Below is a section of a great article concerning how the Federal Courts have perverted the original intent of the 14th Amendment. The entire article can be read by clicking the link at the end of the post.
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How Federal Judges have Perverted the 14th Amendment.
5. Activist federal judges have committed grievous offenses against the U.S. Constitution with their perversions of the 14th Amendment:
a) They have evaded the constitutional limits on their power to hear cases by fabricating individual “constitutional rights” from the 14th Amendment so that they can then pretend that the cases “arise under the Constitution”, thereby claiming “federal question” jurisdiction!
Thus, in Roe v. Wade (1973), seven judges on the supreme Court said a
right of privacy…founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action (p. 153)
makes unconstitutional a State Law making abortion a criminal offense! Those seven judges just made up a “constitutional privacy right” which they said was in the 14th Amendment and which they said prohibits States from outlawing abortion!
In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), six judges on the supreme Court said a Texas Law criminalizing homosexual contact was unconstitutional because it violated practitioners’
…right to liberty under the Due Process Clause (p.578)…of the Fourteenth Amendment (pp. 564, 579).
Those six judges just made up a “constitutional liberty right” to have homosexual contact!
In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Judge Walker asserted that “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage” (Opinion p.113); and determined that the “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment contains a “fundamental right” to marry persons of the same sex (p.114, etc)!
He just made up a 14th Amendment “due process right” to marry persons of the same sex!
But abortion, homosexual contact, & marriage are not provisions expressly contained in the U.S. Constitution. So the federal courts have no “federal question” [or "status of the parties" or "diversity"] jurisdiction to hear these cases!
b) They have evaded the constitutional limits on their powers by redefining 5 the “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment from its original meaning of ensuring that freed slaves got fair trials before they could be deprived of life, liberty or property, to seizing power to nullify State Laws they don’t like, and Amendments to State Constitutions they don’t like!
Thus, the supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas used the “due process” clause to seize power to overturn State Laws criminalizing abortion and homosexual contact; and Judge Walker used the “due process” clause to overturn the Will of the People of the State of California restricting marriage to one man and one woman.
Again, the “due process” clause refers only to judicial proceedings: That freed slaves couldn’t be lynched, deprived of their freedom, or have their property taken away except pursuant to the judgment of their peers after a fair trial.
“Due process” never involved judicial power to override Acts of the Legislature of a Sovereign State or Amendments to State Constitutions. The sole purpose of the “due process” clause was to ensure that freed slaves got FAIR TRIALS!
c) They have evaded the constitutional limits on their powers by redefining the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment from its original meaning of requiring States to secure to blacks the same right to contract, to hold property, and to sue, as whites enjoyed, and the equal benefit of all laws for security of person and property; to prohibiting the States from making any “distinctions” or “classifications” in their State Statutes or Constitutions the federal judges don’t like!
Thus, in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Judge Walker asserted that Proposition 8 violates the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment because it “disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification” (Opinion p. 135).
6. So! Activist federal judges have been using the “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment to override acts of State Legislatures which outlaw conduct federal judges want to legalize! They simply make up a “constitutional right” to do those things.
Under their view, there is no limit to their powers! State Legislatures criminalize child rape, but 5 judges on the supreme Court can fabricate a “constitutional right” to have sex with children – a “liberty and privacy right” in the 14th Amendment to have sex with children! If these “liberty and privacy rights” mean that women can abort babies, and homosexual contact is lawful; why can’t they also mean that adults can have sex with children? Why can’t they mean that people have “liberty and privacy rights” to commit any crime? What’s the limit? There IS no limit! Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, said:
…As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom. (p. 579)
Kennedy just tossed Art. III, Sec. 2 out the door! He and his ideological allies recognize no limits on their judicial power! Just name an act you want legalized and if 5 of them agree, Voila! A new “liberty” “right”! And a Law made by a State Legislature prohibiting that act bites the dust. And since supreme Court judges claim the right to “set policy” for all of these United States (and we have let them do it), State laws throughout the land prohibiting that act also bite the dust. And that is how we got a handful of supreme Court judges setting “policy” for everyone in the country.
7. Abortion, homosexual contact, marriage, prostitution, child sex, drugs, etc. are issues reserved to the States or The People. The federal government is not granted power in the Constitution over these objects, and they are not prohibited by Art. I, Sec. 10, to the States.
The Supreme Court’s Radical Redefinition of “Liberty”
8. The quote from Justice Kennedy shows that federal judges have redefined “Liberty”: They see “liberty” as freedom from moral restraints; they do not see “liberty” as freedom from coercive civil government – to the contrary, they are determined to force their radical conception of “freedom” down our throats.
But Professor Berger proves that the framers of the 14th Amendment did not understand “Liberty” as freedom from moral restraints. He proves that the purpose of the “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment was to protect freed slaves from being lynched, confined, or having their stuff taken away except pursuant to the judgment of their peers after a fair trial; and the purpose of the “equal protection” clause was to require States to secure to blacks the same right to contract, to hold property, and to sue, as whites enjoyed, and the equal benefit of all laws for security of person and property.
9. Do you see how federal judges have usurped powers never granted to them and how they are destroying our Constitution? If we do not insist that federal judges adhere to the “original intent” of the U.S. Constitution (and this original intent is readily ascertainable, Justice Scalia’s comment to the contrary notwithstanding), then the Rule of Law can not be reborn, and we will fall.
Read more at
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/02/ju...0tFt2T2C0e3.99