Wash Times: “Nero, like Judge Vaughn, wanted the community to embrace his unnatural way of life”
Written by Jocelyn Fong
Published
Thie Washington Times predicitably brings an insanely bigoted take on Judge Vaughn Walker's August 4 decision to strike down California's ban on same-sex marriage. The Times claims that Walker “decided he would reshape the state to better suit his personal lifestyle” and “undermined not just the political process, but society itself.”
The editorial goes on to compare Walker, who the Times repeatedly refers to as “Judge Vaughn,” to “Ancient Rome's brutal emperor Nero” and appears to argue that same-sex marriage should be banned because “if everyone were to adopt the lifestyle choice that Judge Vaughn deemed harmless, within a matter of generations society would be extinct”:
With a swish of his pen, Judge Vaughn discardedthe most fundamental of all government interests - the preservation of society itself. If everyone were to adopt the lifestyle choice that Judge Vaughn deemed harmless, within a matter of generations society would be extinct. While not all traditional marriages involve the raising of families, most do, and promoting this positive outcome falls among the most basic duties of government. When Judge Vaughn divorces marriage from the raising of biological families, he sets the stage for an “anything goes” social order.
Judge Vaughn's social experiment is nothing new. Ancient Rome's brutal emperor Nero is known to history as one of the earliest practitioners of a same-sex partnership that carried the sanction of the state. As the historian Suetonius described, Nero took a boy and “endeavored to transform him into a woman, he even went so far as to marry him with all the usual formalities of a marriage settlement.”
With the power to impose laws contrary to popular will, Nero, like Judge Vaughn, wanted the community to embrace his unnatural way of life. It didn't last long. In the contemporary case, there is little doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually utter the final verdict on California's Proposition 8, hopefully rejecting Judge Vaughn's transparent activism. It is not the business of one man - or one set of nine - to reshape society to suit his fancy.
Previously:
Right-wingers falsely portray judge in Prop 8 trial as out of mainstream
Ridiculous attack: Prop 8 judge should have recused himself because he is gay
EXCLUSIVE: Judicial ethics expert says call to recuse Walker is “ridiculous”
With a swish of his pen, Judge Vaughn discardedthe most fundamental of all government interests - the preservation of society itself. If everyone were to adopt the lifestyle choice that Judge Vaughn deemed harmless, within a matter of generations society would be extinct. While not all traditional marriages involve the raising of families, most do, and promoting this positive outcome falls among the most basic duties of government. When Judge Vaughn divorces marriage from the raising of biological families, he sets the stage for an “anything goes” social order.
Judge Vaughn's social experiment is nothing new. Ancient Rome's brutal emperor Nero is known to history as one of the earliest practitioners of a same-sex partnership that carried the sanction of the state. As the historian Suetonius described, Nero took a boy and “endeavored to transform him into a woman, he even went so far as to marry him with all the usual formalities of a marriage settlement.”
With the power to impose laws contrary to popular will, Nero, like Judge Vaughn, wanted the community to embrace his unnatural way of life. It didn't last long. In the contemporary case, there is little doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually utter the final verdict on California's Proposition 8, hopefully rejecting Judge Vaughn's transparent activism. It is not the business of one man - or one set of nine - to reshape society to suit his fancy.