OT: Breaking News

Court invalidates California's ban on same-sex marriage.

I don't delve into politics often on this blog. I think this is my third or so (purely) political post in the almost three months of this blog's existance, but this deserves a special mention.

In his 27-page decision, Kramer - an appointee of former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican - said the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates "the basic human right to marry the person of one's choice," and has no rational justification.

-Bob Egelko, SF Chronicle 3/14/05

Did you hear that sound?

That was the sound of Judge Kramer being excommunicated from the Republican Party.

This is going to be appealed of course and is in no ways final. The arguments for and against same sex marraige are somewhat familiar to those during the fight to legalize inter-racial marraige.

You can easily deduce my political views by looking at this post and my blogroll on the sidebar. Personally, I don't like gay marraige much either, like many of my more conservative neighbors, so my solution is simple; I won't marry a gay guy. Politically, I'm for gay marraige because every American is entitled to be equal with all the same rights. Straight couples can marry, why can't gay couples do the same thing? We're only expanding the secular meaning of marraige, any court ruling will not force churches to recognize a gay couple's marraige. You can also easily deduce that I am a big fan of the "separation of church and state" provision of the First Amendment, and I'm no Atheist.

Addendum to post [3/14/05 11:15 PM]:

Here's something from the those who oppose same sex marraige.

Wang was particularly disturbed by a portion of Kramer's ruling that rejected the notion that one of the functions of state law was to promote procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. Kramer wrote, "One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married."

Wang responded by quoting Chapter 18, Verse 22 of the Old Testament author Leviticus, describing God's instructions to Moses: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."

I wonder if Wang likes shrimp. In Leviticus God also says eating shrimp is wrong. I think it's absurd for Americans to impose Judeo-Christian morals on everybody who lives here. If we did that we'd be no better than the Taliban or the Theocracy in Iran, we'd just be the Christian version of it. No law will ever force a church to recognize a same sex marraige. This case is about equal rights under the US Constitution. The Bible has nothing to do with it. If gay marraige is a sin, then let God judge in the afterlife and bar all gays who married from heaven, not create laws making them a group of second class citzens.

It is not man's (or woman's) place in the world to judge sinners, it's God's place in the world. Judge Kramer is only interpreting the secular law of California, not the Bible.

I'm tired of conservatives bitching about "activist judges," the conviently forget that it was a bunch of "activist judges" who give Bush his first term.

Here's another Wang quote:

"If everyone in the world would follow the same-sex pattern, then there would be genocide," said Wang, who heads the Great Commission Center International, a missionary organization, in Mountain View.

Just because there's same sex marraige, that doesn't mean we're all forced to be gay. And I thought us Chinese people were supposed to be pragmatists, not nutjobs like that.

I always belived that church doctorine states that if a couple isn't married in a church, then the couple isn't really married. So why are all the religious conservatives getting their panties into a bunch when the gays will marry in mostly civil ceremonies. Those couples won't even be married in the eyes of the church.

What's up with this "sanctity of marraige" crap anyways? I'm pretty sure that us heterosexuals have been screwing up marraige with our adultery, sham marraiges and our divorces for so many years that few gay couples marrying won't do us much harm.