Hero Utah Wingnuts Stopping Gay Marriage With Hunger Strikes And Armed Uprisings, Just Like Gandhi
Well how's this for a study in contrasts? Wingnut opponents of marriage equality in Utah are calling for defiance to the tyranny of the federal judiciary, because as we all know states can ignore federal judges, under the time-honored legal principle of "I read it on the internet, this will definitely work." One guy is going to starve himself until Utah stops issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and another group, who may or may not be a bunch of law enforcement officers, is talking about a little bit of uprising because the Constitution barely even recognizes the power of the federal government. See? There really is a lot of diversity among the wingnut community.
Also not clear: Now that the Supreme Court has issued an injunction halting further gay marriages while the case is on appeal, will these guys insist that the state ignore that as well? We are thinking probably not.
In the Provo suburb of Highland, former Provo cop and Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who's now big with the "state sovereignty" crowd, held a meeting of the "Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association," which says it is an actual group of law enforcement officers -- and is at the very least a fun vanity project for Richard Mack -- at which Mack spouted the usual "county sheriffs are the most important law enforcement peoples in the Constitutition" arglebargle, for Liberty:
“The people of Utah have rights, too, not just the homosexuals. The homosexuals are shoving their agenda down our throats,” Mack said.
More to the point, the federal government has no authority whatsoever to overrule Utah's ban on gay marriage:
“That’s a lie. That’s an absolute lie. We have a right to raise our kids without homosexuals being part of the Boy Scouts, the schools and teachers and doing everything. They can be all that, but don’t shove your agenda down my kid’s throat. We have a right to raise our kids how we want not how you want[.]”
After all, there are certain unalienable rights against throat-cramming, which he just can't stop talking about, and also the 10th Amendment is a much shinier amendment than the 14th. And of course, he says that all that's needed to restore America's precious esophageal autonomy is for county sheriffs to stand up to federal judges:
"The way you take back freedom in America is one county at a time. The sheriffs need to defend the county clerks in saying, 'No, we're not going to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals[.]'"
And then there's the hunger striker, a gentleman named Trestin Meacham, who is taking an entirely more literal approach to not letting anything be put down his throat. He is a former losing candidate for the state senate on the Constitution party ticket, which is a sure indicator of loon status. Like Mack, Meacham truly sincerely believes that states have the right to nullify any federal laws or judicial rulings they dislike, because it's not like we had a civil war over that question or anything. He says it's "completely pointless" for Utah to even bother appealing the federal court ruling that threw out the state's ban on same-sex marriage, because after all the courts are "packed full of activist judges that don’t listen to the Constitution."
And so he's going to not eat anything, saying that he's just like Gandhi, who certainly seems like exactly the fellow you'd want to emulate if you're into saying that certain classes of people should be denied equality.
All in all, it was a very productive weekend for defenders of the Imaginary Constitution. Should you encounter any of these folks, it is recommended that you back away slowly, nodding and smiling; under no circumstances should you show them a flag with gold fringe, as it may provoke them into a frothing rage.
[ RightWingWatch / Fox13 Salt Lake City via TPM / WaPo ]
<i>county sheriffs are the most important law enforcement peoples in the Constitutition</i>
The origins of the Law Enforcement Peoples are obscure, from an ethnological standpoint. They are thought to have branched off from the Gauls sometime during the period of the fourth to second century BCE, in the area now known as Alsace. Some authorities, however, argue a for a closer kinship with the Frisians, of what are now the Low Countries, based on linguistic similarities.
The Sheriff tribe, on the other hand, can be specifically traced back to its founding patriarch, Nottingham, in the 12th century CE. No modern scholarship supports the traditional Sheriff conceit that all Law Enforcement culture in fact derives from Sheriff culture, and not the other way around. The central tenet of <i>County</i> Sheriff chauvinism, that <i>they</i> are in fact the &#039;most important&#039; of the Law Enforcement Peoples is particularly contentious among Law Enforcements in general, and even among Sheriffs in particular, many of whom argue that Counties are actually just a sub-group of the Sheriff nation and have never constituted a separate or autonomous tribe. These partisans argue that the admittedly unique ethnic concepts of the Counties, notably the obsession with/fear of the practice of &#039;throat cramming&#039;, are not sufficient in themselves to distinguish County Sheriffs as a tribe distinct from the larger Sheriff community.
&quot;The Peoples of the Right Wing: an Ethnographic Survey&quot;, by Prof. Bruce Nigel, University of Wullamalloo, 1983, pp 427.
<i>county sheriffs are the most important law enforcement peoples in the Constitutition</i>
I&#039;ve been reviewing my copy of the Constitution to see where it defines the constitutional role and duties of county sheriffs and I&#039;m not finding it. He must be referring to the King James version.