cigarettes to do that.
“Now you’ve got this Roe vs. Wade where you’ve created this huge political monster because of these guys legislating from the bench. And there are a number of other not-very-bright decisions that they’ve made.”
Ultimately, Akin said, the people must demand that both the legislative and executive branches do their duty at this point in history and check the imperial judiciary. The subset of people that calls itself Christian bears the heavier burden, he said, because they are to act responsibly as the progeny to a covenant on our soil that dates back to the 1620s.
“America is a franchise,” Akin said. “Each one of us owns part of this country. We need to start acting like that.”
The culture war was arguably declared in 1979, when Jerry Falwell, pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Va., launched the Moral Majority as a means of engaging the forces of liberalism in a fight to the death. Falwell, a Southern Baptist, said that he and his supporters nationwide still hold to the four main tenets of that organization in that they are pro-family, pro-life, pro-defense and pro-Israel.