Thursday, August 5, 2010

READ the decision of the federal judge overturning California's Prop 8 ban on same-gender marriage here (pdf). The money quote:

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples. FF 76, 79-80; Romer, 517 US at 634 (“[L]aws of the kind now before us raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.”). Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

CONCLUSION

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex
couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

IT is gratifying to be reminded that this country is NOT a theocracy. It is a secular state, which is why everyone is free to believe whatever they want to believe. They are NOT free, however, to impose those beliefs on others who may wish to believe something else.

No religious sect or denomination is obliged to marry anyone it doesn't want to marry. But two individuals are not married until the state says they are married, and what the state and the religious call marriage is, in fact, a form of civil law contract in which the gender of the two parties entering into that contract is irrelevant. This is a rationalist secular view that is, of course, offensive to would-be theocrats. I will suggest that anyone wishing to live in a theocracy consider Saudi Arabia, Iran or Israel. In the meantime, let the rest of us enjoy simply being the human beings that we are.

It will be interesting, though, to see how near to a theocracy a right-wing Supreme Court will want us to be.