Rightank

Yesterday, the California legislature passed a law extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians. Trumpeted as a rights’ cause akin to slavery or women’s suffrage, same-sex marriage proponents could not be happier.

Some bloggers have noted the chasm between the two dominant parties (Democrats and Republicans) on the piece of legislation. No Republican supported the legislation and four Democrats voted against corrupting California’s marriage laws. Only Democrats supported the legislation.

Also, as Eugene Volokh notes, the law is unconstitutional in that it explicitly contradicts the California Constitution. In 2000, 60% of Californians voted for Proposition 22, which defines marriage as follows:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

That definition–which upholds traditional marriage and explicitly excludes any type of extra-hetrosexual marriage relationship–cannot be modified by an act of the legislature. The only body that stands in the people’s way is the California Supreme Court, which in time will hear a challenge to California’s Defense of Marriage Act.

An grass-roots organization, Campaign for Children and Families, is attempting to get a Marriage Amendment in the California ballot in 2006. This would pre-empt or supersede any activist action by the California Supreme Court to impose same-sex marriage on the Californian populace.

It will be interesting to see what course of action Governor Schwarzenegger will take. If he vetoes the law, he will make the conservatives happy within the Republican and Democratic parties and perhaps elevate his national status within the Republican Party. Even if this is his course of action (which it will likely be), his veto will not be one of principle, as Schwarzenegger does not oppose same-sex marriage. If he signs the law, he will lose any hope of becoming POTUS (assuming the unlikely possibility a constitutional amendment is passed that allows him to run). Social conservatives comprise the bulk of the Republican Party and the bulk of those who get out and vote. We (I am a social conservative) would never forget his veto to destroy marriage.

What about same-sex marriage proponents who say Wow! this is the first time a state legislature has actually voted to legalize same-sex marriage. My answer: Not quite true. What the California Assembly did was become the first state legislature to pass an unconstitutional law that attempts to legalize same-sex marriage. Now that’s a feat worth celebrating.

Update 9:53 P.M. EST: Looks like Gov. Schwarzenegger will veto the legislation “out of respect for the will of the people.” How nice of him.

In a recently published law journal article, Professor Lynn Wardle persuasively argues why a Federal Marriage Amendment is a needed addition to our Constitution. The whole issue of the journal–The Federal Marriage Amendment: Yes or No?–is worth reading, containing some of the latest scholarly thought on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Some supporters of same-sex marriage buttress their arguments for societial radicialism on the First Amendment Religion Clauses. Particularly, they assert that traditional marriage is a qualified endorsement of Christian faith–that marriage is the conjugal joining of one man and one woman. Thus, when the First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” it prohibits the establishment of a Christian marriage as a federalized norm. Similarly but distinctly, “Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]” means that heterosexual marriage cannot be promoted or sustained financially or otherwise by the federal government because that runs contrary to the relgiousity of other Americans who believe in different forms of marriage that offend, interfere, or inhibit their own religious expression and belief.

Would same-sex advocates be so anxious to use the First Amendment to eradicate marriage if traditional marriage where part of that Amendment? Professor Wardle makes the following observation:

In 1987 marriage was not threatened or abused by government, so it is not surprising that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights make no reference to marriage. Those documents protect the vulnerable valued institutions and rights that were threatened and which had been abused by the states and the British government in recent history–press, speech, religion, assembly, jury trial, quartering troops, etc. Today there is little threat of forcible troops in our homes, but the institution of conjugal marriage is threatened. It makes as much sense to adopt marriage protection today as it did in 1787 to adopt constitutional protection for speech, private residences, jury trials, etc.

. . .

If James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and Alexander Hamilton were alive today, we could expect to see them leading the movement to adopt constitutional protection for the institution of conjugal marriage.

Wardle’s historical instinct seems correct. If marriage were threatened during the Founding as it is right now, then the First Amendment (or at least the Bill of Rights) would contain a provision explicitly defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Moreover, most (if not all) the Framers would be advocating on behalf of preserving traditional marriage.

The battle to preserve traditional marriage is NOW. It’s not in five years or ten years. Wardle warns:

The choice is clear–either in the next dozen years there will be a constitutional rule protecting the institution of conjugal marriage, or there will be a constitutional rule forcing all states to create or to recognize–and effectively leading to the domestic approval of–same-sex marriages.

The radical elites who desire to thrust same-sex marriage on the entire populace are not waiting for societal approbation. In the end, failure to enact a Federal Marriage Amendment will spell the end of traditional marriage. The ACLU and other gay advocacy groups know it . . . and so should you.

Recently, Representative Elijah Cummings (Republican from Maryland) suggested that a Supreme Court nominee’s lack of experience in socializing or living among blacks could be problematic. In Judge Roberts case, if one has grown-up in a secluded environment (meaning little to no interaction with blacks), then that is a “problem” but not a “dealbreaker” for a Supreme Court nominee.

Cummings statement is a gross display of ignorance and in my view, insinuates that Roberts is a racist because he was raised in a small town without a robust minority population. I grew up for most of my life in a small, rural community. There were no blacks in my graduating class of almost four hundred and few (if any) black families in my town. Being from a small, white, homogenous town neither makes me or Judge Roberts a racist.

Would Cummings believe that the opposite was true? Does a black person who lives his entire life in a pre-dominately black community automatically carry racist feelings toward whites? What about a white person who lives in a city of 500,000 but resides in a suburban white neighborhood but the black population of the city is almost 50%? Would he be a racist? How is the latter situation different from that of Judge Roberts’s youth?

Absurdities like those uttered by Cummings weaken the credulity of so-called black leaders who fancy racist rhetoric to play-on racial wedges rather than relying on other substantive criticisms. Cummings and other racist-painters are getting desperate to stop Roberts nomination. Their line of attack will not succeed.