9th Circuit rules against marriage in California

The liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California has ruled against Proposition 8 in California, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman in the state constitution.

Right off the top, the 9th Circuit begins their ruling with a phony assertion: “Prior to November 4, 2008, the California Constitution guaranteed the right to marry to opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples alike.”

But the California Constitution says no such thing, and never did. And quite obviously, history did not begin in November 2008. Proposition 8 was offered in answer to a prior act of judicial fiat from the CA State Supreme Court overturning the definition of marriage in the form of a statute.

Reading the ruling, it’s pure value judgment, not legal reasoning. The court is simply substituting it’s values for those of millions of California voters. That is not the role of judges in a free, democratic society.

On the the Supreme Court, where hopefully this shameful judicial activism will be reversed.

From Ed Whelan at National Review Online:

In the grand scheme of things, there is nothing enduringly significant about today’s ruling. The Ninth Circuit was just a way-station on the path to the Supreme Court, and the composition of the Ninth Circuit panel meant that there was no prospect for a reversal of Walker’s ruling. What would have been most troubling would have been a ruling that Prop 8 proponents didn’t have standing on appeal, as that might have complicated the prospects for Supreme Court review. But the case now has a seemingly clear path to the Supreme Court.

From Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Brian Raum:

“No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people. Americans overwhelmingly reject the idea of changing the definition of marriage. Sixty-three million Americans in 31 state elections have voted on marriage, and 63 percent voted to preserve marriage as the timeless, universal, unique union between husband and wife.”

“We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage – tried in San Francisco – turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court. Every pro-marriage American should be pleased that this case can finally go to the U.S. Supreme Court. The ProtectMarriage.com legal team’s arguments align with every other federal appellate and Supreme Court decision on marriage in American history.”

Advertisement

Marriage: Appeals court to decide fate of Prop. 8 on Tuesday

Here’s a good example of liberal bias at work in news media coverage of a controversial issue, from the Los Angeles Times:

A federal appeals court is expected to rule Tuesday on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California.

But this is loaded language. It isn’t neutral reporting, it takes a side on the issue. Proposition 8 did not “ban gay marriage”. Proposition 8 defined marriage in the California state constitution as it has always been defined in state law, as male-female, in response to an activist court decision overturning that traditional definition. It didn’t ban anyone from marrying according to that definition.

The media do this kind of thing all the time, intentionally or not, using the language of the left in their reporting of various issues. If the editors of the Los Angeles Times want to support repeal of Proposition 8, they should say so on their Editorial page, not in their supposed news coverage.

The Libertarian Case for Traditional Marriage

Here is a nice concise summary of the case for marriage from Maggie Gallagher at the National Organization for Marriage.

There’s more reasoning in those two short pages than in a majority of the Washington State legislature.

And a lengthier article on the same subject by Jennifer Roback Morse.

Marriage is a naturally occurring, pre-political institution that emerges spontaneously from society. “Marriage equality” is sometimes presented as an enlargement of personal liberty and a diminishment of the power of the state. In fact however, redefining marriage as the union of any two persons, abandons the natural view of marriage. The institution of natural marriage, one man and one woman, is more consistent with a society of free and responsible individuals, governed by a constitutionally limited state, than the alternatives.

Both via the NOM Blog.

President Obama versus religious liberty

A very strong statement on religious liberty today from Mitt Romney in the Washington Examiner:

President Obama versus religious liberty

The Obama administration is at it again. They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.

….

My own view is clear. I stand with the Catholic Bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation. I am committed to overturning Obamacare root and branch. If I am elected President, on day one of my administration I will issue an executive order directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a waiver from its requirements to all 50 states. And on day one I will eliminate the Obama administration rule that compels religious institutions to violate the tenets of their own faith. Such rules don’t belong in the America that I believe in.

The America I believe in is governed by the U.S. Constitution and I will not hesitate to use the powers of the presidency to protect religious liberty.

….

What the Obama administration has done is indefensible. But this is about even more than President Obama denying America’s Catholics their constitutionally protected rights. This is about the preservation of our freedom. We must come together to make sure that these egregious violations of our Constitution do not stand.

The whole article is well worth a read.

Real Marriage Loses in New York

So last night the state legislature of New York chose to radically redefine marriage in their state law away from its most basic roots as a male-female institution. Worse, they chose to ignore the rights of individuals to follow their own consciences and reject this new definition according to their own values and religious views. They included some window-dressing protections for religious organizations in order to fool a few more legislators into voting for the bill, but no protections for individuals.

This is a sad day for America. But the fight must go on to keep the contagion from spreading further into other states.

The unmarried Governor of NY, Andrew Cuomo, who pushed very hard to destroy the institution he obviously has no respect for himself, claimed after the vote, “… The other states look to New York for the progressive direction.”

This is just arrogant nonsense, of course. No one outside of New York looks to New York for anything but a cautionary example.

It’s obviously too late now to convince those “Republicans” who voted yes to change their votes, but cutting them off and running them out of office can serve as a strong example for wishy-washy Republicans in other jurisdictions. The fight must continue in (hopefully) more sensible places than New York.

Typical Obama double-talk on anniversary of Roe vs. Wade

Via Politics Daily:

On the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, President Obama said Saturday he is committed to protecting what he considers a fundamental principle: “government should not intrude on private family matters.”

Obama, in a brief statement marking the 1973 Supreme Court opinion, said he also remains committed “to policies, initiatives and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.”

Quick, can anyone spot the contradiction in those two statements? The obvious contradiction seems to have evaded the Smartest President Ever.

Additionally, doesn’t Obama know that the Supreme Court is part of the government?

And finally, the assertion that the “government should not intrude on private family matters” is awfully rich coming from the guy whose signature achievement includes forcing every family in America to buy a government mandated health insurance policy, whether they want one or not.

No, the idea that Obama and the majority of his party don’t want the government to “intrude on private family matters” is obviously complete bunk. They don’t want any legislation that restricts in any way a woman’s ability to have an abortion at any point during her pregnancy, that’s what they want. They’re all for intrusion if it means government helping to fund abortions. They’re all for government intrusion into any other area of human existence. This is just one more example of President Obama saying whatever he thinks will sound good in a speech.

What makes marriage, marriage?

Via the American Power blog, we found this excellent post from last August on the definition of marriage from Sense of Events:

….

All of which is to say that the accidental characteristics of marriage – love, affection, property and other rights – spring from what marriage is rather than define what marriage is. Therefore, whatever relationship homosexuals may have with one another, and whatever legal rights civil authority may confer upon them, marriage is inherently – indeed, metaphysically – the province only of men and women united in matrimony.

Well worth a read.

The Case for Marriage

The Editors of National Review have released an excellent piece on the case for preserving traditional marriage.

If it is true, as we are constantly told, that American law will soon redefine marriage to accommodate same-sex partnerships, the proximate cause for this development will not be that public opinion favors it, although it appears to be moving in that direction. It will be that the most influential Americans, particularly those in law and the media, have been coming increasingly to regard opposition to same-sex marriage as irrational at best and bigoted at worst. They therefore dismiss expressions of that opposition, even when voiced by a majority in a progressive state, as illegitimate. Judges who believe that same-sex marriage is obviously just and right can easily find ways to read their views into constitutions, to the applause of the like-minded.

The emerging elite consensus in favor of same-sex marriage has an element of self-delusion about it. It denies that same-sex marriage would work a radical change in American law or society, insisting to the contrary that within a few years of its triumph everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about. But its simultaneous insistence that opponents are the moral equivalent of the white supremacists of yesteryear belies these bland assurances. ….

Please read the whole thing, and invite others to do so.

Gay Marriage Myths and Truth

Michael Medved has a good column today refuting many of the myths from supporters of redefining marriage.

The decision by federal judge Vaughan Walker to invalidate California’s Proposition 8 both recycles and revives some of the tired, misleading clichés regarding the same sex marriage controversy. These distortions demand direct, concise correction and rebuttal.

Read the whole thing here.

Michael Mukasey on the “Christmas Day bomber”

Michael Mukasey has a good article today in the Washington Post on the Obama administration’s handling of the “Christmas Day bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, debunking many of the disingenuous talking points coming from the administration..

Contrary to what the White House homeland security adviser and the attorney general have suggested, if not said outright, not only was there no authority or policy in place under the Bush administration requiring that all those detained in the United States be treated as criminal defendants, but relevant authority was and is the opposite. …

Perhaps the most dishonest, but most repeated, of the Democrats’ talking points is the comparison to Richard Reid. Mukasey quickly debunks it:

What of Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber,” who was warned of his Miranda rights and prosecuted in a civilian court? He was arrested in December 2001, before procedures were put in place that would have allowed for an outcome that might have included not only conviction but also exploitation of his intelligence value, if possible. His case does not recommend the same procedure in Abdulmutallab’s.

It’s especially shameless for all these Democrats to use the actions of the Bush administration as the standard in defending their own policies, after spending the last eight years demonizing every move made by the Bush administration.