Law and Lawlessness, Redux

A little over one month ago, I wrote about a troubling development concerning Eric Holder and the Justice Department. I wrote,

The federal government is enforcing a judicial decision handed down in a state that has been commanded by the Supreme Court not to enforce that decision.

The general picture painted here is more one of lawlessness than law.

Now one sees that the Utah episode was only the prelude.

As Gerard Bradley and Ryan Anderson have noted, Holder’s most recent statement concerning the federal government’s marriage agenda tramples upon the rights of each state to define marriage according to its residents’ will—a right the protection of which the Windsor court took special care to address and uphold in its June ruling.

President Obama was sincere in insisting, throughout his State of the Union address, that he would proceed with his plans with or without the assistance or help of legislative cooperation. Sadly, this latest violation of state’s rights will likely go unchallenged by Washington; the constituency that discerns in the marriage issue a cause worth continually fighting for is too small to make much of a fuss about it.

But even those who have no horse in the marriage debate specifically should be concerned with the alarming disregard for law and due process that this administration evidences.