Same-sex marriage: Undermining the rule of law

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | February 27, 2004 | Joseph Perkins

[South40]

I am profoundly troubled by the gay marriages in San Francisco.

Not because I am a "homophobe," a label unfairly applied to anyone who does not embrace the gay agenda. Not because I am some sort of religious nut, who thinks that homosexuals ought to be burned at the stake. Not because I am a bigot, who prefers not to associate with gays.

But because city officials in San Francisco have brazenly flouted both state and federal law. It is part of a recent disturbing pattern in California in which ideologically motivated elected officials, as well as activist judges, have taken it upon themselves to suspend the rule of law.

The gay marriage outrage was touched off a fortnight ago when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unilaterally decided to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Since then, more than 3,300 gay couples from all over have flocked to the city by the bay to get unlawfully married. And many of the ceremonies actually have been performed by a state assemblyman, Mark Leno, a gay Democrat from San Francisco.

Newsom insists that he is acting within the law. He maintains that he is merely upholding the equal protection rights guaranteed by the California Constitution.

But San Francisco's recently elected mayor conveniently ignores a 1977 statute that is part of California's Family Code, which defines marriage as that between a man and a woman.

He also dismisses a 2000 state ballot measure, Proposition 22, overwhelmingly approved by voters, which affirmed that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized" in the state; which declared that California need not recognize same-sex marriages that might be performed elsewhere.

California higher education officials are almost as brazen as San Francisco's lawbreaking mayor.

In recent years, they have tricked up the admission process for the academically elite nine-campus UC system to get around Proposition 209, which forbids racial preferences in public education.

The law has survived challenges before both the California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. Yet, UC officials continue to bestow preferences upon "underrepresented minorities" – Latinos and blacks – at the expense of whites and Asians.

Indeed, 65 percent of students admitted to UC Berkeley and UCLA with below average SAT scores in 2002 were Latinos and blacks; 58 percent at UCSD and 49 percent at UC Riverside.

The long and short of it is that low-scoring "underrepresented minorities" have a much better chance of being admitted to UC schools than whites and Asians.

That clearly violates the eight-year-old California law, which unequivocally declares that the state "shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin."

Of course, there are certain exceptional cases where state law ought to be ignored. Not because some mayor or some board of regents thinks so, but because state law conflicts with superior federal law.

That is the case with the highly controversial California law that allows marijuana use for – purportedly – medicinal purposes.

It clearly runs afoul with the Controlled Substances Act, the federal law that classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance with a high potential for abuse.

And it violates the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which requires that a drug be scientifically proven safe and effective before it can be used for medicinal purposes.

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is no medical marijuana exception to the federal Controlled Substances Act and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Yet, state and local officials in California pretend that the ruling was never issued.

Indeed, San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne recently informed the City Council, "Our current procedure protects the rights of qualified patients and primary caregivers to have access to legal amounts of marijuana."

If San Francisco Mayor Newsom is offended by the law limiting marriage to a man and woman, if the UC Board of Regents doesn't care much for the law forbidding racial preferences in admissions, if San Diego's police chief and City Council have a problem with federal drug laws prohibiting marijuana use for medicinal purposes, they should work to change those laws.

But they should not presume to ignore those laws, to undermine the rule of law.

For as Thurgood Marshall said: "Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy."

[leprechaun9]

ANARCHY is alive and well in Califoooorniiia! If the elected officials do not respect and follow the law, why does anyone think they will follow a Constitutional Amendment?

[onyx]

I lost my train of thought last night in my post to wardaddy:

I mentioned that gawd awful program (Dateline?) because I learned from it that the sex change from David to Victoria did not change the marital status in the eyes of the law.

David defaulted on his marriage, by becoming a woman, yet, the marriage remained legal after David became Victoria.