05.27
Prop 8 was upheld by the California Supreme Court. I have to say that I agree with them on two counts. First would be:
“In a sense, petitioners’ and the attorney general’s complaint is that it is just too easy to amend the California constitution through the initiative process. But it is not a proper function of this court to curtail that process; we are constitutionally bound to uphold it,” the ruling said.
Yahoo News
And they are right, it’s not the judicial branch’s responsibility or duty to do anything but rule based on the laws that apply. If they don’t like a law, too bad. If there is legal grounds for it to exist, then they have to support it, to do other wise is to fail at their job. If you don’t like the way that the laws work, don’t whine that they are being upheld, work to change them.
The second would be that I don’t agree with the government stating that gay marriage is OK. Now here is the kicker, I also don’t think that the government stating that hetero marriage is legal to be a good thing either. The main reason that people seem to have problems with gay marriage is due to religious reasons. For a heck of a lot of people, marriage is a religious item. You get married in a church with a religious official presiding over the ceremony. There is normally lots of praying, and in the end, you profess your love to your spouse before your God and are pronounced man and wife. What I say should be done, is that the government takes out the term “marriage” from any applicable laws, replacing them with the completely non religious domestic partnership.
The government shouldn’t be in the business of telling you who you should love or recognizing any religious ceremonies. The only thing that the government should care about are taxes, child custody, and inheritance. With this solution, you get equal treatment for all parties involved, you get everything that is needed for legal purposes, and the government takes another step away from religion.
I would even go one step further and state that they should make different types of domestic partnerships. Why shouldn’t two people who live together not be able to form some type of limited domestic partnership for the time that they live together. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t in love or share a bed. They share a household and all expenses associated with said household. And if one or both of the parties decide that they no longer wish to be together, they should be able to dissolve the partnership easily, let the churches worry about all that “till death us do part” nonsense…
It’s like when you were a kid, and you and your sister fought over who got to play the game first, and your parents just took the game away. If you can’t play nice, then nobody gets to play with it.
Of course, this would open the floodgates for religions to practice any weddings that they want. If your religion believe sthat marriage should be between a man, his two wives, and their pet goat, then they can certianly go right ahead and do so, and their god will surely smile upon such couplings. Doesn’t mean that the government will recognize any part of that ceremony however…
Likewise, gives an easy out for multi religous partnerships. Christian, Muslim, Wiccan and Hindu Churches may frown on marriages between their faith, but a domestic partnership probably not so much.