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Wednesday, February 18, 2004
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SAN FRANCISCO FOLLIES (SLIGHT RETURN)
For the better part of a year now, I've used this space to advocate the cause of same-sex marriage. Beyond that, I wrote an essay on my former blog on the subject that also ran in the late, lamented TerriblyWrong.com. I support gay marriage for the simple reason that there is no compelling reason to oppose it. For this reason, I view the issue as one of fundamental freedom. Had you have asked me last summer, when the Ontario Court of Appeal first legalized same-sex marriage if I could see an instance where my support would shift to it's opponents, I would've said no.
Of course, then California liberals got involved.
Late last week, against the advice of senior Democratic politicians -including Representative Barney Frank (D-Mas)-who care about this issue for reasons of than the political, the 12 year-old Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. Couples then flooded into the city from as far away as Switzerland and Thailand. Newsom decided to take this course of action as a response to President Bush's state of the union address, wherein the president stated the following;
"A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under federal law as a union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states.
Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.
The outcome of this debate is important -- and so is the way we conduct it. The same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God's sight." (EDITOR'S NOTE: For a much funnier interpretation of the president's views on homosexuality, go here)
Let's overlook for a moment that a Defence of Marriage Ammendment to the constitution has virtually no chance of passing and Bush is only mentioning it at all to throw a bone to his base in an election year. Mayor Newsom decided that discrimination against gays in the area of marriage is a violation of the constitutions of both California and the United States. Accordingly, Newsom acted in this belief and issued the licences.
Apparently though, the mayor is not that thorough a reader. There's also a section of constitutional law called "seperation of powers." When constitutions mention municipalities at all (which is almost never), they decidedly are not given the power to overturn or violate state and federal laws. But Newsom sees this a matter of principle and acted anyway. To use a Vietnam analogy, Newsom is "destroying the villiage to save it." Newsom has also set the cause back considerably. By taking the action he did, as opposed to launching a court challenge, Newsom has violated the democratic will of the people, abused his office, alienated people like myself who support the cause and made it impossible for a sympathetic governor to act in the manner he intended to.
Mayor Newsom likes to spin what he's done as "civil disobedience." This is nonsense. Civil disobedience is open defiance of the government, not open defiance by the government. What Newsom is doing can more appropriately be described as "being a grandstanding pain in the ass." This guy isn't Rosa Parks. At best, he's an Alabama state trooper who turned the firehose on himself, rather than the civil rights marchers.
As expected, multiple court challenges to Newsom's actions have been launched. And while the famously "interesting" California courts are refusing to immediately intervene, they will not stand by forever. This is a matter of clear, black letter law. Other than being illegal, the marriage applications were invalid before they were even issued. Marriage license applications are state documents. Those documents leave spaces for the information of the "bride and groom", which City Hall employees modified for gender neutral titles. Once this was done, the documents were voided. So the matter is moot, regardless of how the courts decide the issue. Nearly 3,000 couples are living in the fantasy that they are actually married.
So what has Mayor Newsom actually achieved? He's alienated people of goodwill. He's given opponents of the cause all the ammunition they need to drag this out into the next century. Sure, he got himself a lot of publicity and made a bunch of liberals feel good about themselves, but on the same day where the cause is making strides in places as conservative as Virginia people are fixating on the freakshow in Frisco. In short, Newsom has done far more harm than good.
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