By Tony Perkins

There’s a lot more separating the U.S. and Puerto Rico than the Atlantic. Based on Tuesday’s news, the two regions are also oceans apart on judicial activism. [T]he little island made a big splash in the marriage debate by becoming just the second federal court to uphold the local law. In an opinion that was a breath of fresh air to disenfranchised voters everywhere, Judge Juan Perez-Gimenez shocked everyone by following 40 years of legal precedent.

Unlike his peers, who could win awards for their judicial gymnastics, Perez-Gimenez practiced what is becoming a lost art in U.S. courtrooms: self-restraint. After a year and a half of watching courts elevate political correctness above the rule of law, Perez-Gimenez dared to inject a little common sense into his ruling, writing one of the most unflinchingly pro-Constitution opinions on the subject in the last decade. Calling natural marriage “the fundamental unit of the political order,” the judge argues that “Ultimately, the very survival of the political order depends on the procreative potential embodied in it.”

In a jab at the runaway courts, Perez-Gimenez insists, “These are well-tested, well-proven principles on which we have relied for centuries. The question now is whether judicial ‘wisdom’ may contrive methods by which those solid principles can be circumvented or even discarded.”

For the Left, which has prided itself on exaggerating the popularity of same-sex “marriage,” this court’s decision highlights a serious problem for the Democratic Party – the minority divide on social issues. Apart from being the first Democratic-appointed judge to break with the Left’s agenda, Perrez-Gimenez is also Hispanic. And his unapologetic decision very literally draws a line in the sand for a party that continues to disregard other communities’ deeply-held convictions on marriage.

In the meantime, Puerto Rico’s decision creates an interesting scenario for court-watchers. For starters, this puts the First Circuit Court – whose New England states all recognize same-sex “marriage” – in play. In the race to get the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in, most experts agree that the circuit courts will have to disagree on marriage. This case could be the very split conservatives were waiting for.

“For now,” Perez-Gimenez writes, “one basic principle remains: the people, acting through their elected representatives, may legitimately regulate marriage by law. This principle is impeded, not advanced, by court decrees based on the proposition that the public cannot have the requisite repose to discuss certain issues. It is demeaning to the democratic process to presume that the voters are not capable of deciding an issue of this sensitivity on decent and rational grounds.” If the people can’t be trusted to decide marriage, what can they be trusted to decide? Once the courts start substituting their own views for voters’, every issue is fair game.