Calif. Supreme Court hears gay marriage case

It’s another theme week, apparently. …

The California Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday from homosexuals and their supporters who want to overturn the vote passing Proposition 22, the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, in 2000.

Prop. 22 states, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” It passed by a total 61.4 percent of the vote, and won in 52 of the state’s 58 counties. Those counties where it failed to pass were all in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Four years ago, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom took it upon himself to decide for the entire state that gay marriages should be allowed and started performing illegal ceremonies that were finally shut down by the state, leading to the current lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco, two gay activist groups and 23 gay couples.

The state already offers protections for same-sex couples and “civil unions.” The question before the court is whether not allowing gay couples to actually have a marriage license and a legal union officially labeled a “marriage” denies their civil rights.

The answer in a sane world would be “no.”

This is not a sane world.

Amid the rhetoric, it is not always easy to tell what this case is really about. It is not about gays’ right to privacy, right to be safe in their person or homes, right to have equal access to housing, right to have a fair shake in the job market, right to an education, right to decide who they have relationships with, right to hold hands in public, right to see someone in the hospital or any other such barrier to basic human privileges.

This fuss is all about a label.

After decades of liberals pressing the view that marriage is just a piece of paper, some gays have decided it is more than that.

Irony aside, the movement by gay groups has irritated and angered many people who sense what’s really going on, even if they can’t quite express it.

Gay marriage supporters insist that this case is about rights, but there are none evident at stake: In regards to marriage, gays have exactly the same rights as everyone else — to wed someone of the opposite sex.

But gays find this offensive because they obviously don’t care to marry the opposite sex. The traditional definition of marriage makes them feel excluded and not “normal.”

And this observation gets to the heart of the matter. Gays in this country have long had legal protections and the same rights as every other citizen. What drives much of the talk about gay “rights” is often what seems to be a deep-seated need to be seen as “normal.”

Gays have often been unjustly persecuted, it is true. It cannot be denied that many people simply have a natural aversion to homosexuality. Also, the Bible is clear in calling homosexuality a sin, and no tortured distortion of the text will change that.

But the movement for gay “marriage” frankly looks to be simply an effort to rewrite “normal” to soothe gays’ vanity.

The problem is that if the effort is successful in the courts, the majority will suddenly be the outcasts, and given the history of liberal governments, the movement won’t be likely to stop there. Hate crime laws are already common in the U.S. If gay marriage is forced upon America by the courts, look for Sunday sermons and Bible study courses to be labeled “hate speech,” as they already are by many of the radical forces behind trying to reshape our society. But look for it to have the weight of law, not merely rhetoric. …

Human rights are essential to a free society. A right to gay “marriage,” though, is a bad idea.

Now, it’s up to the courts.