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Originally Posted by dr wadd
What you actually mean is, "how dare the courts interfere with my bigotry." I don`t think it is a case of the courts being out of touch with the people. The average man on the street bases their opinion on rhetoric force-fed to them by the media and religion. The court bases its opinion on a careful examination of the facts in hand. If you want to describe it as being "out of touch" that is your right, but personally I see that as a good thing if that means being "out of touch" with spoon-fed opinions.
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You may well have a point Doc - everyone remembers the Sun's post-election headline in 1992, 'It was the Sun wot won it' (or words to that effect). They made this claim after a narrow Tory victory, claiming their polling-day headline 'If Labour win tonight, will the last person out of Britain please switch off the lights', influenced the electorate enough to prevent a collapse in support for the Conservative Government.
People's opinions can be influenced. But we nevertheless live in a system in which the will of all the people is considered paramount. It's called democracy. And for that reason, the decisions taken in Hawaiii have to be respected. The will of the people is supreme.
In any case, I don't agree with your assessment that law courts are nearly so clinical in their analyses as you suggest. A person doesn't suddenly become immune to philosophy, opinion and their own past experience on the day they don a silly wig (or whatever they wear in Hawaii, or anywhere else for that matter). The legal profession is influenced by prevailing theories of criminology - which may be quite different to popular opinion - in the same way as the teaching profession is influenced by theories of education.
These professional theories may or may not be more valid than popular opinion, but that's not the point. If we choose to live in a democracy, we choose to accept that popular opinion is valued more highly than professionally held opinion.
Maybe I'll start a thread proposing that we abandon universal suffrage for a system in which voters must pass some kind of test before being allowed to mark a ballot paper ...
