Supreme Deception: the Right to Deceive, Part III

Even on the surface, the idea of same-sex marriage must be either a lie or a deceit; hence, any court’s opinion that is engaged in “legalizing” such a thing must also be replete with lies or immersed in deception. In “redefining” marriage without admitting that it has done so, the Supreme Court of California’s opinion is riddled with deceptions. The California Supreme Court has masked its reduction of marriage to the mere legality that it conferred on civil unions by using the misleading terms “family relationship” and “family unit” to describe homosexual relationships and civil unions. Furthermore, the Court’s opinion use of this misleading terminology generates the appearance that previous courts' opinions and precedents support the benefits of, and state interests in, gay marriage. In fact, the opinion refers to no evidence whatsoever from previous case law or precedent that the state has either an abiding interest in, or that individuals derive substantial benefit from, gay marriage.

Whether by design or by incompetence, the Court’s opinion uses circular reasoning throughout. The opinion supposes that marriage is not between a man and a woman so that it may find an offended class and conclude that marriage, indeed, must not be only between a man and a woman. Finally, not satisfied with an opinion that is so inadequate that it deceives only the public, the Court produces several passages in which it seems to have conferred the right to deceive the public on the plaintiffs. Deceiving people is what the Court has, directly or indirectly, sanctioned by its discussion of “privacy rights” on page 105 below:

“Plaintiffs point out that one consequence of the coexistence of two parallel types of familial relationship (marriage and domestic partnerships) is that — in the numerous everyday social, employment, and governmental settings in which an individual is asked whether he or she “is married or single” — an individual who is a domestic partner and who accurately responds to the question by disclosing that status will (as a realistic matter) be disclosing his or her homosexual orientation, even if he or she would rather not do so under the circumstances and even if that information is totally irrelevant in the setting in question.”

The opinion of the majority in “re Marriages” explains that disclosing one’s sexual orientation is protected under a right to privacy, but the Court’s resolution of the issue should not be to sanction intentional deception as a remedy. Under this court’s ruling same sex couples may mislead an employer, whether it is a government office or a private enterprise, by leading individuals to believe that their status is heterosexual. That is, they may rest assured that when they say they are married , their employer or insurance company will understand the ordinary sense of the word and assume they are heterosexual. Doesn’t the state have an interest in deploring all acts of deception, especially as it relates to its own offices? Instead, this court has sanctioned the deceptions and provided the means of deception. Is deception, then, simply a matter of course and necessity to the California Supreme Court? Shall we consider this evidence of the intention of the court itself to deceive the public with its ruling and its opinion? Doesn't it seem that the court recognizes that the high end of “equality” justifies deception? Should we assume that the Court itself with its high view of equality and equity felt that, for itself too, deception as practically necessary is a dogma worthy of application? If we should so decide, fellow Californians, what then should we do? You know very well what you must do. You must recall these judges.

Nor is the foregoing deception seemingly advocated by the Court without potentially serious implications for insurance, credit, and medical institutions. Although the court recognized that some of these requests for information are not relevant, the discretion on when to deceive seems to be entirely in the hands of a member of a same sex partnership.

Some may argue that the destruction of the word marriage and its meaning would result in “marriage” would no longer implying heterosexuality. Hence, there would be no deception. However, until the process of reconstructing documents in which one’s sexual orientation is necessary information and, instance by instance, allowing courts to decide upon this necessity, many instances of deception on important matters will have been perpetrated and seemingly sanctioned by this Court.

Nor is such deception a necessary instrument for achieving equality in the United States of America. No one can seriously imagine women seeking equal opportunity being able to get away with bubbling in "man" on their employment applications. No, in order to equalize the playing field women proudly declared their gender and insisted on access. Likewise, African Americans proudly declared their identities as they demanded the equal rights they were entitled to under the law.

Perhaps religions have had the "option" of “going public” with their beliefs through the years. Notice how well that has gone? The religions such as Islam that state their creeds by their apparel and their deeds have a far greater opportunity for recognition and accommodation under U.S. Laws than do the more timid believers who obey court and statute despite the outcry of their consciences. Secrecy is no ally of civil rights. Not only does the Court appear to confer the right to deceive on a special segment of the population, it undermines the very equality is seeks to establish. The gay community ought to rise up and vote “yes” on California’s proposition 8, not only so they are not embarrassed by being part of a ruling that must go down in infamy, but so that their own movement for equal rights and recognition is not undermined by legally sanctioned duplicities.

On page 117-118 the Court issues a pronouncement that, essentially, concedes the right to deceive to all same sex couples in California while, at the same time, insisting that all citizens of the state of California who have direct dealings with the state government perpetrate deception on others:

“As discussed above, (page 81) because of the long and celebrated history of the term ‘marriage’ and the widespread understanding that this word describes a family relationship (my italics) unreservedly sanctioned by the community, the statutory provisions that continue to limit access to this designation exclusively to opposite-sex couples — while providing only a novel, alternative institution for same-sex couples — likely will be viewed as an official statement that the family relationship of same-sex couples is not of comparable stature or equal dignity to the family relationship of opposite-sex couples.”

First of all, the word marriage does not refer to the commonly understood words “family relationship.” The new terminology introduced by the George court names marriage a “family relationship.” In the same way that a cursory reading of this ruling and an assumption of judiciary accuracy with language might mislead a reader, the use of the term “marriage” for same sex couples has the potential for misleading many citizens of the state and the nation. The problem is that, if nothing else, same sex civil unions are very novel, and indeed they are an alternate relationship relative to that of traditional marriage. Novel and alternative are not pejoratives, nor should anyone expect them to be.

By the courts own admission, by its stated design, the venerable history of marriage will be conferred, naturally, on same sex couples. However, that is deceptive precisely because same sex unions have no history at all. The application of the commonly understood word to marriage to same sex couples is, therefore misleading and deceptive. Even if there is a tradition of prejudice towards gay couples, prejudice in every other area of American life is not overcome by way of deception. Prejudice is overcome by being who we are, and by proving, with the equal opportunities we are granted, that hurtful prejudgments are no more than the products of ignorance.

Marriage has a long and celebrated history and has been widely sanctioned in every community in history (even if not always faithfully adhered to!) because of what it is. The use of the word “marriage” in California is now new, controversial, and alternate from every other known use of the word for 6,000 years of recorded history. Let us as Californians be clear about this: marriage in California now, under the ruling of the George court, no longer means “marriage.” If you think it does, you are deceived. If after reading this series of articles you are deceived, then you are deceiving yourself. However, when state employees, whether they be doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, policemen, or firemen say “marriage,” the common understanding of marriage will come to the mind of the hearers. Government employees everywhere may be directed to say “marriage” with the intended new meaning concocted by this court; however, those that hear what they say will not necessarily understand what is meant. Indeed, who really can understand this definition of marriage as a “family relationship” given meaning through a concoction of legal rights pulled from a seascape of irrelevant references?

The entire progress of this Court’s legislation, and it is certainly that, and its explanations are immersed in deception. It is by this means that it seeks to persuade us of its equanimity in making us its partners in its deceptions. Whether these deceptions are accidental or intended, we will all be employed in them. This court's ruling, whether by incompetence or by malice, evinces a design to reduce us under an absolute despotism of the state. It demands that we ourselves become the instruments of deception. The state can stand in no greater tyranny to its subjects than that it demand them to dissemble in order to comply with its dictates.

On page 8 of this opinion, Judge George wrote,

“We need not decide in this case whether the name ‘marriage’ is invariably a core element of the state constitutional right to marry so that the state would violate a couple’s constitutional right even if — perhaps in order to emphasize and clarify that this civil institution is distinct from the religious institution of marriage — the state were to assign a name other than marriage as the official designation of the formal family relationship for all couples.”

This is incorrect. If the opinion of this court is that marriage is no longer marriage and that one new institution is fitting for all, then let the Court proudly proclaim this! Instead, this court lets stand a document that rids California of marriage entirely without even the slightest acknowledgment of its radicalism. The Court seems to embrace deception for a remedy to the plaintiffs claims of privacy and its ruling encourages the deception of the entire state by insisting that government officials use a new, and impossibly complex and incoherent legal definition in communicating with children and minors about marriage.

Oh... no adults would be lying to children… Oh, no… And fear not California, your little children will not be deceived. No, even they know what marriage is. Instead, they will assume that policemen, firemen, teachers, doctors and nurses are cowardly liars or deluded morons. Good work Chief Justice George, and let us give thanks to all those members of the court that concurred.

Supreme Deception: “re Marriages” Twists the Meaning of Family, Part I

A marriage is not a family. A family is comprised of parents and children. Here, from Dictionary.com:

“Family – 1. parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not. 2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family. 3. the spouse and children of one person: We're taking the family on vacation next week…”

There are eleven definitions of family given on Dictionary.com. All of the definitions, even the idiomatic ones, explicitly include or figuratively imply children. In “re Marriages…” the California Supreme Court defines the union of same sex couples as a “family” relationship. It is by this euphemism that the Court names the congress of couples heterosexual and homosexual.

No matter how enlightened we are, none of us want our courtrooms filled with vivid descriptions of what takes place to consummate marriages or same sex relationships. However, could the court have picked a more deceptive title to describe the relationship that is the basis of a domestic partnership? From this relationship no family can ever, by nature, grow. Although this is deceptive, and although in all matters one tends to distrust this Court, if King George and the Supremes were to plead innocent to the charge of intentionally deceiving the public, they might be found “not guilty.” Too often it is the case that good and useful words become the jargon of legal decisions, so it is here.

All through its judicial history California has used the words marriage and family appropriately. For instance, here is a direct quote from a 1995 case cited in Judge George’s opinion:

“And in Warfield v. Peninsula Golf & Country Club (1995) 10 Cal.4th 594, in discussing the types of relationship that fall within the scope of the constitutionally protected right of intimate association (one component of our state constitutional right of privacy (id. at pp. 629-630)), we [Judge George himself is the we because, in his office as a Judge of the Supreme Court of California, he wrote the court’s opinion] explained that “the highly personal relationships that are sheltered by this constitutional guaranty are exemplified by ‘those that attend the creation and sustenance of a family — marriage . . . , childbirth . . . , the raising and education of children . . . and cohabitation with one’s relatives . . . [page 56].

The comment in brackets and the emboldened text added for clarification show that in 1995 the Supreme Court of California knew the difference between a marriage and a family. Marriages were part of the creation of a family. The raising and education of children were part of the sustenance of a family. In 1996 Supreme Court Judge Ronald George was elevated to Chief Justice.

However, by 2003 that the legislature of California introduced confused language into the jurisprudence of the state with this uncodified statement of legislative intent:

"This act is intended to help California move closer to fulfilling the promises of inalienable rights, liberty, and equality contained in Sections 1 and 7 of Article 1 of the California Constitution by providing all caring and committed couples, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, the opportunity to obtain essential rights, protections, and benefits and to assume corresponding responsibilities, obligations, and duties and to further the state’s interests in promoting stable and lasting family relationships, and protecting Californians from the economic and social consequences of abandonment, separation, the death of loved ones, and other life crises” [Stats. 2003, ch. 421, § 1, subd. (a) excerpted from page 38 “re Marriages…”].

It is unclear from the immediate context what the legislature intended by “in promoting lasting family relationships…” This may refer to the resolution of problems same sex couples had gaining access to loved ones during hospital stays. The domestic partnership act made one’s partner [Party A] a legal member of party B’s extended family. In that way, despite objections by Party A’s immediate family, Party B had full access and legal authority over Party A’s medical care.

By 2005 the change of language from confused wording to deceptive jargon was completely effected:

As we (Judge George in his office of the Chief Justice of Supreme Court of California in its majority opinion) explained in Koebke, supra, 36 Cal.4th 824, 843: “[T]he decision . . . to enter into a domestic partnership is more than a change in the legal status of individuals . . . . [T]he consequence[] of the decision is the creation of a new family unit with all of its implications in terms of personal commitment as well as legal rights and obligations” (excerpted from page 46 of “re Marriages…”).

In this quote from the 2005 majority opinion in Kobke vs. Bernardo Club Country Club, the court plainly uses the terms family unit and domestic partnership synonymously. What is new in the court’s jargon in “re Marriages” is the wider use of “family relationship” to mean marriage and domestic partnership. It is in this 2008 opinion that the Court has simply decided to dispense with dictionaries, histories, statutes, or linguistic contexts of any type. Whether or not members of this court participated in making this deceptive change in the jargon for the express purpose of deception in “re Marriages” is an open question. The prior use of the unclear language of legislative intent in the 2003 to express the Court’s opinion in 2005 can be argued as an authentic representation of the liberal intent of the California Legislature.

In the evolution of the jargon of the California judiciary, it becomes plain that marriage has been banned by the Court. Marriages no longer lead to families; they are families. Like domestic partnerships, the consummating act of marriage is not required, nor is it recognized. Like marriages, families too are now no more or no less than what some court decides they are. Families in California are no longer recognized as realities preceding governments. If everything a family legally is, depends on the good graces of legislatures and courts, what privacy rights are left to protect?

Of course the change of the legal status of marriage changes the legal status of a family. Even as early as 2003 the extraordinary changes in domestic partnership law unconstitutionally impacted the rights of family. Beginning in 2003 “Party B” gained full rights with the parent of lineage to the children of “Party A”. This was not based on an expressed last will and testament of "Party A" that would then be contested in a family court. The simple act of registering as a domestic partner deprived the bloodline parent, the child’s true family, of elements of its legal family rights.

This, however, does not conclude the list deceptions perpetrated on the public by the Supreme Court of California. In “re Marriages” the patterns of deception and their repercussions are discussed in “Supreme Deception: re Marriages Twists Family, Part II.”