Yet another court has advanced the notion that there isn’t really a separation of powers, but that the judiciary can unilaterally order the other branches to do whatever they darn well please.
The New Jersey Supreme Court, aping its liberal sister court in Massachusetts, has denied reality and ruled that the law of gravity is unconstitutional. No, wait that’s not right. Oh yes, they’ve done something equally incomprehensible and ruled that homosexuals and lesbians must be allowed to marry. They’ve given the state Legislature six months to change the law. Why? After all, if the court can unilaterally change the definition of marriage, doesn’t the force of its pronouncement create new laws ex nihilo?
But democracy is not completely lost, as Diogenes points out. Even while the court said there is “no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose” in keeping marriage what it is, namely a legal bond between a man and a woman, it did concede: “The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.”
In other words, they don’t care what you call it, just put it into effect. And while the voters have no say in the substance of the matter, they can—through their elected representatives—decide on the name. How generous!
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It’s not unAmerican. It’s the way it is. The state confers benefits on married couples not out of any sentimentality or emotion, but because families provide certain necessary benefits to society, most importantly children.
I’m quite surprised by the hypocrisy (actually I’m not) by the pro-gay marriage side that wants the State to get in the business of blessing love relationships. If that isn’t the creation of a state religion, I don’t know what is.
Well, if a bunch of judges say that “limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman is [not] needed to encourage procreation or to create the optimal living environment for children” then it must be true. Because, you know, they’re … JUDGES! They know everything.
The fallaciousness of this opinion is found in the statement that “There is, on the one hand, no rational basis for giving gays and lesbians full civil rights as individuals while, on the other hand, giving them an incomplete set of rights when they enter into committed same-sex relationships.”
Homosexuals and lesbians have the exact same right to enter into marriage as the rest of us do. Just because they choose not to, or are physically unable to, doesn’t mean we re-define marriage for them.
If anyone wants to read an excellent dialogue on a Catholic approach to the same-sex marriage debate, they should read this article in the July 2003 issue of Catholic World Report.