For Sotomayor, there's precedent and then there's same-sex marriage

From the Family Research Council
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has promised to be bound by the Court's existing precedents. This is a convenient way to pledge fidelity to the abortion-on-demand regime of the Court's decisions without appearing to take sides ideologically. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) caught her in a contradiction, however, by asking about Baker v. Nelson--the first American court case ever to assert a right to same-sex "marriage."

The Minnesota Supreme Court refused to redefine marriage in a 1971 decision, and when the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was "dismissed for want of substantial federal question." This kind of dismissal "is a disposition on the merits" and "constitutes a binding precedent," as one textbook puts it. Liberals don't like to admit that the U.S. Supreme Court has already decided that the U.S. Constitution does not create a right to same-sex "marriage"--and Sotomayor refused to be pinned down by this "binding precedent" either.

She distinguished Baker from cases like Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut (dealing with abortion and contraception), saying that "those cases have holdings that are not open to dispute," while downplaying the Baker precedent by saying that "the meaning of that dismissal is actually an issue that's being debated in existing litigation."

Her pledge at another point to approach same-sex "marriage" with "an open mind" is a bad sign when Supreme Court precedent has already shut the door to it. This afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced he would vote against Judge Sotomayor's confirmation. While the nominee tried to distance herself from her liberal activist ideology and record, those things stand, however artfully she tried to obscure them. For that reason, I commend Sen. McConnell for his leadership.