Ricardo J Gonzalez for a Better America

In California today, Supreme Court for that State overturned the ban on gay marriage. San Fransisco allowed it, law makers outlawed it, and now the court is saying its OK again. Just when you thought the madness would stop, it seems that many predict this will only last for a few months, until a ballot initiative to change the state constitution to ban gay marriages goes through in November.

While this would be a great opportunity to discuss the sides of the gay marriage debate, I find that overdone and uninteresting. In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I generally agree that the Government has no business telling consenting adults who they can or cannot marry, be it because of their race, or because of their sexuality. That being said, I want to discuss what I find to be the more interesting topic at hand: so called Activist Judges.

Activist Judges is a term thrown around a lot, mostly by conservatives, to describe judges they don't like under the idea that they are interpreting laws and the constitution incorrectly. While I have no numbers to support it, I would guess that it's used to refer to left leaning judges more than the opposite, but in general I think it applies to anyone who makes a decision they don't like. As someone who generally agrees with the idea of a checks-and-balances form of government, I absolutely despise this term.

Each of our States, much like our federal government, has as the foundation for all of its laws the State Constitution. This Constitution exists because the citizens of each state gave some of their power to the government, which is to say other citizens, and placed some restrictions on the power that these governments were to have. The Supreme court is essentially charged with being the living advocate for this document, in charge of deciding whether the actions of the other branches, legislature and executive, are following the rules that the citizens set. They use as a basis the collection of information they have from the previous Constitutional Spokesmen, along with their own interpretations to make their decisions. This is why why the judges write their opinions down, not only to explain them to the citizenship, but to help future Judges to understand their decisions in the hopes that they will make better, more informed rulings in the future.

If our Judges are truly "activist judges" interpreting the Constitution in whichever way suits them in order to bring about change, then we as citizens have not only the right, but the responsibility to remove them from their job. However, if we allow them to be accused of this when it is not true, to be denigrated for doing their job and defending the rules that we have set forth to limit the power that our elected officials have over us, then we are giving away our power, and there is no need for the Judicial branch at all.

I have the highest respect for our Constitutional Judges, and I do not envy the difficulty of their position. I do not always agree with the decisions they make, but it is their responsibility to make them to the best of their ability. It is their responsibility to tell those that are in power that they are wrong, that they don't have the authority to do this or that, and because of that I am sure they are not endeared with our politicians, and in fact, I would be very concerned if they were. Next time you hear talk of Judicial Activism, remember that judges are their to protect your rights, not the rights of the government.