Position Statement on Federal Judicial Appointments

Appointments to the federal judiciary are a high priority for Focus on the Family.

During the past 60 years, the federal courts (from district to the Supreme Court) have gradually shifted from the constitutional mandate of applying the law to actively legislating from the bench, bypassing the legitimate function of the Congress and state legislatures.

These “activist courts” are using powers not granted them in the U.S. Constitution to overturn the will of the people and the legislatures of the states. These individual judges and courts justify such decisions even when the Constitution is silent on the issues at hand.

As a result, the federal courts have created a number of “privacy rights” that in turn are used to mandate new social policies, such as the right to abortion, the right to homosexual sex, the right to publish obscenity, as well as trampling on First Amendment religious freedoms. This type of activism (indeed, judicial legislation) by unelected and unaccountable judges was never contemplated by our Founding Fathers and poses grave threats to sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, states’ rights, separation of powers, and religious freedoms.

The only way to reverse this unconstitutional and ungodly trend is to appoint judges whose judicial philosophy is the same as that intended by the Founding Fathers; judges who will apply existing law and not scribble in the margins of the Constitution when it suits their ideological agenda.

Focus on the Family will support federal judicial nominees who subscribe to a “strict constructionist” judicial philosophy and oppose nominees who have a history of judicial activism.