Mike Thompson
Friday, Dec. 26, 2003

In Washington, DC, just a few weeks before, the U.S. Supreme Court had set the predicate for the Bay State's perversion of marriage when it decreed that states may not criminalize private and consensual adult homosexual acts.

Such radical departure from the norms of society has provoked an overriding majority of Americans to demand a constitutional amendment or something to undo what the people see as unwarranted and dangerous mischief by a willful gang of sanctimonious judges Hell bent to turn the culture upside down and inside out.

The President and most Republicans in Congress, being ardent heterosexuals and astute politicians, have threatened to push for Constitutional change and affirm unequivocally that marriage is exclusively for a man and a woman. That course of action, however, is no snap to accomplish.

Two-thirds of the House and Senate must agree on the proposed amendment before submitting it to the 50 states, 38 of which must approve the change before it becomes the supreme law of the land.

There is a faster way to neutralize the black-robed troublemakers: Articulate and use a quaint concept called "Popular Sovereignty," serially postulated by philosophers Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and, most importantly, John Locke, and adopted enthusiastically by American colonists.

Popular Sovereignty is the notion, in Thomas Jefferson's words, that the mass of mankind was not born "with saddles on their back, nor a favored few [born] booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." (The grace-of-God phrase is a swat at the supreme arrogance of monarchy, a boast still found on British coins [Dei gratia, rex, or, if the ruler is a queen, regina.].)

To the contrary, colonial Americans demanded that any government (whether a republic or a monarchy or any other concoction) must recognize that it may rule only with the authority and at the pleasure of the people.

Even residents of tiny, unsophisticated Pittsfield, Massachusetts, expressed that simple idea powerfully in a resolution they passed in May 1776. "The people are the fountain of power," they proclaimed.

"But precisely because men are not so foolish as to risk being devoured by lions, they will not delegate, and the government therefore will not receive [in Locke's words] an 'absolute arbitrary power,' " wrote Georgetown Professor Walter Berns (Taking The Constitution Seriously, Simon and Schuster, 1987).

"The people will want to put bounds or limits to the powers they hand over." That is, the people will establish a constitution that determines, defines and delineates the specific powers and trust they will extend to the lions.

How would the people know if the trust they had given their rulers had been broken, thus allowing the people to rebel within the framework of a constitution?

Locke's words on that subject were quite readily understood and endorsed by the colonists: When rulers ignore settled law in favor of "inconstant, incertain, unknown, and arbitrary government," then the point of rebellion is reached.

Clearly, when it comes to society's understanding of what constitutes marriage today, settled law is severely being ignored in favor of the uncertain, the unknown and the arbitrary. Even devotees of the homosexual agenda would be hard pressed to disagree with this matter-of-fact assessment.

The people's right to rebel within the framework of the U.S. Constitution is tacitly recognized by every member of Congress, for it is the legislative branch, not the judicial and executive, which directly feels the biennial exercise of Popular Sovereignty (called "elections"). If Congress does not act swiftly and decisively on a major issue, Popular Sovereignty will remove unpopular incumbents and replace them appropriately.

Because of John Locke's influence on the drafting of the U.S. Constitution (although he had died 80 years earlier), Congress is "first among equals."

The document's very drafting sequence indicates this priority, for Article I deals with the legislative branch (Articles II and III, with the executive and judicial branches, respectively).

--While the judiciary cannot control Congress, Congress certainly can control the judiciary. In Article 1, Section 8, Congress has the power to create (thus, the implicit power to eliminate) any federal court beneath the Supreme Court. That power is reiterated in Article 3, Section 1. Congress, it would seem, also may remove lower federal judges who subvert Popular Sovereignty by abolishing the judge's court. The Constitution says a judge may hold office during "good behavior" and that his compensation shall not be diminished during "continuance in office." If there's no office to hold, a judge will be back in private practice or teaching at Harvard Law.

--While the Supreme Court cannot control Congress, Congress certainly can control the Supreme Court by denying it the right to hear certain appeals. (Article III, Section 2: ". . . the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make" [emphasis added].)

If it wishes to expedite and underscore its commitment to Popular Sovereignty and fire a massive shot across the bow of unjust and unjustifiable judges, Congress as soon as possible should convene, draft a bill (not a constitutional amendment), pass it, and submit the legislation at once to the President for what likely would be an immediate signature.

Legislation must contain unmistakable language that 1) marriage and any other permanent, two-person sexual union throughout the United States shall be recognized at all levels of government only if the marriage or union is between a biological, natural-born man and a biological, natural-born woman, and 2) the Supreme Court and, arguably, the entire congressionally constituted judiciary may not review the law.

Meantime, in anticipation of the predictable howls by Laurence Tribe, The New York Times, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Michael Jackson, Rosie O'Donnell, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, et alia, White House speechwriters should be ready with an appropriate soundbite or two for President Bush's news conference.

Perhaps he could say something like, "How many divisions does the Supreme Court have?" and, "I am referring all questions to my favorite lawyer, John Locke, who is out of town and not expected back anytime soon."

Mike Thompson is author of Preying In School: How Homosexuals Recruit Your Kids, available from Xulon Press, 1-866-909-2665.

More on Preying in School: The world's first referendum on homosexuality was barely 25 years ago, in sunny Miami-Dade County, where in 1977 Florida's official orange-juice saleswoman (and popular country/gospel singer) Anita Bryant led the voters in a thumping repeal of "gay rights" legislation.

At Anita's side as chief political strategist, debater and advertising man was Mike Thompson, a powerful figure in Republican and conservative politics since the mid-1960s.

Now Thompson has packaged a blockbuster and highly readable book on how homosexual activists have opened a new front in their war to demand society's full approval.

"In the midst of a gay-embracing frenzy by bipartisan politicians, the news media, the entertainment world, academia and the other usual suspects," writes Thompson, "there are nevertheless tens of millions of Americans (the familiar Silent Majority) who don't embrace homosexuality. Indeed, they consider homosexuality to be perverse and adverse personal behavior.

"What most of these parents don't realize is that in addition to naïve educators, there are powerful forces inside their children's public schools who skillfully scheme to intimidate heterosexual students into silence or, worse, recruit them into homosexuality itself."

Thompson then lays out factually the strategies and gross propaganda materials employed nationwide by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, to penetrate classrooms, amazingly, from kindergarten to college level. (GLSEN also organizes after-school sex clubs [Gay-Straight Alliances] that meet on campus to facilitate "safe dating.")

Quoting extensively from the GLSEN-approved study list of special "children's" literature, the author reveals that much of the group's material, if depicted in a movie, would be considered X-rated, obscene and actually constitute child pornography.

Thompson also cites various medical, scientific and criminal-justice sources to debunk a litany of homosexual claims regarding their lives and alleged danger from heterosexuals.

Particularly compelling is a chapter dealing with the need for full disclosure, in which Thompson masterfully compiles chilling numbers on the longevity of homosexuals and the heavy burden of disease, illness and substance abuse inherent in their choosing "a deathstyle, not a lifestyle."

Thompson's multifaceted solution to driving homosexual propaganda out of public schools is both solid and creative, and boils down to this: Parents must demand that schools fight homosexual behavior just as vigorously as they fight alcohol, drugs, reckless driving and other life-threats to our children.