There were some pretty outlandish claims made at the recent Republican debate -- including the assertion by Rick Santorum that the next President should openly refuse to obey the Supreme Court Ruling that brought marriage equality to the country.

That drew a shocked "wow" from Governor George Pataki, who could hardly believe what he was hearing. For one thing, Rick Santorum's chances of becoming president are effectively zero.


There's just no chance. Santorum has been a failed politicians for almost a decade now.

But the larger issue is that it's simply unheard of for one branch of government to refuse to respect the Constitutionally-established authority of another.

"We're going to have a president who defies the supreme court?" Pataki asked, incredulously.

"I hope so, if they're wrong," said Santorum. Of course, his definition of "wrong" is entirely subjective.

"Then you don't have the rule of law," said Pataki.

"No what I have is judicial supremacy," Santorum said.

There are too many problems to count with the idea that the President might refuse to obey the Supreme Court. But Governor Pataki did a pretty good job of shooting Rick down.

"When you're an elected official, and you take an oath of office to uphold the law," he said, "you cannot pick and choose, or you no longer have a society that depends on the rule of law."

Rick Santorum's objecting to what he called "judicial supremacy," meaning one branch of government usurping the power of the others.

But wait -- he just said he would do the same thing! He'd use the office of the president to impose executive supremacy! 

In reality, the Supreme Court was just doing its job when it overturned unconstitutional marriage bans. That's what the court was created to do: settle issues of constitutional relevance. In contrast, there's simply no authority for a President to ignore a court ruling.

Radio personality Mike Huckabee took a similar stand later in the GOP debate.

"The supreme court ... decided out of thin air that they were just going to redefine marriage," he said, ignoring the years of jurisprudence around the unconstitutionality of marriage bans.

This time, it was candidate Lindsay Graham who had a strong response.

"It's called Marbury vs Madison," Graham explained. "The group in our constitutional democracy that interprets the Constitution as to what it means is the Supreme Court. They have ruled that same sex marriage bans at the state level violate the 14th Amendment. I don't agree with it, but it is the law of the land."

But Huckabee is unlikely to listen to Graham's words, adding, "The courts can't make a law. ... They can't implement it. They can't force it. ... If the court can just make a decision and we just all surrender to it we have what Jefferson called judicial tyranny."

But of course, the court's didn't make a law. They just ruled that existing laws were unconstitutional. Which is their job.

It's not surprising that Graham has a firmer grasp on the legal situation than Huckabee. Graham has a law degree; Huckabee dropped out of seminary school to pursue a career as a radio announcer.

Later in the debate, Huckabee also called for better accommodations for people with religious objections.

"You're telling me that you cannot make an accommodation for an elected Democrat county clerk? ... What else is it than the criminalization of her faith?"

He's referring to Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue licenses to same-sex couples. She was ordered to provide same-sex couples with equal treatment, as the law requires. But she claimed that doing so would violate her religious freedom.

There's just one problem with Huckabee's call for accommodations: Kim Davis WAS offered a religious accommodation. She was told that she could just let someone else in the office sign marriage licenses. But she refused, and said she'd prevent anyone from issuing licenses to same-sex couples. 

The fact is that Kim Davis, and in fact all public officials, take an oath of office. They swear to uphold the law, but not just the law as it exists at the one moment in time that they were elected. They swear to uphold a system of government, of checks and balances. Part of that system is the passage of new laws, the repeal of old ones, judgement on which laws are constitutional and which ones aren't. That system is what Kim Davis was found in contempt of. She wasn't arrested for what she believes. She was arrested for violating the system she swore to uphold. 

Read the personal stories behind the fight for marriage equality in my new book, Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love. Available as a ebook and as an audiobook.