Attack update: Oct. 26, 2006

The attack:     “Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage.”
— President Bush, criticizing the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Lewis v. Harris decision. The court ruled that, under the New Jersey Constitution, same-sex couples must be extended the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex couples. The court left it to the Legislature to decide, within 180 days, whether to provide these benefits through marriage equality or civil unions.

Significance: President Bush joined Concerned Women for America and other court bashers in launching ad hominem attacks against New Jersey’s Supreme Court. Once again, the president used the epithet “activist” in an attempt to discredit a court ruling without actually addressing the substance of the decision.

In attacking the ruling, the president ignored the fact that, in 2004, he had taken a position closely aligned with the court’s ultimate ruling in Lewis v. Harris. In an October 2004 interview, President Bush said: “I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do. … I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. … States ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others.” That is essentially what the New Jersey court ruled; same-sex couples must receive the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex couples, though the union need not necessarily be called a marriage (the court left it to the New Jersey Legislature to decide this question).