After declaring a California voter initiative wrongly passed because he disagreed with the citizens’ conclusion, Judge Vaughn Walker took it upon himself to declare anyone who disagreed with him ineligible to appeal to a higher court. Case closed, he thought. He was wrong. Read more…
Gotta love the first paragraph.
Re-examining the essential characteristics of marriage.
Abraham Lincoln once asked how many legs a dog has if we call a tail a leg. The answer, he said, is four: calling a tail a leg does not make it so. We chuckle and move on.
But what if people began to argue that a tail really is a leg? They might say that what defines the leg is that it is an appendage of the dog’s body, that it contains bone and muscle covered with skin and fur—just like a tail. Tails just happen to come out of the body at a different angle than other legs. When a tail hangs down low, who can tell the difference? Read more…
Oh boy. Here we go.
The evidence shows that gay marriage is equal to or better than traditional marriage, according to a Federal Court judge. But what sort of evidence?
In one sense, Judge Walker can’t be blamed for his decision since he was provided a great deal of inaccurate and incomplete information through the trial process. I hope that future amicus briefs will be able to correct those deficiencies. Read more…
What do you all think about this article?
by Frank Turek
When one judge overturned the will of more than seven million Californians last week in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, he listed 80 supposed “findings of fact” (FF) as evidence that Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Many of those 80 findings are not facts at all. They’re lies or distortions. Read more…
By Patrick McIlheran of the Journal Sentinel
Let’s look at how the gay-marriage thing in California has unfolded so far:
The state’s Supreme Court in 2008, on a one-vote margin, decides to redefine marriage to dump one key parameter that had always and everywhere in human history been part of marriage: that it be between complementary sexes, not identical ones.
Within months, the voters of the state overrule the court, amending their constitution to say that, no, you can’t redefine basic social institutions against the will of the people. The losers sue the state.
And Wednesday, a federal judge – a judge, as in one – overrules the people, ruling, among other things, that “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage.” It doesn’t? Read more…
Kathleen McKinley proposes a compromise on the issue of marriage redefinition in her article “The Gay Marriage Compromise.”
I can promise you that if Prop 8 were voted on tomorrow, and the exact same language was used, but instead the word “marriage” was replaced with the words “civil unions,” it would pass. And most everyone would be fine with it. As some other guy, not as well known as Kinky once said, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Read more…
From RealClearPolitics:
But for Judge Walker there is an odor of illegitimacy about merely “moral” views expressed in legislation, especially when morality finds support in religion. Thus he declares that Proposition 8 expresses only a “private moral choice,” not a considered public morality. And thus in his tendentious “findings of fact,” he makes the astonishing claim-purporting to be a fact found at trial, not a judgment of his own-that “religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful . . . harm gays and lesbians.”
Perhaps here, in this nadir of absurdity, we have found the real fundament of the judge’s thinking. Citizens who wish to defend the institution of marriage as they and their families have known it all their lives, and for countless generations, are irrational bigots. Worse still, if they are moved to act because of the union of their faith with their moral opinions, they are crazy religious folk, bent only on harming others whom they merely “dislike” on grounds that cannot possibly be defended before a tribunal of right-thinking people. And those others, the same-sex-couple plaintiffs? They must be rescued from the “harm” to their feelings that results from their exclusion from a historic civil and moral institution that has never hitherto been thought to have been built for them.
The bludgeoning going on here in the name of “tolerance” and “equality” is amazing. Read the whole thing here.
Michael Medved has an opinion piece worth reading over at AOLnews.com on the recent Prop 8 ruling. I think the 7 points he makes are very well-stated and cogent to the discussion.
1. “Proposition 8 was a mean-spirited ban on gay marriage.”
Proposition 8 banned nothing. The ubiquitous headlines describing this voter-mandated change in the California Constitution as a “gay marriage ban” amount to an egregious example of journalistic malpractice. The entire proposition consisted of only 14 words: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This simple statement imposes no restrictions and issues no commands regarding the behavior of private citizens; it merely demands a change in the actions of government. Proposition 8 did nothing to interfere with gay couples in registering for state-recognized civil unions, participating in church ceremonies consecrating their love, forming lifetime commitments, raising children or concluding comprehensive contractual arrangement to share all aspects of life and property. The proposition simply says that government will not get involved in any of these private or public processes by calling such relationships a marriage.2. “Proposition 8 singled out gays and lesbians for discriminatory treatment.”
The proposition never mentioned gays, lesbians or any other individuals, whatever their sexual orientation. It didn’t discriminate among individuals; it drew distinctions among relationships. Under the proposition, a gay male and a straight male would face exactly the same options in marriage; there is no relationship open to the straight citizen that’s denied to his gay neighbor. The fact that gay people want government sanction for a different sort of relationship, creating radically new forms of marriage, reflects their desire to transform institution, not a demand for equal, long-established rights.
Might as well post this as well.
by Sheila Liaugminas
Sometimes, the Proposition 8 battle seems surreal. But then, so do other serious, emotional and intense conflicts playing out in the nation’s courts and city halls and classrooms and media, over what we knew not long ago as core Judeo-Christian traditional values. Read more…
So there’s a new study out entitled Findings from a Decade of Polling on Ballot Measures Regarding the Legal Status of Same-Sex Couples. The two main questions focused on in the study are: What effect did the campaign have on the outcome of the election? and How predictable was the outcome of the election? To answer these questions they studied polls taken before and during various same-sex marriage and domestic partnership ballot initiative campaigns.
One conclusion of the study is that the actual vote on election day against same-sex ‘marriage’ is typically about seven percentage points higher than polling would have indicated. (That is definitely a significant difference!) They were not able to determine exactly why that is the case, but the study did debunk two popular theories: People were not answering poll questions dishonestly because they were afraid of appearing to be too politically incorrect, nor were voters confused about what a Yes or a No vote meant.
When it comes to the effect of the campaign on the outcome of the election, the study suggests that both sides consistently fought each other to a standstill. Polls taken at the end of the campaigns were remarkably close to what the polls showed before campaigning even began. Some are deducing from this that what you have going into such an election is what you’ll end up with for the results regardless of what you put into the campaign. But I think we should be very wary of that conclusion lest we become complacent.
Nowhere in the study could I find any data at all about how much was spent by each side on the campaign or anything about who was able to mobilize the most volunteers to canvass during the campaign and get out the vote for their side on election day. (If the Prop 8 campaign was very typical, then both sides were probably most often about evenly matched in terms of resources.) Obviously starting off in the lead would be an advantage, but if one side was able to get their message out to the voters during the campaign and the other did not, how could that not have a significant effect on the results of the election? (You are very unlikely to win a gunfight if you show up with a knife…)
On the other hand, laying the groundwork between elections would seem to be key to the outcome. Those who are attempting to undermine marriage are definitely networked. (How do you think they got this far?) We need to be organized to have the strongest affect on our culture as well. That is what Ruth Institute is all about, isn’t it? You can be certain there will always be another battle at the ballot box over same-sex ‘marriage’ for the foreseeable future. These are indeed the times to fight the good fight. And IMHO Dr J is just the general we need to lead us.
The news is that the effort to gather enough signatures to put a repeal of Proposition 8 on the ballot for 2010 has fallen short. But the pro same-sex ‘marriage’ folks are resolved to bring it to a vote (again) in 2012.
I’m almost disappointed. An effort to repeal Prop 8 just two years after the voters of California passed the amendment would have probably failed severely and made it all the more difficult (if not impossible) to pull it off in 2012. At least we’re safe for the next two years, though.
It will be interesting to see how another battle over same-sex marriage during a Presidential election year will affect the vote.
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) is being pressured heavily to change its nuetral stance on gay marriage. So far they are holding steady where other organizations have already caved. Stay strong, CAMFT! Be an example to others not to be bullied!
By Kathleen Gilbert
SAN DIEGO, California, March 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Abandoning its long-held neutrality on the marriage debate, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) has slowly come to disavow pro-family views and sexual orientation therapy as “homophobic.” Instead it now warmly supports homosexuality as a “normal and positive” variant of sexuality – all thanks to pressure by gay activists who have openly vowed to transform the organization from within. Read more…
Here’s something from our friend Brian Brown, Executive Director of NOM–National Organization for Marriage, on the Prop 8 case in CA that Jennifer Morse has been involved in.
Proposition 8 appeal judge Vaughn Walker seems to have had one goal: to generate sympathy for gay marriage supporters.
In a story last Sunday the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Proposition 8 judge Vaughn Walker is gay and called his orientation, “The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage.” Read more…
The LA Times editorial board nimbly changes the subject when it’s pet project of promoting same sex marriage isn’t going well. In this editorial, they say they are sorry the subject of marriage quality came up. Memo to LA Times: it came up because the pro-ssm team brought it up. Listen to the LA Whines: Read more…
Ed Whelan over at NRO has posted excerpts from the Supreme Court’s ruling on televising the Prop 8 trial. I’m not a SCOTUS-watcher, but this does seem to me to be a pretty serious rebuke of Judge Walker’s judgement in making 11th hour legal revisions to allow the unprecendented broadcasting of a federal trial.
The need for a meaningful comment period was particularly acute in this case. Both courts and legislatures have proceeded with appropriate caution in addressing this question.… Read more…
Here’s something relating to Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse’s big article, also on this blog.
The Case Against Ted Olson [Maggie Gallagher]
In the NYT, Ed Meese strikes back hard against the idea there’s anything conservative about using the federal courts to overturn the free and fair election that produced Prop 8. Read more…
Two high-profile lawyers are challenging California’s constitutional ban on gay marriage.
California’s high-profile federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, which begins in court on January 11, appears to be about creating a federal case for same sex marriage. But in fact, much more is at stake. Lurking in the shadows of this case is a breathtaking expansion of judicial interference with perfectly valid elections. Whatever your views about Proposition 8, we surely should be able to agree that special interest groups can’t go into court to overturn elections they don’t like. Read more…
Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow -
A California man wants divorce outlawed.
John Marcotte has filed for a ballot initiative to protect traditional marriage in the state of California as an extension of the work related to Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. In essence, Marcotte’s project would legally ban divorce. Read more…
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