Ethics

Matt Staver's 2nd Dumbest Legal Argument Ever

By Ed Brayton

Five years ago, Matt Staver, the dean of Falwell's law school and the founder of Liberty Counsel, offered what I said at the time might well be the single dumbest legal argument ever made. He went before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued -- presumably with a straight face -- that the Massachusetts high court ruling on gay marriage was unconstitutional because it violated the guarantee in the federal constitution that every state would have a republican form of government.

In other words, he asked a court that routinely overturns legislation on the grounds of being unconstitutional to declare that a state court overturning legislation on the grounds of violating their state constitution was a violation of the U.S. constitution. Well now he has come dangerously close to topping that idiotic argument with a new one about Obama's speech to school students.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on September 08, 2009 (boomark / email).