THIS IS SO LAST YEAR

Our judges, and thus our courts, are getting a little far afield from what defines law. When that happens, the law loses its meaning because it is no longer based on commonly understood and agreed/accepted foundations. That said, this bit is a little disturbing:

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a 53-page ruling Friday saying Utah's law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples' rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

Judge Shelby said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way.

"In the absence of such evidence, the State's unsupported fears and speculations are insufficient to justify the State's refusal to dignify the family relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens," Judge Shelby wrote.

The judge declared the State had failed to show the negative impact of gay marriage on marriage and used that as the sole basis for overturning and tossing out the law. We'll, we have an awful lot of laws that have no impact on marriage that WE CAN ALL IGNORE NOW. That Shelby guy gets my vote!

I see today, that all of Shelby's supervisors have agreed to proscribe any more gay marriages in Utah until they can wrap their heads around the idea that laws that don't have any impact on marriage, are laws that do not have to be obeyed.

I honestly don't care where you stand on the whole issue. From this point of view it doesn't matter. Getting the judges to write their own laws is a terrible mistake because if you can buy one today, somebody else can buy that same judge tomorrow.