Alito's Confirmation May Mean New Day for Supreme Court

I sure that between Roberts and Alito, we can finally get away from and activist Supreme Court and back to one that interprets the Constitution as the founding fathers meant it to be. Keep praying for this.

(AgapePress) - We may long remember January 31, 2006, as the most important date in our republic's recent history. It is the day that one Samuel Alito was confirmed by the United States Senate to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The vote was 58 in favor and 42 against.
The reason I write of the importance of this vote is that is was Justice O'Connor who was often a pivotal vote against traditional values in many of the most critical decisions of our time. Despite being appointed by the most conservative president of the modern era, President Ronald Reagan, O'Connor was a liberal on social/moral issues. In addition, Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter -- appointed by Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, respectively -- also turned out to be disappointments to conservatives on social and moral issues. The appointments have turned out to be huge disappointments to Americans who voted for Republican presidents in hopes of seeing the Supreme Court return to a conservative majority.
I am hesitant to use the word "conservative" because it means different things to different people, but by conservative I mean an ideology that basically lets the citizens determine what the laws of the cities, states, and nation will be through their duly elected representatives instead of the Supreme Court denying them (us) the opportunity to do so by striking down laws that supported traditional moral values or a biblical worldview.
Despite the advances of secularism and relativism in America, I still believe our side -- the traditionalist side -- can win on most issues at a legislative level if only because we will out-work those of the secular Left. When it comes to affecting public policy or politics, if you will, we can win at the local level, we can win at the state level, and we can win in the United States Congress. The problem has been that we work hard, elect the right people (even good presidents), get laws passed, and then some federal judge or federal court negates all our hard work with one ruling. It has been extremely frustrating for all of us in the pro-life, pro-family movement, to say the least.
I could list a litany of examples demonstrating this fact. It happens regularly. The people pass a law, the court strikes it down as unconstitutional.
One of the most egregious recent examples of this pattern was the May 12, 2005, decision rendered by federal judge Joseph Battaillon striking down an amendment to the state constitution of Nebraska which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. This was a state-wide referendum in November 2004 that passed with 70 percent of the citizens voting in favor of the amendment. But Judge Joseph didn't give a rip. He struck down the marriage amendment, thus negating the will of the people of Nebraska.
This is what the majority of people in this country are tired of, I believe. And so they put their trust in President George W. Bush to appoint federal judges -- including Supreme Court justices -- who are not going to do this type of thing. And President Bush -- despite his low approval ratings and some areas of strong disagreement with his conservative base -- has not disappointed. He has followed through with his campaign promise to appoint conservative judges to the federal bench; and the liberals in the Senate have fought him tooth and nail on many of his appointments, often using character assassination against nominees and distorting their records or deliberately taking statements out of context. And several times, they have used trumped-up charges of racism against nominees. But I believe this partisan practice has grown tiresome even with some within the Democratic Party who are more fair-minded than the liberals who just want to defeat President Bush at all costs.
Today is a new day. Assuming new Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito are both the strong conservatives everyone thinks they are, if you combine them with Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, that makes four votes in favor of returning the right of self-governance to the states and municipalities and thus returning government to the people. But that is still only four votes -- and five votes are what is needed to bring about some real change in American jurisprudence at the federal level. Said Gary Bauer:
"This is an important victory, my friends. I fully expect Justice Alito will make a crucial difference, especially when it comes to ending the high court's hostility to the free exercise of religion in the public square. But the battle is not over. We are one step closer, but we still do not have a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. For all the liberal bluster about 'balance,' the Supreme Court has four liberal justices -- Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens -- and four conservative justices -- Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas. That means Justice Anthony Kennedy is the 'new O'Connor' or swing vote."
On issues like partial-birth abortion Kennedy is pro-life, whereas O'Connor was not. What we really need is for another liberal justice to retire so that President Bush can solidify a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Will that happen? Only time will tell.