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Activist Judge Imposes New Moral Standard on Marriage

SAN FRANCISCO - A judge ruled Monday that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional — a legal milestone that, if upheld on appeal, would open the way for the most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed.
Judge Richard Kramer of San Francisco County's trial-level Superior Court likened the ban to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be "no rational purpose" for denying marriage to gay couples.

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It is hard to imagine any judge claiming there is no rational purpose for denying marriage to gay couples without providing a basis or standard for his statement. Implicit in the ruling is the assumption (or belief) that gay marriage is moral and the insult that any suggestion to the contrary is irrational. This proof by assertion, contradicting Biblical definition of marriage, follows from the judge’s belief system and ethical standard that condones homosexuality.

Note that the Judge’s ruling also ignores the will of the people as a judge struck down a proposition defining marriage as between and man and a woman. This was done despite the approval of the proposition in 2000 by 61% of California voters.

In November of 2004, the following states had marriage amendments approved by voters: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Mississippi, Ohio, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah. In Ohio, Michigan and Montana, amendments passed by votes of 61% to 66%. Except for Oregon, in all of the other states, amendments were approved by votes of 73% to 85%. The closest vote was in Oregon. Gay activists, who poured resources and volunteers into the state, considered it their one chance to stop the juggernaut. Nonetheless, the Oregon amendment was approved by a 56% vote.

Larry Jacobs, vice president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, remarked in a recent press release, "As Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in an address at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, some things are too fundamental to be left to the determination of judges. Whether the millennia-old definition of marriage will be changed surely is one of those things."

Jacobs noted that when there's this wide a gap between popular opinion and elite opinion, something has to give. "Usually it foreshadows a political revolution – like the takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994. Those who oppose the natural family are on the wrong side of history and thus are in danger of being swept away by the coming tide."

Posted by tim at March 15, 2005 6:50 AM

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