Posted on 03/15/2005 5:53:44 PM PST by srm913
As we have discussed earlier today, (story) "A San Francisco Superior Court judge declared California's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional yesterday, saying it violates the basic human right to marry a person of one's choice. More than a year after..." Does the Constitution say anything about this? It doesn't, right? The Constitution doesn't talk about marriage at all, period, one way or the other, right? So we have this big umbrella here, "basic human rights," and the judge is allowed to determine what a human right is and isn't and whether the Constitution means it or doesn't. That's what has happened here. "More than a year after San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom directed the county clerk to issue licences to gay and lesbian couples at city hall, Judge Richard Kramer gave legal vindication to Newsom's rationale and that is that the state's 28-year-old law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is arbitrary and unfair." You know, every time I go to California to make a speech, always in the Q&A session people ask, "Rush, what are we going to do out here?" and I say, "You're screwed. At least I get to leave and go home tonight. You leave and go home and you're still here." I mean, these people in California, it doesn't matter what they do, some judge is going to come along and tell them that what they're doing is unconstitutional, be it Prop 187, be it Proposition X, be it this law defining marriage as that between a man and a woman, some judge is going to come along and tell the voters of California you don't know what you're doing.
"'No rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners.' Kramer wrote in a decision relying on rights guaranteed by the California Constitution. He cited as precedent another groundbreaking ruling, the state Supreme Court's 1948 ruling striking down California's law against interracial marriage." So he is comparing racial strife to homosexual strife culturally in the country. Now, his decision is not going to take effect -- during appeals likely to wind up in the state Supreme Court sometime next year. Now, here's one other thing he said: "A discriminatory law cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional," become traditional? I mean, we're going to have to go back and rewrite, I mean how long has marriage been what it is? And it didn't start here. Nevertheless, this will go all of the way up the chain, the food chain in the California court system. But, hey, folks, there's no guarantee what's going to happen. "Well, it's okay. We used to be able to rely on the courts, Rush. Why, the judges, they'll sort all this out, sort it all out."
Now, the California papers are making a big deal today that the judge, Richard Kramer, is Catholic and a Republican. The headline in the San Francisco Chronicle today: "Judge is Catholic and Republican -- 'a brilliant guy.'"
"If things get really tough judge Richard Kramer could always break out his old flak jacket. Five years ago, Kramer, who ruled Monday that the state law against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, sat on the San Francisco superior court bench wearing a bulletproof vest during a gang trial.
"'He's a brilliant guy,' said Joe O'Sullivan, defense attorney in San Francisco. 'I was fighting with him all the time in that gang trial case, and most of the time I think he was wrong, but he was fair. He tried to do the right thing. In fact, if I saw him in a restaurant I'd shake his hand.' The native of Brookline, Massachusetts," Ah-ha. A Republican from Brookline. That's where Michael Dukakis lives, "earned his law degree at USC, practiced civil law in San Francisco before the then-governor Pete Wilson named him to the bench. Over the years the 57-year-old Roman Catholic Kramer and registered Republican has gained a reputation of being compassionate, respectful, and unbiased." Well, that sets him apart, of course, from other Republicans who are not respectful, who have no compassion, and who are totally biased. See, this is how this stuff happens. He's compassionate, respectful, and unbiased. He's an odd Republican, but we'll take him. We'll take him. "In one survey of judges an attorney wrote of Kramer, 'He has a social worker attitude. He's interested in the defendant, where he went to school, how old he is. He wants the whole picture.'" All right, there we go. So we've got a judge out there with a social worker attitude.
I don't need to amplify this. I don't need to explain "a judge with a social worker attitude." That just sums it all up. Now, this business that the judge in a gay marriage case is a Catholic Republican appointee, so what? So is Anthony Kennedy, and he ruled that same-sex sodomy is a constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment which set the stage for holding that same-sex marriage is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. I told you this was going to happen. You know, when this same-sex marriage started is right after the Supreme Court found that sodomy is constitutional, and I predicted it on the program, and so did Scalia. Scalia in his dissent wrote that this is where this is headed and where it ends we can't possibly know. So, is isn't about party affiliation, folks. It's not about ideology as so many critics seem to think. It's really just about the law, constitutional law, jurisprudence and the kind of people we have on the bench and it seems increasingly, we have people that institute and implement their personal policy preferences rather than simply examine the law.
You'll find occasional spurts of street style "direct action" around here, but mainly, the curse of conservatism seems to stiful most of that. What's the curse, you ask?
Well, I'm so glad you asked! The most passionate and excitable of Conservatives have taken personal responsibility so seriously that they actually have a time conflict with "effective activism" in that they are previously commited to spending the majority of their time earning a fantastic living, even sending money ahead to an old man/woman they're going to become intimately acquainted with in the future!!!
It's obvious that some are touchy when it comes to their home. That's okay. It's understandable. But there's no denying that all the Blue States, the heavily populated areas, are also where the unbridled Degeneracy exists. Look up the "Folsom Street Fair" for a prime example. It's in California, not in Podunk.
doesn't bother me or effett my marraige one bit. But thanx for looking out for what you think are my interests.
or effect for that matter.
Good question. I haven't heard anything else either.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.