I know it's been a Republican Party mantra for years, and I also know that Christians have adopted most Republican mantras as their own. But should Christians really be pushing for "strict constructionist" judges?
Consider this: If the law is corrupt, and a judge follows that law, then that judge is also corrupt.
Then consider this: The Nazi judges tried at Nuremburg in 1945 were strict constructionist judges. They said, in their defense, "I was just following the law" when I ordered that Jew put to death for hoarding eggs. Or, "I was just following the law" when I ordered that Nazi released for killing his neighbor.
In a moral court system -- in God's system of justice -- following the law, absent of moral considerations, is NO defense!
Strict constructionism, the way it's interpreted today, and the way it's applied today, is amoral. If the law says to kill Jews, then that's what these judges would do!
Besides, strict constructionism hasn't gotten Christians anything. Roe v. Wade, to be certain, was created by "activist judges" who should never have interpreted the law the way they did. A strict constructionist wouldn't have made that mistake. But a strict constructionist wouldn't have refused to sign Roe v. Wade on moral grounds. He would have refused to sign it because there IS no "right to privacy", nor any "right to abortion."
On the other hand, a moral justice would have refused to sign Dred Scott, returning a slave to his master. A strict constructionist, depending on how he read the Constitution, might very well have used the "strict construction" of the US Constitution to find a defense of slavery (which did exist, in the letter of the law). Never mind that a moral justice would have pointed out protections for life and liberty also.
Remember American Right to Life's (unclaimed) $10,000 Challenge to National Right to Life! There ARE no pro-life justices on today's US Supreme Court. None of them believes in a right to life. The most "conservative" justice, Antonin Scalia, has said on the record that the right to life is just for "'walking around' people."
Strict constructionist judges are amoral. We might as well have a computer in that office. In fact, a computer would probably decide morally more often than our justices on the US Supreme Court do -- just by random chance!
There was a time, in American jurisprudence, when a judge felt a higher calling to God's moral authority than he did to the actual letter of the law. If a law violated the "natural law" of God, it was appropriate for a justice to abrogate that law, and rule it invalid, because it violated God's natural law.
The Ten Commandments was once part of the law, which justices would use to decide cases. Yes, the Founders intended for judges to follow the letter and spirit of the law as written, but God's moral law, through the Ten Commandments, and the Bible, was PART of that written law!
What Christians should really want to see on the Court is Christian judges -- judges who believe in the Right to Life. Judges who believe in moral absolutes, and in the Ten Commandments.
We need judges who fear God, and who fear His wrath if they disobey God's laws.
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