The Left Distorts Originalism to Attack Judge Gorsuch
In other words, when the equal-protection clause was enacted, what were the words understood to mean? Were they understood to sweep away, say, restrictions on women in combat? Were they understood to mean that legislatures couldn’t enact laws that prohibit certain sexual practices? Drafters create a text, and that text has an original, understood meaning. That, in a nutshell is what “originalism” means.
.. The lesson from the legal Left — a lesson I was very clearly taught by multiple professors in law school — is that when a case is of sufficiently critical social importance, standard rules of legal interpretation give way to the greater demands of social justice. Here’s how one judge put it to me in his chambers: “You should always know the law, and you should always know what’s right. Do what’s right.” This would be an appealing notion if judges possessed godlike powers of judgment, but they don’t; they’re flawed like every other human. So it’s an appalling abuse of power.
.. To smear Neil Gorsuch, the Left has created and attacked a straw man.