Here Comes Da Judge!

Three days ago one of those “little events” I mentioned happened out here in California. A Republican judge appointed by our conservative former governor Pete Wilson (Mr. Electricity Deregulation) ruled that the Ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional because there was “no rational purpose” to deny marriage to gay couples.

Now here’s the part I really love about this story. There’s no way that the Christian Right can reasonably say that this guy is an “Activist Judge™” since he used logical arguments and past precedent to define his reason’s why he struck down the ban. He explained that by “Californians agreeing that gay couples should have some rights through civil union laws then past precedent and logic dictates that marriage should be available to them.” The specific case he mentioned to prove this was “Brown vs. Board of Education.” Ouch. So what that means then, (in my best GW Bush imitation), if you are against this, then you are for segregation. And you’re letting the terrorists win.

One of the other interesting things about this decision it has historical precedent in the fact that California was the first state to allow inter-racial marriage. Why this is significant is that according to polls in the early 1940’s over 90% of the US was against legalizing Inter-racial marriage yet the courts made the “outrageous” decision to go against the national consensus in the name of upholding the constitution. By comparison, only 6o% is against gay marriage today.

To me, to argue that gay marriage is wrong is a pretty hard sell nowadays( at least legally) and to see that you need really to go no further than the main argument’s provided by the groups in the article who opposed this decision.
“Tradition supports that marriage only consists of a man and a woman.” Um, well actually marriage has traditionally been a contract that was more about property rights and “who-belongs-to who” than anything else. Also, if we really want to go by “tradition” we should
Reinstate slavery.
Take away women’s rights.
Arrest war-profiteers (Sorry, there goes half the Bush cabinet.)
Define “Citizen” as a white-male landowner.
So yeah, tradition dictating reality probably isn’t the best argument out there so I’m a little surprised they used that one. I’m sure there next one will be better:

“The state has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation.” Ok, so I was wrong. This one’s even worse.
Dear Anti gay marriage group,
Hi. Welcome to the 21’st century. You may not have noticed but the world is overpopulated as it is so I’m not sure how much the state should be encouraging people to have children. People seem to do a pretty good job of that on their own. But regardless of that there are plenty of ways now for both male and female homosexual couples to have kids. And, as studies have shown, kids raised by gays are no more or less messed up then kids raised by heterosexual couples. Also, if the studies prove true and only 1-2% of the population is gay, then really you’re only talking about a few hundred thousand people here and I really doubt that is going to cause the end of humanity. Also, more children means more poor folks, more poor folks means more social programs, more social programs means less tax cuts for the rich. And we all know how much you guys hate that. Hope this helps.
Love,
Matt

Strangely enough, one of the best arguments for gay marriage I’ve ever read came from “World,” a far-right Christian magazine. Basically, the author stated that “All of the arguments used now against gay marriage are the same ones used against inter-racial marriage 70 years ago s and that the only line they should use is that it’s wrong because god says so.”(Actually it was Paul and not God, but that’s another blog) And this is a great argument for the pro-gay marriage side because we are not a Christian theocracy nor have we ever been one. So it’s Ok for people to believe that it’s wrong, but rule of law says they need to keep that to themselves.

The simple fact is that this recent legitimization of gay marriage represents a huge change in our society. And change can be a big, ugly, scary, messy thing especially if it challenges long-standing beliefs in what is considered “normal.” I mean, if 80 years ago you said that blacks and whites should be able to marry, Women should have all the rights of men, and people of color should be treated equally under the law people would have thought you were insane. But now the opposite is true in each and every case and all it took was a few brave people willing to do what was right. Sometimes that person is a woman who refuses to give up her bus seat, sometimes it involves a well-organized march and extended campaign, and sometimes it takes just one decision by a lone judge who takes that whole “Equal protection” clause seriously.

Now of course this decision will be appealed and it will probably make it all the way to the 9th circuit court. But for now, it’s one more win for civil rights which is always a good thing.