This November of 2008 Californians will vote as to whether they want to amend the state constitution to add the line “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” In 2000 Californians voted 61% in favor of this same wording as a law, but it was overturned by the California Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision that said that law was unconstitutional. By amending the constitution, it becomes constitutional and cannot be overturned again unless the citizens of California vote in a later election to un-amend it out of the state constitution.
Opinions range and vary from person to person with regards to Proposition 8. Some are vehemently for it, others are vehemently against it. Some see it as protecting traditional marriage, some see it as reestablishing the will of the people in the face of actions by activist judges, some see it as a hate crime against gays, some see it as being mean, some don’t see how it affects them, some don’t care, and others are confused and aren’t sure what they believe about it.
I’m in favor of Prop 8 because I believe legalized gay marriage will make marriage between a man and a woman seem less meaningful to society in general, leading to increases in divorce, children born out of wedlock, and all the problems that follow. In other words, I think it will lead to increased pain and suffering.
Many conservatives are arguing that the judges had no right to overturn the law which the people voted on and passed. While I’m certainly no lawyer I have to disagree. I think it is the duty of judges to decide whether laws are constitutional or not. I think the current process is exactly how things should work. If the people pass a law and it is struck down then they have the right to vote to amend the constitution. Once the constitution is amended then that is the end of it. In retrospect, it may have been better if those in favor of Prop 22 and now Prop 8 had gone for a constitutional amendment to begin with.
If Prop 8 passes, I think it will be a good thing. If it doesn’t, I think a lot of pain and suffering is on the way for California and the rest of the country, if not the world, who tends to follow the example of the US in many things. But I believe in our system of government and if the voters fail to pass Prop 8 then that’s the way it goes, unfortunate as it is.
I think that a system in which 3 or 4 people can overturn a law passed by the majority of people is a flawed system. It then comes down to who happens to have appointed the judges in the first place, not to whether or not something is really constitutional. The opinion of the majority of judges is what ultimately decides this, as we see time after time the split decisions from the US supreme court. If a law is truly unconstitutional, it should take a majority decision from the supreme court to rule it unconstitutional – there are just too many cases where the wrong decision has been made. This discussion on gay marriage is a case in point. There is really no way you will convince me that gay marriage is constitutional…
This was a majority decision by the California Supreme Court. They weren’t saying that gay marriage is constitutional, they were saying that passing a law saying that only marriage between one man and one woman was unconstitutional, or in other words, that the constitution didn’t support establishing such a law, hence the need to amend the constitution to make it constitutional.
Ok, now that I’ve researched the legal decisions a bit more, it appears there was definitely an agenda on the minds of the judges who ruled in favor of gay marriage in California, and it appears they went farther than necessary and made some statements I disagree with, in particular:
The exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage clearly is not necessary in order to afford full protection to all of the rights and benefits that currently are enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples.
Perhaps the legal acceptance of gay marriage doesn’t infringe on the legal rights and benefits of opposite-sex marriages, but there would certainly be an effect.
The statement also says:
The right to marry is not properly viewed simply as a benefit or privilege that a government may establish or abolish as it sees fit, but rather that the right constitutes a basic civil or human right of all people.
I agree with this statement, but only if marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman. To me, the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman is not a marriage. It is a union of some sort, but you can’t call it marriage any more than you would call me sitting on my chair a marriage between me and that chair. Again, it’s a union of some sort, but not marriage.
However, although the judges who overturned the law may be activists, and although I may completely disagree with their opinions, and I don’t agree with the way in which they overturned the law (making its effect immediate rather than giving time for public discussion), I can still see the logic in declaring it unconstitutional. Moreover, in reading through the dissenting opinions I’m not sure I buy them. The arguments against seem to focus on marriage being an ancient institution, that the debate should be part of the legislative process rather than judicial, and therefore there is a violation of separation of powers.
The ancient argument I don’t buy for sure, because I don’t believe that something is right just because it’s been around for a long time. As to this separation of powers argument I evidently don’t understand the law well enough, or I need to read more of the decision. It seems to me that whenever a law is called into question as to its constitutionality, the court would look at the constitution, look at the law, and then say “Does the constitution provide any support for this law?” If not, then the law is struck down, and can only become constitutional by way of amending the constitution. It’s not clear to me whether or not that’s how this decision was made or if I’m over-simplifying things.
Either way, the best way to settle the question once and for all seems to be by amending the constitution. The only way that could be overturned would then be by re-amendment or by it going to the Supreme Court, and although I’m not well educated on this matter I suspect the Supreme Court would say it’s a state issue.