[Update 11-8-06: The entire article referenced below has been posted on the Christian Civic Leage of Maine web site.]
How refreshing to see this piece by a prominent Christian commentator who gets it: Romney blew it in Massachusetts on "homosexual marriage"!
Rev. John C. Rankin, President of the Theological Education Institute (TEI) and the Mars Hill Society, bases his analysis on the important work by Atty . "Robert Paine" and John Haskins, published by MassResistance. In the TEI Update #189 (11/6/07, not yet posted on their web site), he gives an excellent summary of how Romney failed in his oath to uphold the Massachusetts Constitution and its separation of powers mandate. He agrees with our "Article 8 Alliance" effort to remove the Supreme Judicial Court Judges who defied the Constitution in the Goodridge "homosexual marriage" ruling -- which Romney ignominiously failed to support.
"Could Romney Have Stopped Same-Sex Marriage?" Rev. Rankin answers, "YES!" Excerpts from his analysis:
... A good Christian friend of mine contacted me several months ago, asking if I would be willing to serve on the "National Faith and Values Steering Committees" of the Romney Presidential Campaign. Now apart from other reasons, one reason I could not do so is due to Romney's failure to take his constitutional executive power to hold an out-of-control Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court accountable. So I was put in touch with the Romney campaign, hoping first to raise my concerns with Governor Romney himself. That did not happen, but I was able to communicate with a member of his staff, who was very gracious as he sought answers to my questions from the campaign's legal staff. I was unsatisfied with their answers.
Earlier, he writes:
The greatest strength of our nation is rooted in the fruit of the Reformation and the First Great Awakening. The appeal in the Declaration of Independence to unalienable rights given by the Creator is unique in the history of modern nations. And too, rooted in a biblical understanding of the sin nature, the U.S. Constitution, as well as state constitutions, put into place a series of checks and balances so that power could not be centralized. The executive, legislative and judicial branches of government each had their prescribed duties and limits of power.
Sadly, over the years, the power of the state and federal judiciaries have slowly taken too much power, making law instead of interpreting it, and especially because of weak legislatures. The Supreme Judicial Court forced same-sex marriage upon the Massachusetts Legislature in its 2003 Goodridge decision, being emboldened by the same Legislature which had just mocked and denied the will of the people calling for a statewide referendum on the definition of marriage [referring to the first marriage amendment, unconstitutionally blocked by Senate President Birmingham in 2002]. And as I argue elsewhere, same-sex marriage redefines rights, and effectively gets rid of unalienable rights from the Creator, thus making rights a subjective definition where "might makes right."
In the face of this judicial usurpation, what could Governor Mitt Romney have done in late 2003 or early 2004, prior to the Legislature's action? ... I would like to see Governor Romney show why he could not have pursued the following course of action. ... Governor Romney could have called the four members of the SJC who voted for Goodridge into public session before a joint assembly of the Senate and House. He could have thus challenged their unconstitutional usurpation of power, and dismissed any from the bench who would not recognize the SJC's constitutional limits, and/or for lack of "good behavior." This is a rarely invoked clause, indicating moral failure, but Goodridge was a rare violation of due process.
... here was the most marvelous opportunity in the nation, in many years, for a Governor to defend and strengthen the constitutional separation of powers, and to check runaway judicial activism. But Romney not only caved to the SJC, and to the onslaught the Boston Globe and New York Times would have given him, but I saw no articulation on his part concerning the gravity of the separation of powers issue staring him in the face.
