California court upholds state same-sex marriage ban
Posted on October 5, 2006
Update: ACLU disappointed
I’m listening as I post to Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel speaking to my local radio station (540 WFLA) about breaking news on a California same-sex marriage case. Staver is an attorney who argued the case on the side of upholding a same-sex marriage ban.
According to news posted just minutes ago:
A state appeals court ruled Thursday that California’s marriage laws do not violate the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians, a critical defeat to a movement hungry for a win after high courts in New York and Washington upheld similar bans in those states.
In reversing the March 2005 ruling of a San Francisco trial judge, the First District Court of Appeal agreed with the state’s attorney general, who argued that California’s ban on same-sex marriage does not discriminate against gays and lesbians because of the state’s strong domestic partner law.
The momentum in recent cases (based upon New York, Washington and now California) seems to be on the side of not allowing other state law provisions regarding domestic partnership to override same-sex marriage bans.
UPDATE: The raw opinion is posted here.
ADF Press Release: Victory for marriage in California
» Filed Under ACLU, Homosexual Agenda, News
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19 Responses to “California court upholds state same-sex marriage ban”
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Good for California, but I must say I’m surprised. I thought CA would be the first state to flop to the pressure.
Actually apostle, it would have been the second (MA).
This isn’t the end of the road. The anti-marriage forces will appeal to the CA Supreme Court, so there still is a chance that CASC will invent a “right” to redefine marriage in the state.
A NOTE ON LANGUAGE:
These laws and amendments that deal with the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman (as marriage has been defined for the entire history of this country) ARE NOT “bans” on “gay marriage.” These laws and amendments are set up tp protect marriage from ANY redefinition. We could just as easily say that these are “bans” on polygamy, polyamory, close relative marriage, underage marriage, etc. It just so happens that currently the radical homosexual movement is challenging marriage. Groups like ADF, Liberty Counsel and others would fight just as vigorously against state sanction of all these relationships as “marriage.” If marriage is redefined to include same-sex relationships, we’ve not reached a slippery slope, but a bridge with Ted Kennedy at the wheel — all the same legal arguments can, will and ARE being used (look at the 10th Circuit’s polygamy case and the ACLU’s promise to defend “polygamy rights”) to throw the institution into chaos on the way to its ultimate obliteration.
How about a headline like this:
“Marriage wins in California.”
Glib, I don’t have a problem with the ruling (assuming you read the fine print), but I’m going to split hairs with you a little bit.
I don’t believe there are many laws that explicitly define marriage as occurring between a man and a woman, and the (current) definition seems to leave a little leeway, but you’re right that “marriage” by any customary understanding is expected to be between a man and a woman. But…
You can’t have it both ways like that. If you are going to explicitly define “marriage” as being heterosexual, you are, at the same time, explicitly denying the use of the term to homosexuals.
Having split those hairs, I’ll state again that I don’t have much problem with this ruling. As the court said, CA has “strong domestic partner laws” which serve most of the same functions as marriage.
If you deem it so important to narrowly define the word marriage, that’s ok by me, but there’s no justification for denying “next of kin” rights to a partner simply because it’s a homosexual relationship.
“I don’t believe there are many laws that explicitly define marriage as occurring between a man and a woman”
Actually Jeff, nearly EVERY state in the union has such a law or a state constitutional amendment.
http://www.domawatch.org/stateissues/index.html
“You can’t have it both ways like that. If you are going to explicitly define “marriage” as being heterosexual, you are, at the same time, explicitly denying the use of the term to homosexuals.”
You obviously miss my point or simply stopped reading at the point you cut and pasted. My point is that that laws and amendments define what marriage is…and that marriage is NOTHING but that. These laws protect marriage from ALL redefinition, not just from redefinition of the sort sought by the current attackers of marriage. Again, I will direct you to the current 10th Circuit polygamy case to illustrate my point that once any other non-marriage relationship is called “marriage,” a flood of other definitions will be imposed upon Americans as the current radicals are attempting to do with the ultimate impact of destroying the most indispensible social institution in the civilized world.
I stand corrected. Though it does beg the question: why the repeated fuss about a national ammendment? The states seem to be handling the matter in accordance to the wishes of their constituents, so leave ‘em alone.
In this case, I am guilty of forming my response before fully comprehending your point, but I don’t think I was way off.
Ok, so it “bans gay marriage” along with a bunch of other things. It’s still factually and practically accurate to say that these laws “ban gay marriage”.
As I said though, I really don’t care as long as there are realistic domestic partner laws. Call it what you will, but a homosexual couple deserves to be able to act on the other’s behalf without jumping through a hundred hoops.
Ya know, I’m reading the opinion and I’d love to hear from those that frequently complain of “judicial activism”.
This is a very well written opinion and they explicitly avoided saying what marriage “could” or “should” mean, while honestly examining what it does mean and the constitutionality of that meaning.
What I got from reading that was that the court recoginzed it was not its place to define marraige. If the marraige laws are to be changed it should be done through the legislative branch representing the will of the people.
“Ok, so it “bans gay marriage” along with a bunch of other things. It’s still factually and practically accurate to say that these laws “ban gay marriage”.”
Yes, factually accurate, but doesn’t cover the full expanse of the idea we’re talking about. I understand your point, you mine, so I think we can move on.
“As I said though, I really don’t care as long as there are realistic domestic partner laws.”
Why? To answer this questions you must also look at why the state licenses marriage in the first place and then tell me why “domestic partners” should receive special treatment over any other unmarried people or combination of people simply because they have a sexual relationship with another person they either choose not to marry or enter into a relationship they know will not qualify as a marriage? Should the governement license close friendships and assign them equal status to marriage?
“Call it what you will, but a homosexual couple deserves to be able to act on the other’s behalf without jumping through a hundred hoops.”
A power of attorney takes care of most of the things you are thinking about. The stories about restrictions on hospital visitation, executing wills/estates, acting on behalf of one another on myriad legal/financial/medical issues sound like compassion-grabbers, but they are flat-out lies. Marriage laws do not prevent any of these things — powers of attorney are easier to obtain than marriage licenses. There are proposals, which I support, for reciprocal beneficiary packages that bundle all these things into a one-stop shop for any two people who want to assign one another the responsibilities and the legal power to act on each other’s behalf without creating a legal status similar to marriage. Would this be sufficient for someone like you Jeff?
The CA opinion correctly holds that public policy is the realm of the public and the policy makers (duh). That said, if the public or those elected to represent the public work properly through the system and invent something called same-sex “marriage,” I wouldn’t like it, but would accept it…and would work properly through the system to change it. What Mark Leno tried to pull last year in the CA legislature (his bill to create same-sex “marriage”) was completely illegal under the CA Constitutuion, BTW.
For the record, I’m a big fan of the female anatomy, so I won’t be entering any such arrangement, regardless of the details.
But, to answer your question on the theoretical grounds that it was asked: Very close, but not quite. I think you’ll understand why as I respond to another of your comments.
But they’re a lot harder to prove. If you walk into a medical facility and claim to have power of attorney, no one is going to take your word for it. I’ve never heard of someone having to bring a marriage license to such a facility. At most, the staff might ask to see a state ID that shows the same surname and address. I think having an officially defined legal status would largely mitigate that problem.
Also, on a legally irrelevant side note, I think that an official status might go a long way towards adding permanence to relationships that are notoriously (according to the stereotypes, at least) short term.
Sorry, forgot to respond to this.
I think this goes back to the permanence aspect that I hinted at. I see no reason not to grant legal status to a relationship that is expected to be permanent. Also, the point of these relationships is to unite the two in the eyes of the law. Short and medium term relationship do not have that intent. They are relationships between independent people and each person reserves the right to sever the relationship at any time.
So, I guess my criteria goes as follows: If two (or more) people wish to enter into a perpetual relationship that unites all of the parties in the eyes of the law, I see no reason to not grant them a legal status of some sort.
See Jeff, I think this is where you have a fundamental misunderstanding about why the government recognizes marriage at all. What is it about the male-female relationship that cannot be duplicated by any other combination of people? Easy answer. Marriage isn’t licensed in order for the state to “unite” two (or as you say “or more”) people for the sake of saying, “oh yes, it’s great that you are fond of each other, let’s get you set up with a license, benefits package and a weekend in the Poconos.” No, marriage is licensed so that people are legally bound to the children MOST marriages create so the state doesn’t have to raise those children. Yes, I know that there are some couples that are infertile, some that don’t want to have children, some who are presumably too old to have children, too many that divorce…all of that. But this is why marriage laws are uniform and non-discriminatory — each person is subject to the same rules and restrictions as to whom one is legally permitted to marry. There is not one person that you may marry that I may not and vice versa. This is why the discrimination argument is such a fraud and similarly why comparisons to anti-miscegenation laws are invalid. Marriage is recognized for a very specific purpose — to ensure that children are brought into what is statistcally and sociologically the optimal environment. The government should not be in the business of creating laws and institutions (or destroying them) that are known to hurt children. Further devaluation of marriage by the creation of counterfeit institutions can only lead to the further implosion of the family –and being the cornerstone of humanity, as the family goes, so does our civilization. Look at the tragedy of no-fault divorce. Thirty years ago, we were told that this would be a panacea of many social ills — but the harm to children from this ill-advised change is manifest, cumulative and increasingly incalculable. So why throw marriage overboard completely when we know what disaster already resides in the wake of past “progressive” ideas regarding marriage.
Glib, I’m going to stick to your initial point, because the second half of your comment makes some assumptions that are very debatable, yet impossible to prove/disprove rationally.
On second thought, your first point is equally impossible to find common ground on if we are coming from different belief systems. So, I’ll just lay out the assumptions that I disagree with and we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree on all of the conclusions that follow from them.
- A heterosexual marriage is the only union likely to raise healthy, well balanced children
- A healthy family is one that matches the traditional definition. (ties closely to the first assumption)
- The social ills that we’ve experienced since the introduction of the no-fault divorce would not have occurred or are more severe/numerous than those that would have occurred had the no-fault divorce not become legally accepted.
This one I’ll respond directly to. You’re implying that any new institutions would somehow compete with the official marriage. This would certainly not be the intent and I would advocate that great care be taken so that the new institutions are not more desirable to couples who would otherwise marry.
Even though I agreed with the two Justices’ decision, I did not agree with their opinion that they had the right to change the definition of marriage if they wanted to, no matter what the Legislation and the voters say. It sounded arrogant as well as dictatorial.
“A heterosexual marriage is the only union likely to raise healthy, well balanced children”
I didn’t say this. What I said was that all the social science evidence shows that children prosper best when raised by their own (adopted or biological) mother AND father. Some children do well under other arrangements, but when we are talking about public policy in a nation of 300 million, we must deal with what benefits society GENERALLY. Think about speed limits. Some people a better drivers than others at higher speeds, but there is no provision of customization for each driver based on individual driving skill OR how one FEELS about the speed limit in a given area on a given day.
“The social ills that we’ve experienced since the introduction of the no-fault divorce would not have occurred or are more severe/numerous than those that would have occurred had the no-fault divorce not become legally accepted.”
You are right, there are multiple factros that have contributed to a host of social ills (that you are acknowledging exist). However, one factor is nearly ALWAYS present when we look at the full expanse of these disasters — broken families, meaning fatherless children or children of divorce. The number one indicator of poverty, drug abuse, STDs, intergenerational unwed pregnancy (which is the top contributor to poverty), incarceration, domestic abuse, suicide and many other horrors is when children are raised outside the arrangement you are so loathe to acknowledge is generally most beneficial to children socially, emotionally, financially, legally, etc. Government should be in the business of setting policy that helps children, not creating incentives for behavior that we KNOW generally leads to harm. The problem is, adults have dragged children into adult political battles for their own narcissistic goals and have done great damamge to several generations in the ugly process.
Which parent would you say a child needs less Jeff — his mother or his father? You seem to be saying that it is unimportant whether a child is raised by her own two parents, so please explain how you’ve concluded that any old arrangement will do.
“This would certainly not be the intent and I would advocate that great care be taken so that the new institutions are not more desirable to couples who would otherwise marry.”
This is a perplexing statement since you’ve taken so much time insisting that marriage between one man and one woman is no better than any other “healthy family.” Anyway, a “domestic partnership” scheme does exactly this — in our no-strings-attached world, this kind of this offers all the “benefits” to self-serving people without all that messy commitment stuff for couples who should otherwise marry. Again — government policy should be made with a mind to BENEFIT society. Sorry, two people who happen to be living together in a sexual relationship without the legally-binding commitment of marriage are not a benefit to society and in fact, this arrangement is known to harm children AND women generally, so why would government enact policies and encourage behavior KNOWN to harm society?
Kerwin,
I chose my words very carefully in my last post. I specifically avoided taking a position on any of the bullet points. I did not state, nor did I intend to communicate, that I believed the bullet points were false. It’s just that I’m less certain of their validity than you are, so I attempted to reverse directions on the logic tree in order to find the core points where you and I begin to differ.
P.S. Even if I did want to engage in direct discussion on these points, I would direct you back to comment 15, as your response indicates that you missed a couple important nuances which lead you to make a couple arguments based on things that I didn’t actually say.
Jeff-
I’m guessing that your comments directed at Kerwin were actually for my consumption.
This is what you say in 15:
“I’ll just lay out the assumptions that I disagree with and we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree on all of the conclusions that follow from them.”
You then offer three bullet points with which you’ve stated you disagree.
Then you say in 19:
“I specifically avoided taking a position on any of the bullet points. I did not state, nor did I intend to communicate, that I believed the bullet points were false.”
Again, I’m perplexed. You take a clear position, then claim you took no position on the points you took a clear position on.
Maybe you were dealing with some cryptic point made by Kerwin following #15 that I have missed and perhaps the comment was directed at him, but from what you wrote I can only assume that you were addressing me. Let me know man.
Sorry Glib. I did mean that last comment for you.
To clarify: I didn’t take a position on the bullet points. I stated them because I believe that they are all statements you believe and they form the basis for opinions that you’ve expressed.
I’m not convinced that the statements are false, but I’m equally unconvinced that they are true.
“I’ll just lay out the assumptions that I disagree with and we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree on all of the conclusions that follow from them.”
You then offer three bullet points with which you’ve stated you disagree.
Jeff, you have a truly bizarre debate style.
Glib, I suppose I should have used slightly different wording to make my position more clear. Let me try again.
I don’t believe the bullet points have been proven, so I do not accept them as valid assumptions. That is not to say that I think they are false statements.