America’s legal decay unreported

This nation’s press is doing a deplorable job of safeguarding this country from legal decay, and The Spokesman-Review is just as asleep as any of the other news organizations.

Tucked in the In Brief – (i.e., Interesting, Maybe Significant, but not Alarming – column in the Jan. 24 publication, the S-R printed two sentences about the Virginia attorney general’s decision that excluding same-sex couples from the definition of marriage is unconstitutional.

News like this should be on the front page emblazoned with the headline, “State attorney general usurps state and federal law.” A similar headline should have been printed when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder did likewise when he wouldn’t defend DOMA, and bolstered the federal administration’s practices of enforcing aspects of laws that it liked, but not the full laws.

In the case of Mark Herring not defending Virginia’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage because it is unconstitutional, his inaction follows a series of judicial activism cases erroneously built upon the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision last fall. That higher court decision was specific to federal recognition of gay marriage in cases where it was recognized as legal by the state.

Mark Herring knows this, as do the activist judges, and so should the press.

Duncan Bean

Spokane Valley