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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei
Namely rights to privacy, abortion, gay marriage and the ilk come to mind, I'm not reffering to government programs. Also civil rights acts were only made by congress many years after Judicial decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education.
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Brown v. BoE was based on Constitutional law. The Constitution was not written by the courts, but yes, the courts did play an important role in protecting rights guaranteed by the Constitution in that case, where they were being violated by the government. The 14th Amendment was not passed by the courts, it was passed by Congress.
Gay marriage wasn't put on the ballots by the Courts, and gay marriage and civil union laws were passed by Legislatures, not courts, so I'm not sure why you are citing it.
Privacy and abortion are cases where the courts did protect the rights of the citizens in the face of government attempts to usurp them in a manner lacking Constitutional authority. Obviously, Conservatives debate the judgement of Constitutionality in these cases, and that's a legitimate debate. However, to say that the courts came up with this stuff out of thin air with no law backing their rulings is ludicrous. I'm sorry if Conservatives don't agree with every judgement of the courts, and want to claim that such judgements are the basis of liberal judicial activism and an attempt by the courts to 'make law', but its simply not the case.