Saturday, June 28, 2008

Courts Ban Marriage in California

California will no longer recognize marriage. No man or woman may become "husband" and "wife" from July of 2008 until this tyranny is overthrown. I'd checked this web site more than once:

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Pages/Update05-08.aspx.

This link leads to copies of the new marriage certificates, now the only marriage certificates, issued in California.

Here are the specific links:
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Documents/Sample%20VS24C%20(6-08).pdf
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Documents/Sample%20VS123%20(6-08).pdf
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Documents/Sample%20VS%20117%20(6-08).pdf
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Documents/Sample%20V116%20(6-08).pdf
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Documents/Sample%20V115%20(6-08).pdf
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/news/Documents/08-07%20Updated%20Marriage%20Forms%20ACL.pdf

I had to return several times because I continued to believe I misunderstood what I was reading. However, sadly, what I read the first time bore the test of further scrutiny. I decided that since I needed to view the site more than once, I ought to have the link available for those who suffer the same disbelief.

It is an interesting dishonesty. The government agencies were rearranged and then a new set of rules set in motion. No legislature was consulted. No new law was written. Apparently, one would have to guess, the Supremes, who spelled none of this out in their opinion, simply approved the proceedings. Otherwise, who has the authority to make this change? In truth the courts do not. This should be a constitutional quagmire.

8 comments:

Burt Likko said...

That is simply untrue. A man and a woman can still get married in California.

I challenge you to quote the language in any of these memos, certificates, or language in the Marriage Cases opinion that renders any existing opposite-sex marriage invalid, or that indicates that an opposite-sex couple cannot be issued a marriage license.

SCIA said...

The legislative body makes law and not the judicial body. NO ONE can seem to get this straight.

Great post!!

paulbenedict said...

If the State of California refuses to recognize "husband" and "wife" on a marriage license, it has refused to acknowledge the marriage of these two. To be married is to become husband and wife.

Burt Likko said...

A married man is still a "husband." A married woman is still a "wife." I find it very hard to believe that you're this upset over words on a license application.

Scia -- if you disapprove of The Marriage Cases you must also disapprove of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision finding an individual right to keep and bear firearms.

Although you should also note that the California Legislature twice passed laws that would have enacted same-sex marriage, that were vetoed by the Governor. So does that mean that the Governor "makes" laws, too? Fact is, lawmaking in our system of government is shared by all three branches of government, and it always has been thus.

paulbenedict said...

Then you concede the point? In California law there are no more "husbands" and "wives." When people become married they become husband and wife. Marriage has been banned in California.

Burt Likko said...

No, I do not concede that point. Marriage has not been banned in California. In order for marriage to be banned in California, the Court would have had to have repealed Family Code sections 300-2660, and a wide variety of other sections of California law. What has changed is nomenclature, and that only for the tiny number of people who will choose to enter into same-sex marriages (as I wrote here, we can expect that there will be something like 15,000 same-sex marriages in the state in five years or so if the law remains in its current state).

Your focus on nomenclature seems to distract you from the legal realities of what has changed.

A couple who consists of a man and a woman may complete the forms you have referenced. If they do so, pay the appropriate fee, and are otherwise not disqualified for issuance of a license by reason of minority, coercion, bigamy or consanguinuity, then the State of California will issue them a marriage license. Upon completion of a solemnization ceremony and submission of the completed license, they will be legally married, with the same set of rights that go along with marriage as existed before the Marriage Case decision.

And as you pointed out in your original post, they can continue to call each other whatever they like. And other people will continue to use the words "husband" and "wife" to describe them. The word for a man who is married is still "husband." The word for a woman who is married is still "wife." The Court has not changed that nomenclature, nor has the alteration of a county clerk's form to use gender-neutral terms.

What HAS changed is that a legal marriage in California may consist of a) husband and wife, b) husband and husband, or c) wife and wife. The Court has not ordered (or even asked) you or your church to recognize or bless marriages fitting into categories "b" or "c." The Court has ordered that county clerks and county courts treat marriages of categories "b" and "c" the same way they treat marriages in category "a."

Explain to me, if you can, what legal right a heterosexual couple has lost. Or, if you cannot, at least concede that you have become exercised over a matter of nomenclature and not one of substance.

paulbenedict said...

If my rights have not been abridged by California refusing the full acknowledgment of matrimony in its laws, then why isn’t the term “civil union” good enough for same-sex couples? Page 36 of the High Court’s opinion states that California’s civil union laws have all of the rights of marriage. The court might have argued, as you have, that the equality the plaintiffs sought already existed under the law. Instead, when I ask to assert my right to married, the state hands me a lie… Worse than a lie… a figment of the court’s imagination.

Burt Likko said...

California has never had "civil unions"; it had (and still has) "domestic partnerships" instead. As to their equivalence to marriage, you may want to re-read footnote 24 of the majority opinion in the Marriage Cases, enumerating a number of ways that domestic partnership was not the legal equivalent of marriage.

Yes, I have previously argued that the burden was on SSM advocates to distinguish between marriage and domestic partnership. But seeing those differences identified in the opinion changed my mind on the issue -- they weren't the same.