Just when you thought the highly divisive and emotional (on both sides) issue of gay marriage may have receeded a California judge has tossed it back into the boiling political cauldron.
A California judge ruled today that the state’s ban on gay marriage violated the state constitution, despite social traditions and historical definitions that “marriage” is a union between man and woman.
Judge Richard A. Kramer of San Francisco Superior Court held, in an opinion that will surely be appealed, that “no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners.”
Look for frenzied efforts on both sides of this issue to begin immediately — and this means legally, in the media and in Blogtopia. More:
While many aspects of history, culture and tradition are properly embedded in the law, Judge Kramer wrote, the prohibition against same-sex marriage is not. “The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional,” he wrote.
Today’s ruling came in a lawsuit brought against the state by the City and County of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couples who had been married there. The suit was filed after the State Supreme Court ordered San Francisco to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples because the practice violated state law.
That law is contrary to the spirit of the state constitution, the plaintiffs argued, and today Judge Kramer agreed.
“Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before,” the judge said
Attorney General Bill Lockyer has said he expected the case to reach the California Supreme Court, The Associated Press said. It may first go to the State Court of Appeals, or it is possible the high court will bypass the appeals court and take the case directly. In any case, Robert Tyler, a lawyer with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which joined the case in support of the ban on same-sex marriages, told The A.P. his group would undertake an appeal. Two bills are pending before the California Legislature that would put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November ballot, The A.P. said. If California voters approve such an amendment, as did those in a dozen other states last year, the issue would largely be out of the reach of legislators and the courts.
It’ll be interesting to see how Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is seeking to garner support on various state reforms, is going to deal with this issue. He originally came down against same sex marriages, but later said on Jay Leno that he’d abide by the will of the people. So if there’s a campaign, what will he do? Will he endorse an amendment, campaign against it or stay authentically neutral?
All of this taken together is almost certainly going to increase the clamor for Congress to take up an amendment to ban same-sex marriage — and an equal clamor for Congress not to pass one.
OTHER SITES OF VARYING VIEWSPOINTS COMMENTING ON THIS INCLUDE:
Outside the Beltway
Obsidian Wings
Michael Demmons
Steven Taylor
Boi From Troy
Prestopundit
Skippy
The Jawa Report
Esoterically.net
Talk Left
Kevin Aylward
Daily Kos
Pennywit
College Pundit
Oliver Willis
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.