By a vote of 4-3, the California Supreme Court
overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriages. The law forbidding municipalities from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples was the product of citizens’ initiative in referendum. That means the voters, not the legislators enacted the bill through a statewide ballot measure. It was adopted by a wide margin, too.
The court decided that there is a fundamental constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and that creating civil unions as an alternative for same-sex couples amounted to a violation of equal protection, even though California’s current civil unions are 100% equivalent in rights and privileges to marriage.
Perhaps the states should never have gotten into the marriage business in the first place. Now, the very definition of words is subject to legislative and judicial process. The states are involved, however. Neck-deep. The people of California decided the issue for themselves only to have their traditional definitions overthrown by four activist judges on the California Supreme Court.
This leaves the people of California one final recourse: Amend the Constitution to explicitly define marriage. The day may come when the definitions of other words may have to be codified in the state and national constitutions. What a sad state our society has reached when we need to define words by amendment.
The effort to amend California’s constitution is well under way. Over a million Californians have signed a petition to get the amendment on the ballot for this coming November. If the ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage back in 2000 (Propisition 22) is any indication, the amendment’s prospects look good.