If California didn’t exist, some wicked parodist would have to invent it. I have always loved those little labels on various cosmetics, food stuffs, and children’s toys advising the public that said item “is known to the state of California” to cause cancer, rickets, or whatever. A long, lazy afternoon might be spent pondering the onion-like mendacity of the word “known” on those labels. What it really means is something closer to “asserted without evidence.” But there haven’t been many long, lazy afternoons lately. Besides, California is a state that keeps the rest of us on our toes. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which presides over California, Hawaii, and other Western fastnesses, is a reliable source of loony-left judgments on matters ranging from the Pledge of Allegiance (the judges find the phrase “under God” deeply upsetting) to the Patriot Act (they don’t like that, either).
Now we have the California Supreme Court weighing in on the subject of marriage. My dictionary defines “marriage” as “the legal union of a man and a woman as husband and wife.” Probably, yours does, too. Perhaps the California Supreme Court’s next trick will be to confiscate those antiquated documents and supply everyone with updated, politically correct reference works. In any event, on Thursday, the Court overruled, 4 votes to 3, California’s ban on same-sex marriage. There is a lot that could be said about this decision. Depending on where you stand on the issue of so-called “gay marriage” you might be tempted to applaud or decry the ruling. But I believe that, quite apart from the specific issue of how we should define “marriage,” anyone who cares about democratic rule and the separation of powers should be profoundly disturbed by California’s ruling. Gary Bauer, president of American Values and a vocal opponent of “gay marriage,” got to the nub of the issue in one of his “end-of-day” email reflections:
The ruling, by four unelected robed radicals, invalidated the overwhelming majority opinion of California’s citizens, who voted to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It was an egregious exercise in judicial activism – of judges wielding raw political power to redefine our most basic values. But that is how the Left has succeeded. It cannot achieve its goals through the democratic process via the elected legislatures, so it ignores the people and goes to the courts, where it relies on political activists cloaked in black who answer to no one. The Left succeeds by using the most undemocratic methods possible.
I would like to think that Bauer’s point would resonate with thinking people across the political spectrum. Today’s hot-button issue is the definition of marriage. Tomorrow’s issue will revolve around some other controversy. The overarching question is how we will decide: lawfully, through established legislative procedures? Or by judicial fiat, investing the power to determine how we live in the hands of a few unelected, and essentially unaccountable, individuals?
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7 Comments
1. Fred Beloit:A newly minted lawyer, a fine young man in all respects, once informed me that lawyers and judges decide what words mean. First come the lawyers and then comes language. That is the crux of the activist judge issue. If they are allowed to redefine words to their personal satisfaction, they can get away with anything.
May 17, 2008 - 7:53 am 2. Gagdad Bob:And the judicial gods said, fiat lax, or “let there be no standards.”
May 17, 2008 - 11:49 am 3. Johnmark7:Part of the Cal court decision rested on their observing that the state had institutionalized domestic partnership to such an extent that it was de facto marriage, a parallel track of the same thing lacking merely the same name. They saw no reason not to give it the same name.
Once all these states made such arrangements de facto, it was only a matter of time before they would become de jure.
All us homophobes who originally opposed domestic partnership laws as the camel’s nose in the tent were scorned as small minded bigots who wouldn’t let people visit their dying partners in the hospitals.
The fight against society disordering itself morally has had little to no support from the Right punditocracy. Thanks, Republicans for never thinking to fight until it’s too late.
No one on the Beltway Right seems willing to notice that the slippery slope regarding moral issues never fails to come true. No, birth control wouldn’t lead to unwed mothers, which wouldn’t lead to abortion, which wouldn’t lead to infanticide, which wouldn’t lead to devaluing children, which wouldn’t lead to sexualizing the young, which wouldn’t lead to hooking up, and approving of homosexual practices, which wouldn’t lead to making criticism of homosexuality illegal and so on.
Talk to the God of the Old Testament about slippery slopes. I’m so sick to death of all these urbane conservatives who never find any new perversion of the moral order disturbing and think those that do are the same as the preachers who want to ban dancing in their towns. (Seen any “freak dancing” lately?)
Sheesh.
May 17, 2008 - 1:45 pm 4. steve:The proper phrase is not “judicial activism”; it should be judicial imperialism.
May 17, 2008 - 6:53 pm 5. patrick neid:I have no doubt that over time the electorate would arrive at recognizing marriage for gays. The problem for me with activist judges is usually not so much the decisions but more importantly the preventing of the “free market” of ideas from operating in reaching a better solution down the road. Instead we get wrenched into the future without the nuance of gradualism(voting) that makes for better and more widely accepted law and are forced to live with blunt results that the majority abhor.
The debilitating effects of Government intervention in ideas is no different than its ham fisted forays into the economy.
May 18, 2008 - 5:04 am 6. Kelly Ambrose, Sr.:I deplore, as much as anyone, the imperious arrogance of the California Supreme Court in overruling the voters of that state – and I’m a very experienced deplorer of affronts to democracy – but the judiciary, though it has earned our most sincere condemnation, is not, in this case, the only culprit. Deplore, as well, the state legislative and executive branches that have been, with respect to Proposition 22, equally active and eager in their efforts to undo the very same democratically settled decision of the people. A mayor defied the law, leading to the Supreme Court case, where it was lamely defended, by default, by “the office” of Attorney General Moonbeam. The legislature twice passed laws overriding the proposition but Arnold nixed them saying the court should decide. When the decision was announced, he said he respected it and would not support an effort to return the matter to the voters. It’s tough to exercise democracy when all three branches of government want something voters don’t.
May 19, 2008 - 1:27 pm 7. Daniel Crandall:Mr. Ambrose makes an interesting point. California’s so-called Republican governor twice vetoed attempts by California’s State House. It wasn’t until the court, by “stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool” (Clinton presidential aide Paul Begala, July 1998) redefined marriage did he have the guts to stand with the radical Leftists.
Looks like California might want to revisit that gubernatorial recall process. Schwarzenegger should be tossed out on his ear for becoming a lap dog of this Imperial Court.
May 20, 2008 - 8:34 am