Same-sex marriages now legal in California

Yesterday, in a landmark decision, the (Republican-dominated) California Supreme Court ruled that laws banning same-sex marriage for homosexuals is unconstitutional. Here, in part, is how the court justified its decision:

By reserving the historic and highly respected designation of marriage exclusively to opposite-sex couples while offering same-sex couples only the new and unfamiliar designation of domestic partnership — pose a serious risk of denying the official family relationship of same-sex couples the equal dignity and respect that is a core element of the constitutional right to marry….

The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

I agree.

Of course, I appreciate that many “religious” people will regard this decision as a violation of the “sanctity” of marriage and an abomination against God. But these people are the moral heirs of those who once regarded interracial marriages (i.e., between blacks and whites) with the same disapprobation.

(FYI: In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court finally decided – in Loving vs. Virginia – that God did not mind interracial marriages after all.)

However, for anyone who truly believes that “we are all God’s children and are created in his image,” this decision represents nothing more than the belated granting of a basic civil right that has been denied our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters for far too long.

Nevertheless, “pro-family” (anti-gay) activists wasted no time vowing to overturn this decision by working to pass an amendment to the California Constitution banning same-sex marriages. And they were counting on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger supporting them in their efforts, especially since he has twice vetoed legislation that sought to legalize gay marriage in the state.

But within minutes, Schwarzenegger, whose signature they would need to pass such an amendment, stunned them (and gay rights activists) by issuing the following statement:

I respect the court’s decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling.

Now, let us hope that old judicial proverb holds true, namely: as goes California, so goes the United States.

Yet I fully expect that we will have to rely on the U.S. Supreme Court again to inform some rabid, anti-gay state courts that God really does not mind same-sex marriages…after all.

So, notwithstanding its conservative leanings, here’s to the (Republican-dominated) U.S. Supreme Court issuing a federal ruling that, just as whites and blacks have the right to inter-marry, gays and lesbians have the right to intra-marry.

NOTE: To be fair to the enlightened and trailblazing folks of Massachusetts, theirs was the first state in the union to legalize same-sex marriages. California is now the second.

same sex marriage