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Saturday, February 14, 2004
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"DO YOU,ELDERLY,LESBIAN # 1, TAKE THEE, ELDERLY LESBIAN #2, TO HAVE AND TO HOLD, TO LOVE AND TO HONOUR TILL THE TERMINATOR SAYS THAT YOU CAN'T?"
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has decided that, in the name of defending the institution of marriage and equal rights, to approve 90 of the shortest marriages in state of California not involving a cast member of "Beverly Hills 90210."
As any of my readers have probably discerned by now, I'm generally in favour of gay marriage. Well, I wouldn't say, "in favour of" as much as I asked myself, "Who gives a fuck?" You'd be surprised how often that question decides my positions on political and social issues.....really, you would. So, you'd think that I'd be the best man at all of these homo-nuptuials, right?
Wrong.
As much as I support gay marriage, as opposed to civil unions, I have a very hard time supporting this. There are a couple of reasons for my stand on this.
Firstly, the marriages are clearly illeagal. While it's true that marriage licenses are issued by municiplalities, the laws governing marriage are the province of the state. Gay marriage, rightly or wrongly, is illeagal in California. Not only is it illeagal, it's not even one of those laws that is retarded but passed over the will of the people. They got to vote on the issue in the year 2000. Proposition 22, which passed by a healthy margin, strictly defined marriage as being "between a man and a woman." As much as I deplore the referndum and proposition system as tools of legislation, I can't deny that the results are indeed the will of the people. Mayor Newsom is taking the position that democracy isn't quite as democratic as he'd like it and will, therefore, overule the will of the people unilaterally. This is to argue that authouritarianism is the ultimate tool of democracy.
This position undermines the very idea of respect for the law itself. If the Mayor can flagrantly disregard the law, why can't anyone else? I've been to San Francisco, it's much smaller than you'd think. Every man woman and child has a car there. Double parking is a problem. Should shooting a person in the head be considered acceptable if the victim is really, really asking for it? What if Mayor Newsom was on his way to officiate a gay marriage and his car was blocked in it's space by a double parker? Could the grooms or brides be allowed to pistol whip the offender into submission? Remember, assuat with a deadly weapon is just as illeagal as gay marriage in California.
Secondly, this a purely political move. Newson barely won against the Green Party, despite the endorsements of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and virtualy everyone currently running for the Democratic nomination for president. In a city like Frico, which is slightly to left of Pyoungyang, Newsom has to demonstrate his liberal creditentials is he has any chance of re-election. You might think I'm cynical for saying this, but I doubt that the handlers of the 13 year old mayor would agree.
Assuming this true, what happens to the people who have their "marriages" invalidated? Does anyone really care what happens to them? One of my biggest problems with the left i that they tend to view people's lives as an abstraction that can be casually destroyed to make a political point. For Mayor Newsom to do this to people,who in good faith, think that they'll have a life together, KNOWING that his plan is doomed is disgusting.
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