This story is a couple of weeks old, but I\u2019ve been too busy to take it on until now.<\/p>\n
A few weeks back, a federal judged made the landmark ruling that Kentucky had to honor gay marriages which were contracted in other states. This ruling, if upheld, has the practical effect of legalizing gay marriage in every state of the union. The judge\u2019s ruling was based on last summer\u2019s hydra-headed Windsor ruling by the United States Supreme Court. Windsor overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA.)<\/p>\n
In what has become a predictable dereliction of duty, Kentucky\u2019s Attorney General, Jack Conway, announced that he would not defend the state statute, because \u201cit was discrimination,\u201d and, as he said in his announcement, \u201cthat I will not do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, he\u2019s appointed himself the legislature, court and will of the people of the entire state. He is also, flatly and obviously refusing to do the job he was elected to do. Pious pronouncements aside, this is a clear failure of integrity on his part. As I said before about other attorney general\u2019s who have done this same thing, they don\u2019t seem to know what their job is.<\/p>\n
Attorney\u2019s General are chief\u00a0law\u00a0enforcement\u00a0<\/em>officers. They are not lawmakers, and even though law enforcement rests in the judicial branch, they are not judges. Attorney General Conway obviously ran for the wrong office.<\/p>\n Now, Kentucky\u2019s Governor, Steve Beshear, has announced that he will hire an independent law firm to defend the state.<\/p>\n Does\u00a0anyone\u00a0<\/em>\u201cget\u201d what a dereliction of duty this attorney general is indulging in? Does\u00a0anyone\u00a0<\/em>understand how wrong it is for the governor to have to spend tax payer money to hire outside attorneys to do the job that the attorney general of Kentucky was elected to do?<\/p>\n I am way past glad that the Governor is taking this step. This court decision is huge. It must be challenged.<\/p>\n In the meantime, I\u2019m wondering if the people of Kentucky are so caught up in the gay marriage bubble that they don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d the full significance of what their AG is going to them. I wonder if any of the people of this country can understand what a breakdown it is for so many attorneys general to refuse to do their jobs.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a small thing. It\u2019s a symptom of a very ugly infection of narcissistic dishonesty in the body politic. I am not talking about gay marriage, per se. I am not talking about any issue. I am talking about our system of governance, which depends on people who will govern by the law and by responsible action, not opinion polls.<\/p>\n United States Attorney General Eric Holder has stepped in with a \u201cruling\u201d of his own, saying that \u201cstates attorneys general don\u2019t have to defend gay marriage bans if they view them as discriminatory.\u201d<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that nice? The nation\u2019s number one cop as decided to publicly indulge in selective law enforcement. He is unilaterally giving anyone who wants to violate their oath in support of the side of an issue that he happens to agree with a free pass from the Justice Department.<\/p>\n If the laws are enforced selectively \u2014 which is what the United States Attorney General is doing \u2014 then the laws are by definition unjust. Selective enforcement of the law is \u2014 dare I say it? \u2014\u00a0discriminatory<\/em>\u00a0on its face.<\/p>\n One interesting side note in this story: Both the governor and the attorney general are Democrats.<\/p>\n