Calling for resistance to the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision that same-sex couples should be allowed to gain the same legal rights as married opposite-sex couples, Pat Buchanan invoked the era of “Impeach Warren” bumper stickers that dotted the land following the landmark Brown v. Board case in 1954:
Let us go back to the era of Earl Warren that began in 1954, and consider what, in the span of a half-century, U.S. judges and Supreme Court justices, abetted by state jurists, have done to America. God, Bible study, prayer and the Ten Commandments have been ordered out of all public schools and the public square of a nation that once proudly boasted of itself as God’s country. Pornography has been declared protected by the First Amendment. Cities have been ripped apart, as judges have ordered students, based on color alone, bussed across crime-ridden cities to achieve an artificial racial balance. Abortion, homosexual sodomy and naked dancing in public bars have been declared to be new constitutional rights.
Presenting the New Jersey court as an heir to the Warren court by deciding “laws the people have not only not demanded, but viscerally and violently oppose,” the former presidential candidate offered his advice:
Such judges need to be defied and they need to be impeached. Not obeyed.
Buchanan is echoing the interpretation promoted by others, such as Traditional Values Coalition head and Abramoff associate Lou Sheldon, who asserted that the New Jersey court is trying to “thwart the will of the people” in finding for equality. But polls show that a majority of Americans favor granting the legal rights that come with marriage to gay couples in the form of civil unions, which is the minimum that the New Jersey ruling requires. And in the Garden State, two recent polls show residents in favor of full marriage for same-sex couples.
