As perverted as Bob Vander Plaats thinks same-sex marriage is, his view of “freedom” is far more disturbing.

In keeping with his cabal two years ago to unseat Iowa Supreme Court justices, Vander Plaats’ group, Iowans for Freedom, rallied outside the state capitol in Des Moines on Monday to agitate against the retention of Justice David Wiggins.

True to his broken-record state of mind (he carted out the same worn-out phrases from his third gubernatorial campaign of a few years ago), Vander Plaats said that if judges can “redefine the institution of marriage, then they won’t blink an eye when they take away your private property, when they take away your guns, when they tell you how to educate your children, when they take away your freedom of religion or freedom of speech.”

In 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court, in a 7-0 decision, struck down a law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman because it violated the Iowa Constitution’s equal protection clauses.

In 2010, three of those justices were up for an ordinarily routine retention vote at which time voters can eject judges who have failed to uphold standards of good conduct. Now, said Tamara Scott, co-chairwoman of Iowans for Freedom, Wiggins is “just number four in a line of seven who committed a grievance against the people.”

There are plenty of reasons to get rid of Wiggins.

Framing the rhetoric in this way — that because “the People” disagree with one ruling they can cashier the judges — is not it. Subordinating constitutional interpretation to the uneducated opinions of ordinary people is inherently dangerous. Exposing the supreme law of Iowa to the fickle winds of popular opinion is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with nuclear warheads.

The real question about Vander Plaats’ repeated efforts is: Freedom for whom? Freedom for the majority to live in a world of their decree? The arrival of former Pennsylvania senator and contender for the Republican Party presidential nomination Rick Santorum — a man who is blatantly not from here — on the “No Wiggins” bus tour raises yet another question.

Is it Iowans, or Americans, or the whole world who will decide Iowa’s laws in a majoritarian fashion? After all, in 2010 out-of-state groups spent more than $1 million to oust the justices up for retention.

Freedom applies to everyone, not just the fleeting electoral majorities, assembled by money and ignorant demagoguery, that materialize every two years. It is an opportunity held by everybody, having agreed on a basic, fundamental, common denominator set of civic principles (a constitution), to take his or her own life into his own hands and lead it as he sees fit, so long as it doesn’t adversely affect other people.