Golden state overreach
California has been a model for the expansion of equal rights for gay couples. Over the past decade, the state legislature has passed several domestic partnership laws, gradually expended the rights of domestic partners so that what was once a limited symbolic registry with few rights is now pretty much a system of civil unions, granting same-sex couples almost all the rights of marriage in California. These rights have come with little backlash, and since they have been passed by the state legislature, they enjoy a legitimacy absent from some court-ordered solutions.
The final step in the volution of equal rights is the passing of a law allowing same-sex marriage. A bill allowing this has been gaining support over the past few years and will likely pass the legislature sometime the next couple years.
All of this helps explain why I am concerned over today's ruling by a California court ordering same-sex marriage in California. The ruling, while legally correct, disturbs me because it short-circuits the legislative process, in the very state where that process has been working well. Furthermore, regardless of whether it is reversed by a higher court, this decision will likely spur on anti-gay radicals to use California's ridiculously easy constituional initiative process to get an anti-gay measure on the 2006 ballot which will not only reverse the marriage ruling, but also repeal those hard-fought domestic partnership rights passed by the legislature.
In other words, a very poorly-planned and strategically stupid court case may end up undoing decades of civil rights progress in the Golden State. I am not opposed to litigation for civil rights, and the courts have a legitimate role to play in ensuring that equal treatment under the law is maintained for all citizens. However, lawsuits should be used strategically and in carefully-targeted areas. Why in California, and why now? The happily married couples enjoying victory today may have set into motion something which will not only hurt them in the future, but will also hurt all other gays and lesbians in California and nationwide who are trying to stay afloat in a raging backlash of unjustifiable, but all too real hatred.
California has been a model for the expansion of equal rights for gay couples. Over the past decade, the state legislature has passed several domestic partnership laws, gradually expended the rights of domestic partners so that what was once a limited symbolic registry with few rights is now pretty much a system of civil unions, granting same-sex couples almost all the rights of marriage in California. These rights have come with little backlash, and since they have been passed by the state legislature, they enjoy a legitimacy absent from some court-ordered solutions.
The final step in the volution of equal rights is the passing of a law allowing same-sex marriage. A bill allowing this has been gaining support over the past few years and will likely pass the legislature sometime the next couple years.
All of this helps explain why I am concerned over today's ruling by a California court ordering same-sex marriage in California. The ruling, while legally correct, disturbs me because it short-circuits the legislative process, in the very state where that process has been working well. Furthermore, regardless of whether it is reversed by a higher court, this decision will likely spur on anti-gay radicals to use California's ridiculously easy constituional initiative process to get an anti-gay measure on the 2006 ballot which will not only reverse the marriage ruling, but also repeal those hard-fought domestic partnership rights passed by the legislature.
In other words, a very poorly-planned and strategically stupid court case may end up undoing decades of civil rights progress in the Golden State. I am not opposed to litigation for civil rights, and the courts have a legitimate role to play in ensuring that equal treatment under the law is maintained for all citizens. However, lawsuits should be used strategically and in carefully-targeted areas. Why in California, and why now? The happily married couples enjoying victory today may have set into motion something which will not only hurt them in the future, but will also hurt all other gays and lesbians in California and nationwide who are trying to stay afloat in a raging backlash of unjustifiable, but all too real hatred.
posted by Mike at
3:26 PM
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