If, in the name of Equality, this disgraced woman fights to allow the gay agenda to amend long-standing laws, what would stop people like her from allowing Sharia to do the same. If they can corrupt marriage once why can they not do it again and again?

No Democrat party hack goes down without stepping on the wrong toes. Kane likely got crossed with one of the "godfathers" of the party. Establishment politics is worse than the Mafia.

She has resigned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016...

The correlation between the two items says very little on its own. But the author's broader point stands, I think. Recent years have indeed shown how rule of law is not a principle that top elected officials feel they need to adhere to, if they find it politically advantageous to disregard this or this law. The Obama administration is the poster child for this with DOMA (*before* it was overturned by SCOTUS) and some abortion-related matters. The point also stands that the language or pose of moral rectitude is often (increasingly?) just politically fine-tuned play-acting. Generally speaking, how much force can the moral-seeming rhetoric of politician X carry when that same politician is wallowing in egregious political corruption? Again, the broader point that politicians' pieties are often so very suspicious and so very well timed seems solid. And there are text-immanent reasons (based on what is quoted in the article) for doubting Ms Kane's sincerity. On what planet was the same-sex marriage campaign unable to employ pricey lawyers? And how can she speak of a constitutionally-backed right to same-sex marriage well before SCOTUS ruled on the matter (with four vehement dissents precisely on the issue of constitutionality)? She was clearly speaking in a calculated political way, not an even-handed objective way.

Could her comeuppance be due to the fact that she is a craven modernist and political opportunist? What goes around does indeed come around. And when things do fully come around, perhaps we can have men AND women of virtue running for public office.

It's a LONG bow to draw to be implying A=B, simply because she brought about marriage equality. As a subjective connection, any citizen is free to draw any conclusion but to suggest the connection on a website and honestly project that it has merited reason is a decline in clear thinking and journalistic integrity. It's not observation but a jaundiced, bitter opinion column. It's a sign of sour grapes that the fall of “man and wife for life" marriage change that she helped engineer and the now new legal charges are somehow her come-uppance.

Will it mean anything about the public's perception about marriage redefinition last year if the party which official supported it goes down to defeat in November, both in the White House and Congress?

No. The public has moved on. Marriage equality is widely supported. If Hilary goes down people will ascribe it to conservative propaganda about emails and BENGHAZI!!!.

So, you don't believe the FBI director's report that the email debacle DID comprise criminal behavior.

Your denial is the propaganda, sir.

Your disingenuous statements are revealed in the fact that you REFUSE to ask the public, for when they were asked, they repudiated homosexual "rights" outright in almost all cases. Instead, you had to ask nonrepresentative autocratic judges to make the law for you.

That says it all.

Quite a direct connection, actually: Kane's ethos revealed in these cases is that she believes herself above the rule of law both in its plain letter and its due process.

Apparently, she alone is the arbiter of which laws she will follow or defend. Her opinion or desired outcome is a higher authority than the laws of the state or the oath she swore to protect the laws of the state.

There is due process for changing civil laws for just reasons. Our system is meant to protect us from "flavors" of the moment whether they are dumb trendy ideas or dumb arrogant government officials.

It confirms my original post. When terms like "flavor of the moment, dumb trendy ideas or dumb arrogant officials" are used as a description for a political soldier who has stuck her neck out for gay human rights, then the term sour grapes is most appropriate. It is a remarkable rejoinder to my original post coming from someone who should know what racism means? I would refer the reader to Obama’s latest chastisement to Black Africans, where he unequivocally draws parallels between dehumanizing gay people and the callous dehumanization of black and Hispanics through racism.

I'm guessing JBM's head may have a head start to that planet. Although I have to admit I am loath to post this, as Darren may weigh in with a reference to yet another deviant practice of which I have been blissfully unaware all these years.

H aha, what a quick whit, NOT.
A card that should be dealt with,
or
a treasure that should be BURIED.I
I can't decide. Let the other readers have their say.

Yes, and they should do it before they lead us down to the Eve of doom's day.

Nice choice of planets, Jazcat. I see what you did there.

yes, "A" plus for high school humour. Im busting my sides. Next we'll all be regaled with pooh jokes, such is the baseness and apparent lack of intelligence.

Nothing like the "mature" "humor" we see in the queer "hunky Jesus" contests or the demeaning cross dressers which punctuate your beloved culture.

Are we surprised that this occurred? Ms. Kane rejected the rule of law when she did not defend Pennsylvania's Defense of Marriage Act. Apparently, integrity and the law are not high on her priorities...

The left has been pushing, through the compliant Media, the artificial reality of a public support for marriage redefinition and special rights for homosexuals. But in the sphere of reality, that lie is often exposed.

If the Democratic Party loses this November, that will reveal the lie in spades. When Iowa's Supreme Court found a "right" to redefine marriage in their state, unanimously, three of them went down when they lost their election bid to retain their seats.

Whenever the public is asked to weigh in, they almost ALWAYS repudiate homosexuality in public policy. The score is overwhelmingly lopsided.

"Special rights for homosexuals" means, for one, a right to LIE to advance your cause with impunity. One example is the atrociously comical list of "maladies" that the lesbian couple in the Klein's cake bakery kangaroo "court" presented to that commission to convince them of some horrific "harms" that they incurred. The list is much longer, but chewing on that can last a week or more.

Calling a statement "saccharine" is not sufficient to establish it as such. If Michael Cook has evidence that her sentiments were artificial he should provide it. Otherwise, it's just empty rhetoric

You want evidence that her sentiments were artificial?

The AG she is not empowered to enforce her sentiments.

You disagree with the opinion of the author which is that the speech seemed, to the author, to be sacchrine. You want to make it a matter of evidence rather than impression. Why is that?

Do you think the AG is empowered to enforce her sentiments rather than the law?

.

Even if it's just his impression I'd like to know what evidence is giving rise to that impression. And as for whether she is empowered to enforce her sentiments, I have no idea what that has to do with my comment.

Oh I suspect given the forces at work here, her political career is far from being over.

Indeed. Corruption seems to be a Democrat resumé enhancer.

The two events seem quite different. In the first Kathleen Kane correctly applied the law. In particular she treated as unconstitutional a law of a type which the Supreme Court also found to be unconstitutional. How is it that an Attorney-General who actually gets the law right is guilty of "smug sophistry"?

Sadly, she appears to have subsequently fallen from grace. The real question is why that should prompt this unseemly and quite juvenile display of schadenfreude.

She did not correctly apply state law. That much is blatanyly obvious.

You are applying the Supreme Court opinion retroactively. And that opinon was itself lawless.

This AG had it in her 3 years ago to act corruptly. She did so in terms of the marriage law of her state and she did so in terms of the matters now coming to light. Quite the pro-ssm hero.

1. A state AG has a duty to enforce both state and federal law.

2. Where a law is egregiously in breach of the equal protection provision of the constitution an AG should not defend it.

3. The decision of the Supreme Court in Obergefell is anything but "lawless". In fact it is the law. It is clearly a correct reading of the equal protection provision.

4. I don't understand all this poisonous venom. All this childish gloating. Kathleen Kane should be condemned for what she did wrong and congratulated for what she got right. That is a balanced view.

5. She was correct in her reading of the constitution and she was very, very wrong to commit the offences of which she has been convicted.

Good to read Chief Justice John Roberts scathing critique of the Obergefell majority decision, especially his reference to "converting personal preference into Constitutional right".
Like Dred Scott, Obergefell will become a defining moment in English judicial history, a monument to 'legal sophistry' in all its glory

The Chief Justice has his opinion but it is not the law. Quite the opposite in fact.

If Obergefell is a monument to anything, it is to the abolition of old hatreds and prejudices in civil society. Of course, bigotry still persists in some dark corners but it is dying out as the sunlight of decency and dignity illuminates our common humanity.

What your response tells me is that you understand neither marriage, nor the sources of hatred and bigotry.

John James, my comments were directed to the operation of the equal protection provision of the U.S. constitution. Your patronising comment was made without the benefit of my views on marriage.

Further, I agree with Pope Francis that the disease of fundamentalism is a major cause of hatred and bigotry. And I agree with his call for an apology to gay people which is warranted by the hatred and bigotry they have received from Christians over many centuries.

" where a law ( DOMA ) is egregiously in breach of the equal protection provisions .."
What absolute Orwellian gobbledygook.
To laud a SCOTUS decision, that all protagonists agree, addressed the legal definition of marriage, and changed that definition, as John Roberts stated, with indifference to the proper role of the legislature, and then insist that you are not expressing "my views on marriage" is akin to the apologists for Roe vs. Wade who insist it deals only with the right to privacy, and has no bearing on the question of the legal status of the unborn.
As Joe Louis famously stated, "You can run but you can't hide"
Might then be good to read what Pope Francis has to say about marriage, twice, lest you attempt more of this Orwellian doublespeak.

JJ: "What absolute Orwellian gobbledygook."

Let me state the proposition again: "Where a law is egregiously in breach of the equal protection provision of the constitution an AG should not defend it."

Far from being gobbledygook, that is a correct statement of the law. I think where we differ is in the question of whether this particular law is an egregious breach of the constitution.

We now know that the law is unconstitutional. I would add that it was a clear, and thus egregious, breach of the equal protection provision of the 14th amendment. Obviously you have a different view. Indeed, if I thought the role of the constitution was to ensure that US law complied with Church teachings I may agree with you. But that is not the case.

In a secular democracy the role of the state is to allow citizens as much liberty as is consistent with liberty for other citizens. Abortion fails this test as it doesn't protect the life of people who are not yet born. That proposition is based on the scientific fact that an unborn child is a unique individual human being.

It is up to states to make laws about marriage subject to the Constitution. The Constitution requires that laws apply to all people equally. Marriage laws which discriminate on the basis of gender fail this test. It really is that simple. This not a case where individual rights are compromised by having marriage available to all couples.

As to your last point, I agree with Pope Francis on marriage. I note that he has a substance approach which recognises that many marriages may be invalid and many cohabiting couples not formally married may be truly married:

"I have seen a great deal of fidelity in these cohabiting couples, a great deal of fidelity; and I am certain that this is a true marriage, they have the grace of matrimony, precisely because of the fidelity that they have."

In Amoris Laetitia there is a certain flexibility in the language adopted by Pope Francis which enables different interpretations to flourish in different places (as is permitted by Para 3 of AL). For example, the attitude to communion for gay couples may be different in San Francisco to that in Senegal. The much-quoted footnote 351 to AL certainly leaves open to persons who may be in objective circumstances of sin (but do not subjectively understand that situation even after discussion with their Priest) access to the help to the sacraments.

The bottom line is that it is not for the Church to dictate marriage laws in a secular and pluralist society. It is matter for the states to make laws, subject to the Constitution.

"I think where we differ..."
We differ on much, but more significantly, you and the Church, to whose voice you insist you are attentive, differ profoundly. Worse, you misrepresent what the Church and Pope are stating publicly, and use the proposition that same sex marriage is lawful as vindication for your own position, namely that same sex marriage is not only lawful, but also moral/desirable, a source of human flourishing, and therefore accords with the most fundamental truths about human sexual intimacy between human beings.
So at least we can see now your " views on marriage" which you attempted to conceal initially, but which were so obvious. Therein lay the 'Orwellian double-speak'.
The Church has insisted always that the nature of marriage, and of the family itself, precedes the existence of the state, and therefore is neither the Church's, nor the State's prerogative to define, or alter.
The Church again and again has emphasised this proposition.
Nowhere in anything Pope Francis has stated has there been any denial of this proposition.
Most especially, nowhere has Pope Francis stated that homosexual acts are morally upright, nor that homosexual 'marriages' are legitimate.
Nor, might I add, is there any difference in Senegal, Sydney, New York or San Francisco about the access to Communion ( Body of Christ ) that should be accorded people indulging in homosexual acts.
Confession, a different story, thank God.
Your reference to abortion highlights your confusion.
Abortion is lawful.
SCOTUS says it is lawful
You correctly dismiss that 'test', because, as you say, a 'scientific fact' about the "unborn child" being " a unique individual human being" takes precedence over SCOTUS declaration about what is lawful.
Presumably, the Church, as well as individual citizens, should not comply with a law which is in breach of this more fundamental principle, so eloquently stated by yourself.
So even if the highest court in the land declares something lawful, it may remain unjust.
That is the Church's position, and mine and , dare I say it , the position of many nations and individuals, Catholic, or otherwise.
But you persist in your Orwellian foolishness, that SCOTUS has the power to define black as white.
Eventually, as we say in Australia, you, and your kindred, will be "mugged by reality"

John James, if you think I have misrepresented Pope Francis then you should state how that is. In particular you should explain exactly what the statement I quoted really means if you think that meaning differs from the plain meaning of his words. In the meantime I will continue to take Pope Francis at his word. Especially as regards the dangers of hard-hearted fundamentalism.

The Church currently teaches that gay couples cannot enter a valid marriage, but this may change as our understanding of human sexuality deepens. In the meantime I note that Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago (who has recently been favoured by Pope Francis with an appointment to the Congregation for Bishops) has suggested a way forward for access to communion for gay couples:

"Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago — who is participating in the Synod of the Family at Pope Francis’ personal invitation — said at a press scrum in the Vatican press office this afternoon that the conscience is "inviolable" and that he believes divorced and remarried couples could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have "come to a decision" to do so "in good conscience" - theological reasoning that he indicated in response to a follow-up question would also apply to gay couples."

Now if you want to see "gobbledygook" (your term) try this:

"the nature of marriage, and of the family itself, precedes the existence of the state, and therefore is neither the Church's, nor the State's prerogative to define, or alter"

There are many habits and customs which preceded the existence of the state. Indeed there were many different habits and customs in relation to marriage and family that existed in pre-state societies. We can see them today in places where the writ of the state does not run. Precisely which of these do you take as definitive and how do you decide among them?

Perhaps you have a more logical way of putting your argument? As it stands it doesn't make much sense.

"In particular she treated as unconstitutional a law of a type which the Supreme Court also found to be unconstitutional."

Note: three years ago, two years before the Obergefell ruling. Until then, it really was the duty of State Attorney Generals to try to defend their state's laws whether they personally (or even legally) agreed with them or not.

It's disturbing that an elected official, chosen by the people who will have to live or die by her decisions, takes it upon herself what is "constitutional" and what isn't, despite lack of authority to do so. Can I decide, as a citizen, then, that I consider Obergfell unconstitutional and refuse to follow its dictates? Why not, unless we have rulers over us?

After all, it could be deemed unconstitutional in the future by a different Supreme Court.

The duty of the AG is to apply both state and federal law. At some point a good-faith judgment will need to be made on issues like the constitutionality of certain state laws. If a state had a law banning Catholics from public office would you require the state AG to defend it?

Again, the determination of the constitutionality of certain laws in a state is outside the purview of the Attorney General. Do you even mildly grasp the concept of separation of powers?

So did you answer my question?

It is considered "smug sophistry" because her statements had nothing to do with the law and everything to do with self promotion. Abraham Lincoln once defined sophistry as "the specious and fantastic arrangement by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnt horse." There is always a selfish motive behind sophistry. The fact that 5 members of the Supreme Court have chosen to view the Constitution through a secular lens rathet than the spiritual lens that the Declaration of Independence descibes does not make it right or Constitutional. Their decision elevates the "wants" of adults above the divinely endowed and Constitutionally protected rights of children and that error will become more apparent with time.