Because it’s clear that he slept through all the civics, social studies and history classes he took in school. Almost every time he opens his mouth, Beckwith reveals that he knows nothing about the way representative government is supposed to work and less than nothing about this nation’s grand but complicated past.
The latest example came following a ruling by Marion County Judge Christina Klineman. Klineman ruled that Indiana’s near-total abortion ban violated the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, also known as RFRA.
RFRA has been a law and a cause held dear by the religious right of which Beckwith is a member. Christian nationalists such as Beckwith loved it because it allowed folks such as them to overrule certain laws if their consciences or their religious beliefs conflicted with the law.
They thought RFRA would allow socially conservative pharmacists to refuse to provide birth control medication to women or to empower bakers to deny gay couples wedding cakes.
Because they rarely stop to think that everyone’s conscience or interpretation of divine will isn’t the same as theirs, they couldn’t imagine that RFRA could be used to empower women of different beliefs or faith traditions to override Indiana’s draconian abortion restrictions.
But the fact that Beckwith and his pals were shortsighted regarding RFRA isn’t the story here.
Or at least not the whole story.
Beckwith reacted to Klineman’s decision the way he so often does to news that conflicts with his prejudices. He pouted on social media, writing:
“Indiana overwhelmingly voted for President Trump and his Pro-Life agenda.
“Indiana overwhelmingly elected Pro-Life Republicans to supermajorities in both the House and Senate.
“Judge Klineman, thanks for weighing in, but Indiana rejects your decision.”
Ah, so much ignorance packed into so little space.
We’ll set aside, though, the absurd argument that constitutionally protected individual rights are up for majority vote. If that were the case, the solid majorities of the Hoosier state that support stronger gun laws would be able to override the firearms protections established in both the U.S. and Indiana constitutions.
That would make the National Rifle Association and other gun-owners’ rights organizations overjoyed, wouldn’t it?
We also will not take up the fact that the supermajorities Beckwith boasts about in his post are the product of some of the most surgical gerrymandering on record, a slicing and dicing of the legislative maps that thwarts the voters’ will and protects out-of-touch lawmakers from genuine competition.
Instead, we’ll focus on the lieutenant governor’s argument that the people can just ignore a court’s ruling. (By the way, judges, whatever their ideological orientation, love, love, love it when attention-addicted politicians such as Beckwith encourage the public to defy judicial rulings. Nothing makes judges happier than having both the court and the rule of law openly disrespected.)
Beckwith’s argument is a familiar one.
In another post about a year ago, he argued that the judicial branch was the lesser of the three branches and that the other two—the legislative and executive branches—are under no obligation to honor or abide by the court’s dictates.
This would be news to former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, who used his power as the head of a coequal branch of this nation’s government to curb the ambitions of his distant cousin Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.
Beckwith’s specious reading of history and law also would not be met with approval by even the more conservative members of the current U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s because even the most right-wing justices are bright enough to understand something that clearly eludes our much dimmer lieutenant governor.
If Americans are free to ignore a court’s rulings, particularly if those rulings are opposed by a majority of voters, then the Dobbs decision that made Indiana’s abortion restrictions possible can be overturned by the next election cycle’s results if Republicans lose.
For that matter, Beckwith’s reasoning would argue for putting abortion law up for a vote by referendum, where it likely would lose even in conservative Indiana.
The fact is that RFRA was a bad idea when it became law, but it is the law.
Hoosiers, left, right and center, have followed it because they respect the rule of law.
It’s a pity we cannot say the same about our lieutenant governor.
