The activist judges are at it again.
According to USA Today and several other media outlets, the California Supreme Court has declared California's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which was passed by the voters in 2000, to be unconstitutional.
Part of the court's "finding":
the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society.
California currently makes concessions to homosexuals, allowing homosexual couples who register as "domestic partners" to obtain the same rights normally reserved to married men and women.
But this wasn't enough; parity and equality were demanded. As many pro-family defenders have stated, homosexual activists will not be satisfied until homosexuality is completely normalized and set on an even plane with legitimate sexuality. These rogue judges have paved the way for that in California.
This abuse of judicial power illustrates why it was so important for South Dakota to enshrine the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman in 2006.
It also underscores the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect our most basic societal foundation from homosexual activists and their accomplices in the courts. If we do not, a future liberal majority in the U.S. Supreme Court could use the U.S. Constitution to smash even the state constitutions, forcing the counterfeiting of marriage on the states.
We should not have to enshrine in our constitutions what was obvious to everyone just a few decades ago, what God and nature make apparent.
But our courts have demonstrated a willingness and even an eagerness to overstep the bounds of judicial authority, and our legislative branch has shown utter cowardice in holding these judges accountable for their impeachable offenses.
We therefore have no choice but to elevate laws to the constitutional level to prevent them from being declared "unconstitutional" by activist social engineers.
It remains to be seen whether the people of California, and the Congress of the United States, may do this before it's too late.
5 comments:
Wouldn't it be better to just abolish marriage as a legal institution altogether? You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. You want the government to regulate, protect and enshrine marriage, as well as provide substantive benefits to married couples (as is the current standard in the tax code and the general laws surrounding inheritance). Yet at the same time, you don't want the legal institution of marriage to be subject to the traditional values of equality and justice that are so profoundly alive in this country today. Moreover, your basis for denying equal access to the secular, legal institution of marriage is based on its religious (and thus inherently subjective) underpinnings. Indeed, many churches approve of gay marriage.
This is not a case of an activist court impinging on the work of god. This is a case of a court insisting that the government regulate itself in an equitable manner, giving all citizens the equal protection of the law.
If you want to keep the courts out of marriage, as you seem to imply, there is only one sure way to do so: eliminate marriage from the law. That would certainly protect the religious institution from the infringement of government regulation, if that is indeed what has happened here. Of course, I would contest the assertion that this has happened. The court has not forced any church to recognize a marriage under its own criteria. It has forced the government to recognize marriages as valid by the government's criteria.
The only objection I really see here is if this does, in fact, somehow violate the separation between church and state. But if this decision does that, it is only because marriage itself does so as well.
offical post, it wouldn't be better to abolish marriage as a legal institution altogether, unless you want to completely obliterate our civilization.
Marriage is already subject to the " traditional values of equality and justice." What man and woman can't marry one another, provided they are not a close relation and are of age? Even homosexuals have the same freedom as anyone else to marry someone of the same sex. What they do not have the right to do is to have sex with someone of the same sex and call it "marriage."
Marriage was established by God at the beginning of the human race as being between a man and a woman, and it has been recognized as such throughout human history. It's something for a man and a woman only. To call anything else "marriage" is to counterfeit the real thing.
What happens when you counterfeit money? The real currency becomes devalued; that's why counterfeiting is illegal. It may look like the real thing, but it doesn't have the same value.
Marriage is even more important. It is the basic organizational unit of any civilization. It provides a safe, nurturing, stable environment in which to raise children.
The welfare of our children, our civilization and our future is far too important to undermine with politically correct social experiments that not only defy nature, they defy common sense.
Bob:
1. If eliminating marriage as a legal institution would obliterate civilization itself, then our civilization is really a very fragile thing, isn't it? I think this assertion is hyperbolic, and smacks of fear mongering.
2. " Even homosexuals have the same freedom as anyone else to marry someone of the same sex. What they do not have the right to do is to have sex with someone of the same sex and call it "marriage." " These two sentences seem to contradict themselves. However, I'll address the second one. No, having sex with someone does not constitute a marriage. Shockingly, homosexuals too participate in long term, committed relationships with non-sexual aspects. Same sex marriages in religions that do recognize them seem to be, de facto, marriages, unless we are to take the tenets of one religion as determinative of the rules for all other religions. However, there is religious freedom in this country, which means that Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, and Pentecostalists can all recognize whatever rules they want. But what we are talking about here is the government's definition of marriage. This is a legal, not a religious, institution. That is clear. The First Amendment guarantees a separation between church and state. Thus the legal institution of marriage is an aspect of government, and is subject to secular law, not determined by God's law(s).
3. Actually, many cultures have recognized marriages between men and men and women and women in the past. (CF Native American bedraches, Rome in general). There are many examples that prove your statement that marriage has always been between men and women historically inaccurate. Your assertion that marriage is a product of God is based upon your own religious views, not mine, and ought not to be determinative of the laws which govern both of us.
4. Money is issued by governments. Marriages are as well. When the government issues a new note, it is not counterfeit, it is valid. So too when the government recognizes a new marriage. We aren't demanding that the government recognize private religious ceremonies as valid. We are asking that the procedure by which a relationship is validated by the government be open to all relationships, not just a restricted class of relationships. Your analogy fails to persuade, and I think really works to my point.
5. Marriage is important for many reasons. Homosexuals have families as well. You are, in effect, trying to deny their children a safe, nurturing and stable environment on account of their parent's sexual orientation. This does not seem right to me.
6. I'm not really advocating for the abolition of marriage. I support gay marriage, ultimately, because I think that it serves a social function. Gay marriages already exist, but they are rarely recognized as such by the government. My point is this: either the benefits of marriage (including the social status that comes from governmental recognition of the validity of a marriage) be open to all married persons, or those benefits should be available to no married persons. I don't think marriage is a byproduct of God, but you do. If you want to keep the government from interfering with a religious institution, then keep the institution out of the law. I think that marriage is a social institution with a legal structure. To the extent that it is, access to it cannot and should not be denied to anyone. The government ought not to be in the business of ranking the validity and significance of a relationship between two individuals. In California and Massachusetts, this is no longer the case. Hopefully this trend will continue.
Best,
HLS3
Lawrence and Ernest, you raise some points worthy of discussion. As I started typing out a response, I realized it would take more space than is really conducive in the comments section.
Check Dakota Voice later tonight or tomorrow morning for a substantive response (as full, independent post) to the points you raised.
Just FYI, Lawrence & Ernest and "official post" are the same person, if that were not clear. My blogging other keeps changing the names on me.
-HLS3
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