A San Francisco superior court judge said today that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying – under the state’s constitution, not the federal – “has no rational justification” and violates “the basic human right to marry the person of one’s choice.” Call me bigoted, but since when is marriage a “basic human right”? In the modern Western tradition, marriage is a community recognition that also promotes family stability, but it wasn’t recognized by the state for quite a while. Make the argument that same-sex couple should be recognized by the state if they choose, but through statute, not this BS “basic human right” argument that presumes everything under the sun is a “right.”
The court also rejected the argument…
…that the current law promotes procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. “One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry,” Kramer said.
So the judge is not a complete moron. That doesn’t make his reasoning terribly convincing. Is he saying that the government can never craft social policy for the purpose of what it considers strengthening family? Would he also rule that states can’t give child-care tax credits because it discriminates against people with no children? I have zero idea whether gay marriage would have any discernable effect on hereto marriage in America, which is already fairly shabby with easy divorce, but shouldn’t someone accountable to the voters make that decision? I’m really sick and tired of judges preempting elected officials on purely social matters. Let’s see if California voters agree. (Via Hit & Run.)
I’m a tech journalist who’s making a TV show about a college newspaper.