Tuesday, February 07, 2012

New attack on California marriage law

The LA Times just reported:
A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution. ...

“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.
It is crazy to say that California marriage law violates a Civil War amendment because there is no reason for it. The rational basis for marriage has been described in court papers many times.

There are many other legitimate reasons as well. Maybe voters wanted to correct a bad court decision. Maybe voters wanted to clarify the law. Maybe voters wanted to conform to federal law and law in other states. Maybe voters were concerned that activist judges would use same-sex marriage as an excuse to push social policies, as has happened in California and elsewhere. Maybe voters wanted to make a statement about religious freedom. The supreme courts in several states have mandated same-sex civil unions and not same-sex marriage, which is the California law that the 9C now says is irrational.

Pres. Barack Obama says that he is against same-sex marriage, but he appoints leftist judges who try to change social policy with decisions like this.

This is a question of whether California is ruled by the people, or by a leftist elite that considers 60% of the voters to be irrational.

2 comments:

Eli said...

You're a funny guy, y'know that? Every other post here is about how irrational people are, but then at the end of this one you scoff at the idea that bigots might be irrational. Talk about bias...

Roger said...

Bigots may well be irrational. But the 9C opinion depends on no one having a rational reason for voting for Prop. 8, and it is an obvious fact that millions of voters did indeed have rational reasons.