Sanity in New York
Yesterday in Hernandez v. Robles, The New York Supreme Court (in New York, the Court of Appeals is the highest court) reversed the decision by a Manhattan lower court judge holding that forcing same-sex marriage is the province of legislative authority and not the priviledge of judges who like to rule by fiat. Upholding the legislative perogative in defining marriage, the Court emphasized:
The legislative policy rationale is that society and government have a strong interest in fostering heterosexual marriage as the social institution that best forges a linkage between sex, procreation and child rearing. It systematically regulates heterosexual behavior, brings order to the resulting procreation and ensures a stable family structure for the rearing, education and socialization of children. Marriage promotes sharing of resources between men, women and the children that they procreate; provides a basis for the legal and factual assumption that a man is the father of his wife’s child via the legal presumption of paternity plus the marital expectations of monogamy and fidelity; and creates and develops a relationship between parents and child based on real, everyday ties. It is based on the presumption that the optimal situation for child rearing is having both biological parents present in a committed, socially esteemed relationship. . . .The law assumes that a marriage will produce children and affords benefits based on that assumption. It sets up heterosexual marriage as the cultural, social and legal ideal in an effort to discourage unmarried childbearing and to encourage sufficient marital childbearing to sustain the population and society; the entire society, even those who do not marry, depend on a healthy marriage culture for this latter, critical, but presently undervalued, benefit. Marriage laws are not primarily about adult needs for official recognition and support, but about the well-being of children and society, and such preference constitutes a rational policy decision. Thus, society and government have reasonable, important interests in encouraging heterosexual couples to accept the recognition and regulation of marriage. [citations omitted]
Particularly, the court has it right when it says that “marriage laws are not primarily about adult needs for official recognition and support, but about the well-being of children and society. . . .” Same-sex marriage advocates want to change the legislative policy determinations and make the American public believe that marriage is about upholding the love interest that unites two persons rather than the well-being of (1) children and (2) society. Moreover, children cannot be produced from same-sex relations. Procreative impossibility aside, government does not protect marriage in order to appease and gratify the solipsistic desires of both the man and the woman. Yet, this falsity of legislative purpose is what the ACLU and their allies want the American people to believe.
The battle to protect marriage will continue to rage. The relentless barrage against tradition and the heritage of American morality will continue unabated unless we have a constitutional amendment that protects marriage. Unfortunately, it isn’t at the top of the Bush Adminstration’s “Things We Need to Do to Save Our Nation” list.
Ann Althouse some thoughts about the Court’s “ringing defense of legislative power to define marriage.”