Literally Legislating From the Bench

Usually, Democrats get all a twitter when conservatives accuse activist judges of legislating from the bench. Well, in today's New Jersey case that forces benefits for married couples to be offered to same-sex couples came this little nugget of actual legislating from the bench. From the casefile (page 3):

To bring the State into compliance with Article I, Paragraph 1 so that plaintiffs can exercise their full constitutional rights, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes or enact an appropriate statutory structure within 180 days of the date of this decision.

Read on and discover that the 4-judge majority didn't go far enough for the other three judges...

Whether you agree with the meat and potatoes of this decision or not (and I really don't care one way or the other), you just cannot be happy with how the decision came about. A court of law decided how laws will be decided and implemented in New Jersey. An independent branch of government just ordered another branch of government to do something in an extraconstitutional fashion. That is the biggest problem with this case, a judges clearly reaching beyond the power of their office to decide on a major issue for the people. On top of it, the decision to require the legislature to act has little to with the merits of the case itself. The case dealt with benefits of same sex partners, not whether or not marriage as an institution was legal.

If there is any good news to this, Tom Kean's chances of being elected to the U.S. Senate probably went up in a big way.

Now, more than ever, is proof that we need to appoint honest, fair judges to our state and federal benches. We just cannot continue to survive as a society if judges are going to go off the reservation and make these decision beyond the scope of any accountability and actual legal constitutionality.