Topic: Constitutional Issues
California Supreme Justice: The word 'marriage' not important to the 'right to marry.' In its one hundred and twenty pages of rambling and, at times, seemingly Byzantine opinion, the California Supreme court has moments of startlingly hilarious logic. Here are two that are especially important because they reveal the dehumanizing attitudes toward marriage that the court maintains throughout.by Paul Benedict
(libertarian)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
So says California's Supreme Justice:
"Whether or not the name "marriage," in the abstract, is considered a core element of the state constitutional right to marry... (p. 81)"
Is there any reason such clear thinking ought not to be remembered in a recall election as soon as possible?
To this court marriage is nothing more than the rights conferred upon it by the state. Marriage, that is, the right to join in marriage, has a special recognition in law simply because marriage is prior to and independent of any right any state can confer upon it. The state must recognize marriage as it exists independently of government and its ideologies. Why? Because, if California was correct in recognizing a constitutional right to marry in Perezversus California, then marriage, like freedom of religion and freedom of speech, is a constitutional liberty and an inalienable right of free people. To diminish the full recognition of marriage in our laws is to diminish the recognition of who we are as people, a free people.
Here they go again: "We have no occasion in this case to determine whether the state constitutional right to marry necessarily affords all couples the constitutional right to require the state to designate their official family relationship a "marriage" (p.80)
Of course the court was lured into revealing its deep-seated lunacy, in all the regal beauty of this linguistic conundrum, by what sounds (according to the court's paraphrasing) like an equally loony argument by the California attorney general:
"or whether, as the Attorney General suggests, the Legislature would not violate a couple's constitutional right to marry if perhaps in order to emphasize and clarify that this civil institution (marriage) is distinct from the religious institution of marriage it were to assign a name other than marriage as the official designation of the family relationship for all couples"(p. 80)
As this court has proven, names, indeed words themselves, are meaningless when, left to the divine wisdom of these supreme judges who wrest them naked and reeling from their legislative history, civil rights context, and timeless reality. Call it what you want, marriage is a compact, a commitment between two people (two people who can marry) in which the natural realities of who we are as human beings, male and female together, are appropriately cherished and exalted. Marriages can be good or bad. People in them will be good or bad as husbands and wives. Nonetheless, it is the ability to join in marriage that is at the core of the right to marry. This is the core of every other right that governments rightly or wrongly confer or withhold from those who marry. This contract between two people who are so joined, exists without the help or hindrance of government, and it is this human thing that is the center of any rights governments choose to recognize or ignore.
Marriage is not injured at all by history's discoveries and failures in regard to the meaning of that union. However, societies have revealed themselves in their virtues or their failings by their regard for marriage. How are we doing as a society, and just what does this travesty say about us as a people?
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Paul Benedict only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Paul Benedict is
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Not sure there is *anything* I can agree with you here. Ironically, I just wrote an article on this site suggesting that the separation of the eccelsiastical from the civic is entirely appropriate.....
I am in accord with Tully on this issue. Tully BTW did a fine job defining and defending his stance. I suggest you read it unless you have already done so.
Posted By: Paul Benedict
Date: 2008-07-16 09:53:09
Hi,I just happened by your column. I thought Floyd's comments erudite. He doesn't entirely buy the notion that marriage is a constitutionally protected liberty, but that has been the position of a wide variety of courts in the twentieth century. There was also a very clear discussion of marriage as a human institution that is beyond the scope of any religion at all. It's probably not an ironic coincidence that your post and the California court's illogical use of language are both saying the same thing. It's not that these ideas you propound are original. They're part of an agenda. I don't like to say "gay" agenda because I'm not sure the agenda isn't actually a totalitarian super-government agenda. Nor am I convinced that gay people fully understand or support that agenda. However, most folks instinctively understand the value of marriage. Others, who are convinced (sadly) that they will never have a use for marriage, find marriage is not in their self interest at all. Marriage only reminds them of what they have chosen not to share in. The elimination of marriage would only make them happy. Some of these have become willing pawns in this attempt at disemboweling of our constitutional form of government. Do change course
Posted By: Paul Benedict
Date: 2008-07-17 09:08:47
Hi Scott,
Did you read "Dehumanizing Marriage"? In this article I talk about marriage as a human institution that is outside the scope of any particular religion. I thought this notion through because I actually read "Re Marriages (the ruling of the California Supreme Court)..." and becuase I reread "Perez vs. California" upon which this court relied. Both courts agreed that there is a constitutional 'right to marry.' Giving this notion some thought, I concurred. The result was a recognizition of the great difference between Perez and Re Marriages.
Most people still expect that this Court would have left the essence of marriage alone and then said, in some fancy way, "to be nice we will also call these unions marriage." Based on the talk shows, one would think that is what they did. That's wrong. They contracted the definition of marriage to exclude real marriage entirely. "Since same sex couples cannot marry, its only fair if no one can marry." Illogic and dishonesty in our laws is something everyone should object to.
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