Replies

The purpose of marriage is to celebrate the rather obvious fact that the human world is divided into two sexes, male and female. These sexes are each about half the population and they produce material (sperm and ova) which have half a full human genetic complement. When combined they form a new human DNA and thus reproduce the species. Even thousands of years before people knew those DNA details, they understood that the sexes mate and perpetuate the species. Race has nothing whatsoever to do with that. If the entire world was one race we'd still be able to reproduce. But if we were all one sex we'd die out as a species.

Once again, you are making the wrong argument, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

These are arguments that should be made, that have been made, to a legislative body. In California, these arguments convinced the legislative body known as the People, and they passed a law against allowing two people of the same sex to pretend to be married.

The California Supreme Court is not equipped to sift facts and arguments, integrate them with public opinion, and then to pass laws. That's not their job, and in fact the California Constitution specifically forbids them from doing so.

Therefore, the burning issue of the moment is not the compatibility of various body parts, nor the continuation of the species.

The issue at hand is the usurpation of the right of the People to legislate on matters that are within their competence. The prerogative claimed by the California Supreme Court, and by the SJC in Massachusetts before it, is the power to bind us, in all cases whatsoever, which leads back to Paine:

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth."