Who will be next on Alaska Supreme Court?

The role of judges in our society is sacred. They hold law and order, life and death, award and punishment in their hands. For what do judges do, if they do not write future’s history? As such, judges should be of the highest caliber and character in society — overall good citizens.

If everyone had good reasoning skills, and legal reasoning talents, and proper discernment, and integrity, we would not need judges. We could all save hundreds of thousands of dollars in government spending and resolve issues amongst ourselves. Obviously that is not the case. And thus we pay our judges to discern and to have foresight in their judgments for us, the society at large.

Unfortunately, there have been recent Alaska Supreme Court rulings that, I believe, have denied and betrayed the majority will of the people. In October 2005, in the lawsuit, “Alaska Civil Liberties Union et al. vs. the State of Alaska and the Municipality of Anchorage,” the Alaska Supreme Court mandated that marital employee-dependent benefits be allocated to domestic households of same-sex-paired individuals despite the Nov. 3, 1998, State Constitutional Amendment that further defined and clarified that marriage is between one man and one woman. In November 2007, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that adolescent girls do not require parental consent to receive abortions. In these two specific instances (and perhaps others), many if not most Alaskans felt betrayed by the highest court in the state; the supreme justices overturned the intended purposes of laws created by the people and for the people.

As a case-study example, the amended Alaska Statute and Alaska Constitution define marriage more specifically as between one man and one woman. The Alaska Supreme Court, however, made a prevailing assumption that is logically skewed and inappropriately biased against the amended state statute and the amended State Constitution. They, in essence, recognized the following as equivalent counterparts:

• Two males, as equivalent to one male and one female.

• Two females, as equivalent to one male and one female.

The definition of marriage, as voted upon by the people, however, is both a qualifier of what sex a person is and a qualifier of the quantity of that sex: one male and one female. There are four different variables: all, however, are unchangeable constants in the Alaska Constitution. Yet the Alaska Supreme Court chose to observe and honor only the one-to-one ratios or variables of the marriage definition. They did not observe or honor the male-to-female relationship or the what-sex to what-sex variable.

If the Alaska Supreme Court can use this type of reasoning in this particular court case and in this ruling, they can use a similar type of reasoning in all future supreme court case rulings as well, regardless of topic. If the Alaska Supreme Court negates, denies or ignores amendments — the clarifiers and qualifiers — to the State Constitution regarding marriage, could they not also negate, deny or ignore all past and all future constitutional amendments regardless of topic, genre or theme?

We pay our judges to discern, to rectify and to look out for the greater good of society. Yet they ignored the people of this state when a majority vote was cast for the preservation of marriage as between one man and one woman. Is the Constitution as amended by the people unconstitutional? Is it self-conflicting? Is marriage as defined between one man and one woman, as voted on by the people of Alaska, unconstitutional?

My dear fellow Alaskans, I believe our state democratic government has been weakened by our state Supreme Court. If a state constitution by the people is unconstitutional, then what is constitutional? If the Alaska Supreme Court does not uphold the Alaska Constitution, as amended, then what does the Alaska Supreme Court uphold?

The pending retirement of current Justice Warren W. Mathews, provides a vacancy in the five-seat Alaska Supreme Court — the extremely powerful judicial branch of our state government. The Alaska Judicial Council will soon shortly nominate at least two applicants to the governor for appointment. Who will the next justice be? How will they rule? How many generations of Alaskans will they affect? And how will they shape Alaska’s future?

Courtney Larsen is author of “The Alaska Supreme Court: Supreme Judges or Supreme Legislators?” that is available at Carrs/Safeway, Fred Meyer, Pandemonium Books, Walden Books and on amazon.com. A life-long Alaskan, he lives with his wife and son in Anchorage.