SansPretense

By now anyone who is reading this probably knows of the latest California Supreme Court ruling which overturns the will of the voters in CA by redefining marriage in such a way as to allow for same-sex marriages. This is not an extension of the right to marry, since homosexuals already had the same right of marriage as everyone else. They just didn’t have the right to marry in the way they wanted and still call it marriage. Not only that, CA voters already voted to allow homosexual “domestic partnerships” the same rights as heterosexual marriages, so they didn’t even get new legal standings. This ruling only gave them the legal ability to claim their “partnership” as a marriage.

In arguments over gay marriage with friends, I have often heard the phrase “separate but equal is not equal,” a reference to the Federal Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka which ended state racial segregation of schools. In this light, the CA Supreme Court ruling is not only unsurprising, it may very well have been the correct ruling, regardless of the CA voters intentions. The citizens of CA voted to allow a separate but equal form of “marriage” to be given to homosexual couples. If the only difference in the two state institutions is the name, then this is the very definition of discrimination.

Now let me pause for a second and state that I am NOT in favor of gay marriage on both moral and sociatal impact grounds. The fact that the Supreme Court of CA just gave a big “up yours” to the vast majority of voters of that state is probably the aspect of this that bothers me the most due to precedents. (More after the break) Drew at Ace of Spades HQ gives a pretty good legal breakdown of the ruling (hat tip Emperess Lucas, and the precedents it contains is not something I’m comfortable with – it’s the very definition of legistlating from the bench. However, if the ruling would very simply have stated what I wrote above, then I’d be in complete agreement.

To quote Drew from the previously mentioned breakdown:

Before this they make some pro forma claims, using italics to let you know this is constitutional law, yo, that they’ve determined that marriage is a basic substantive right, which is just jargon for “we’re going to overrule the legislature and the people acting through the initiative process, just because.”

That sounds snider and snarkier than it is. That’s really all it means. Categorizing something as a “fundamental” or “basic” “substantive” “right” is just a bit of judicial code for “We get to decide and no one else does.”

It is, in legal terms, an ipse dixit, an “it’s this way because I say it is,” and you can always tell when a court is resorting to ipse dixit because it stops citing the actual constitution and previous decisions and begins speaking of hitherto-unknown “fundamental rights.” How did they become “fundamental rights”? Oh, they always were. Just no one ever noticed.

The ipse dixits roll on. The right to establish a family becomes part of the living, breathing, sexy constitution, and with it comes the also newly discovered secondary right of that family to be treated with “equal dignity and respect.”

Now I’m not a legal expert and I’m not going to take time reading the very long decision (pdf can be found by going to Drew’s article). Nor am I going to look and see if CA actually has a clause in their Constitution to make marriage a fundamental right. I’m just going to trust Drew’s analysis since it makes sense to me, but I’ll be happy to hear contrary opinions. I want to talk about this on a larger scale, namely the implications at the national and societal levels.

The problem with this marriage debate and the idea that gays deserve the “right to marry” is that proponents to gay marriage see homosexual relationships as being of equal value as heterosexual ones. Since a good majority of society has now bought into the ideals of multiculturalism and don’t like the idea of declaring one culture or lifestyle superior to another, we have a movement to not only legitimatize what once was deemed immoral or inferior, but equalize it with the norm. The new definition of marriage, and hence its role in society, has all but eliminated the bearing and raising of children from the institution. This wasn’t brought about the acceptance of homosexuality, but by a breakdown of the traditional family. If having children out of wedlock and intentionally childless (or single child) marriages is now the accepted norm, then why not turn marriages from something two people did when they were ready for a family to something that is simply a legal contract between two (why only two?) consenting adults? So now marriage is no longer the basis for family life (since all “types” of families are equally valued), but simply a method of bestowing “next of kin” rights and getting a nice tax-break.

The issue is not a legal one brought about by activist judges or too-liberal legistlatures, but is very reflective of a societal ill that has led to the tyranny. Of course, the liberals would disagree and say it is a change for the good, and they are entitled to their opinion (even if they continue to try and deny conservatives that same right).

This brings us to the challenge that we are now facing: in a free society, ALL people have and should have the right to pursue happiness according to their own desires and beliefs, as long as they aren’t interfering with someone else’s ability to do the same. I may not agree with homosexual relationships or marriage, but I have no right to prevent them even if I wanted to. I DO have the right to not acknowledge them and to speak my mind against them.

The biggest problem with the State recognizing gay marriage is that it forces everyone to accept them as equal to heterosexual marriage, even if the vast majority of citizens are against them. Not only that, the State tells me that as an employer (which, I’m not, but one day I might be?), I can’t discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation, and if I want to extend (or am I required to?) benefits to spouses, I have to accept and legitimatize gay marriage, even if I find it highly immoral. This would also include religious institutions. This means that the State is passing legislation (via activist judges in this case) that violates my First Amendment Rights. We allow soldiers to not go to war due to their religious beliefs, but we don’t offer the same protection to civilians?

Furthermore, there is NO fundamental right to marry in our national Constitution. That right is inherited in the First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion. Marriage is a religious institution first and foremost. The State acknowledges marriages because of the importance of marriage and children to society. Since the procreational aspects of marriage is no longer acknowledged by many in society to the point that we now consider marriage as no more than a contract between consenting adults, why does the State need to acknowledge marriages at all? How can we still justify giving legal benefits on the basis of an institution that has now lost it’s purpose?

It comes down to this: The First Amendment gives homosexuals and even polygamists the right to marry under their religious beliefs. There is NOTHING that says the State or other citizens must acknowledge their marriages or beliefs as legitimate and equal to the rest of society. Hence, any judicial ruling that says otherwise is in violation of the Constitution. By the State acknowledging heterosexual marriages as deserving special rights, it is acknowledging that superiority of that relationship over homosexual ones. Once the State recognizes as equal the value of homosexual marriage, then it forces others to do the same.

I fear the best way to protect the Institution of Marriage is for the State to very simply do away with legally acknowledging it as a special contract, and pray that the strategy doesn’t backfire…but even if it does, can it really get much worse from a practical point of view?

This whole marriage debate is merely one aspect of a much larger problem. Our Constitution, being written for a Free Society, relies on the people of our society to be guided by sound moral principles:

We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. -John Adams

Many of the people of the United States, spurred in large part by an inherently flawed ideology known as Marxism, are no longer a religious and moral people, but one with “unbridled morality” – relativism. Our government is quickly eroding what it means to be Free while the People are quickly eroding what it means to be a responsible citizen and a Freedom-loving American.

At this point, is there any way to stop this run-away train?