Saturday, August 28, 2010

A Distinction Without Deference

by William Saletan

Slate
August 27, 2010

Remember when conservatives were against judicial activism? It seems like just a few weeks ago. In fact, it was a few weeks ago. A federal judge had just struck down California's ban on gay marriage. National Review, among others, called it a "raw exercise of judicial imperiousness" by a judge who "smuggled in his own moral sentiments."

Ah, but that was then. This is now. A different judge has ruled that the federal government can no longer fund embryonic stem-cell research. He bases his ruling on the annual Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which forbids federal funding of "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed."

More