Justice: Why Let ‘Five Lawyers’ Change Marriage, or Anything Else?

Washington, DC – Chief Justice John Roberts was right when referring to “five lawyers” who think they can order the “transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia….Just who do we think we are?” he retorted. He went on to write that the decision of these “five lawyers” (as he calls them three times in his dissent) “is an act of will, not a legal judgment… [because the so-called right] “has no basis in the Constitution or the Court’s precedents.” Chef Justice Roberts also states that while some people will no doubt celebrate the 5-4 opinion, he wrote: “But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.” And he is right. Never have I seen a Chief Justice refer to the justices in the majority as “five lawyers,” but this is Chief Justice Roberts’ way of underscoring the fact that this opinion is merely that – an opinion of “five lawyers” that has nothing to do with the Constitution. The Chief Justice also points out that the Supreme Court was horribly wrong in the Dred Scott case, where the Court ruled that blacks did not enjoy the rights of citizenship. We fought a Civil War to overturn that nonsense. “We must not pretend that the opinion of five lawyers should be respected as the rule of law,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “The marriage decision is so far removed from the Constitution that it is merely the opinion of five people. The only authority the Justices of the Supreme Court have is the Constitution of the United States. But five lawyers violated their oath by disregarding the Constitution and seeking to impose their own opinion.” “These five lawyers are entitled to their own opinion, however wrong it may be, but they have no authority to impose their personal opinion on the rest of the country. This ruling by the five lawyers is no law at all. It is lawless and must be treated as such,” Staver concluded.