One step forward in California

A little behind the times here, but of course I had to comment on the California decision this past Monday.

Naturally, I'm thrilled, although this will obviously be fuel for constitutional amendments in many states. Certainly we're already seeing it in Arizona.

The arrogance of this ruling is incredible - the people of California voted by 61 percent to preserve marriage, which has been the fundamental social unit of society for thousands of years. But one judge in San Francisco knows better than all of us, and has created out of thin air a "right" to homosexual marriage.

I have to say I don't get the whole "activist judge" argument. Isn't that why we have the judicial branch of our government, to keep the other two in check so that there cannot be a tyranny of the majority? 61% of the people deciding what other people can or cannot do with their private lives doesn't make it right. I know it's not the same, you can't compare GLBT rights with black history, but Brown v. Board of Education can't help but spring to mind. Thank God "activist judges" didn't allow a majority vote to decide what is right and just.

I totally agree with the judge that the justifications for the "marriage defense" laws aren't sufficient. Tradition? Slavery was a tradition, too. Marriage is just for procreation? Uh, good thing there are fertility drugs these days or I guess my marriage wouldn't be valid. That whole concept is deeply flawed.

That ruling in Baker v. Baker, the conservative group noted, held that "the first purpose of marriage, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation. A woman, to be marriageable must, at the time, be able to bear children to her husband."

Baker v. Baker, by the way, was an 1859 case to allow a man to annul his marriage because his wife was pregnant by another man. Judge Kramer then quotes more from the decision of this case:

"With a man of honor," the 1859 decision reads, "the purity of the wife is essential .... We can conceive no torture more terrible to a right-minded and upright man than a union to a woman whose person has been defiled by a stranger."

This is the best argument for marriage needing to be limited to man/woman only? There isn't even a passing similarity between adultery and same-sex marriage. I like Judge Kramer's response:

The line in Baker regarding 'the first purpose of matrimony' no more supports a rational governmental purpose to preclude same-sex marriage than would the line in the same paragraph that 'with a man of honor the purity of the wife is essential' support a notion that in California, only virgins can marry.

You go, Judge Kramer!