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Location: Blogs Dan's Blog |
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| Posted by: Dan McGrath |
5/15/2008 |
 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.
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Re: Judicial Activism Alive and Well: California Supreme Court Redefines Marriage |
By Cris on
5/19/2008 |
The referendum you refer to was held almost 10 years ago. Recent polls (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZmLBrL36NObNyMR0ghXN7vB5hYwD90N0SLG0) suggest there may now be less opposition to same-sex marriage than before. By "marriage" I refer to the legal term, not a biblical or theistic one. Marriage confers certain tax and economic advantages to the pair of consenting adults entering the legal contract. That these two persons being of opposite gender is a requirement for this legal contract is beyond my understanding. Nonetheless, the voters of California will get to decide via referendum.
Also, you made this comment: "What a sad state our society has reached when we need laws to tell us what words mean." 20 years ago, do you think there was a legal definition for what is known as "cybersquatting"? There wasn't, but when it became economically disruptive to do it, laws were required to define it and prevent it. An evolving language is a sign of a healthy, changing (not stagnating) society. |
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Re: Judicial Activism Alive and Well: California Supreme Court Redefines Marriage |
By dan.mcgrath on
5/19/2008 |
| Marriage has a definition. Enacting law by judicial order to change that definition is the epitome of Orwellian. 20 years ago, the word "cybersquatting" wasn't in our lexicon. Marriage was, and everyone knew exactly what it meant without the need to define it in our constitution. In fact, the US has managed to know what marriage is for over 200 years without the Constitution defining it. Civilization as a whole, for thousands of years. What you refer to as an "evolving language" muddys the meaning of words, and potentially, our understanding of historical context. Newspeak, anyone? What we once called slavery has a new term. We call that freedom now. |
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