Anti-gay bigots often claim that it's anti-democratic for courts to rule that gays should be treated as equals when voters and legislatures have decided to treat gays as inferior. Saying that it is "judicial tyranny" when judges halt laws that were created via the democratic process represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how the American government works. It’s probably deliberate, too, because religious conservatives only make this argument in cases where they dislike the court decision.
If the objections of religious conservatives were principled, they would offer this argument even in cases where the outcome is what they personally prefer. Because they don't, we have to conclude that the argument is only offered because it sounds superficially appealing or because it appears to sway voters who don't otherwise think too deeply about what they are being told. It's an unprincipled argument offered by people who care more about "winning" than about sane, principled government.
The burden of "proof" lies with those who would govern. When the government passes a law to criminalize some behavior, the burden lies on the government to demonstrate that it has the authority to limit people’s freedom in that way, not on those who would be free to act and don’t want to be restricted by the laws. If a court strikes down the law, it is not “legislating†because it does not create something new; instead, it informs the legislature that is acted outside the bounds of its authority. If a court strikes down the law, it is not engaging in “tyranny†over the majority; instead, it is preventing the majority from engaging in tyranny over others.
If the argument made by conservative Christians were taken seriously, it would undermine an important part of the structure of America’s government. The Constitution describes many limits on the authority of the various branches of government and of government generally, but those limits are meaningless if there is no means of forcing the government to abide by them. If a majority of voters and/or representatives decide to pass a blatantly unconstitutional law, what's to stop them? Right now it's supposed to be the court, but the argument made by religious conservatives would invalidate that, leaving the people more open to a dictatorial state. Is that what religious conservatives really want?
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