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.

Note #4 On the California Court's Opinion re Marriage

Madness as a Contagion

If nothing else, the California Court's opinion "re Marriage..." is an important piece of literature for the study of group delusion. As Note #3 below decried, the Supreme Court's 'logic' relating to the semantics of Proposition 22 seemed to have more in common with the ravings of an alcoholic than a legal dissertation. Finally, about page 32, we get this grudging admission about Proposition 22:

"Although we agree with plaintiffs that the principal motivating factor underlying Proposition 22 appears to have been to ensure that California would not recognize marriages of same-sex couples that might be validly entered into in another jurisdiction, we conclude the statutory provision proposed by this initiative measure and adopted by the voters — which, we note again, provides in full that “[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” — cannot properly be interpreted to apply only to marriages performed outside of California. "

At last, we think, the Court's delirium tremors are over; no more visions of pink elephants are forth coming. Not so... not exactly... Three pages later, on page 35, this court is still apologizing to the word twisters for not going along with their delusions in this instance. Its majority writes:

"Accordingly, it is appropriate to interpret the limitations imposed by section 308.5 as applicable to marriages performed in California as well as to out-of-state marriages, in order to avoid the serious federal constitutional questions that would be posed by a contrary interpretation."

To be fair, the legislature the people of California elected has twice tried to legislate same sex marriages in California, and, twice, this has been vetoed by the governor of California. It is likely, and important for future scientific study, that constant discussion and unimaginably comic interludes between such seriously stuffed shirts, might easily have affected the California Supremes. In fairness to all madmen, all madmen should be recalled from public office. At least in the case of the governor of California, his lunacy, as expressed below, will pass from the government by term limit. If the court’s paraphrase of the governor can be trusted, here is clear evidence of the communication of lunacy, not by microbe, but by the written word:

"In contrast to the position advanced by the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund and the Campaign, the Attorney General and the Governor recognize that the California Constitution does not define or limit the marriage relationship to a union of a man and a woman. (108)"

If in Perez the California Supreme Court found a 'right to marry' in the State Constitution, and if, as the statutes and history of this word in California make plain, marriage is a gender-positive institution, not a gender neutral one, then it is equally plain that any redefinition of marriage making it gender-neutral defrauds the people of California of the fundamental right to marry found in its constitution. Again, it must be of interest to those who study mass hallucinations and other such phenomenon, that the madness of the executive and legislative branches have contributed to the Court’s delusions. It is the kooky carryings on of these representatives of the people that provides the excuse for the court to run on in maniacal proclamations of its sole power. The Court’s opinion, with the passion of Dr. Frankenstein himself, lifts its voice to the heavens, yelling over and over again words about irrelevant civil rights cases that completely contrast to it own findings earlier in its own opinion:

“Although, as noted at the outset of this opinion (ante, at pp. 4-5), we agree with the Attorney General and the Governor that the separation-of-powers doctrine precludes a court from ‘redefining’ marriage on the basis of the court’s view that public policy or the public interest would be better served by such a revision, we disagree with the Attorney General and the Governor to the extent they suggest that the traditional or long-standing nature of the current statutory definition of marriage exempts the statutory provisions embodying that definition from the constraints imposed by the California Constitution, or that the separation-of-powers doctrine precludes a court from determining that constitutional question… (109).”

What separation of powers doctrine? Who cares? The court quotes the governor’s opinion about the Constitution, not case law, not precedent, not the constitution itself, as the basis for doing whatever the court feels like doing. Since this recitation of its own power to do whatsoever it wants in the name of civil rights goes on page after page after page, it is plain that this court’s madness is a communicable disease. Mobs inspire one another with paranoid delusions until they do violence. So this mobbed up court has been inspired to run riot, tearing our constitution to pieces and depriving Californians of its civil rights.

Note 3 On the California Supreme Court’s Opinion

The Ballot initiative embodied in Proposition 22 was almost as weak in its language as the opinion rendered on marriage in California by the appellate court (Note 2). Section 308.5, the initiative statute submitted to the voters of California as Proposition 22 at the March 7, 2000 reads: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The voters of California and the authors of Proposition 22, however, have some excuse. The statue was designed not only to restate the definition of marriage for California, but also to repudiate the “so-called” marriages enacted in the state of Massachusetts. Moreover, no one wants to write definitions of marriage into the law that are so precise that when our sixth grade son proclaims the Constitution in the classroom we are sadly obliged to wash his mouth out with soap. Finally, the elegant simplicity of Prop. 22's language is exactly what is needed in a ballot initiative.

Nevertheless, it is important that we don’t encourage the madmen in their delusions. There is no such thing as a marriage that does not take place between a man and a woman, and California law, sadly, needs to say just this. How ridiculous that we must be drawn into such insanity by our highest state courts. How degrading that we must explain again and again the basic meanings of words to those who are supposed to exercise jurisprudence. It is a tragic day in America that we have come to such complete barbarism in the midst of a land of plenty and of blessing. Perhaps a simpler language might be best fitted to the people’s task as warders, unpaid warders, of the State Sanitarium: “Marriage only exists between a man and a woman, and California does not recognize the 'so-called' marriages enacted elswere.”

To add insult to insanity, California’s highest court had the temerity to go on record and argue that the voters of California had no idea what they were voting for. The court argues that it is rational to construe the language of Proposition 22 to apply only to marriages outside California (page 28, paragraph 1). There is abundant evidence of Proposition 22’s intent. The intent of the law, not the ability of men to defraud the voters by twisting words, is the exact purview of courts. To actually take the side of the word twisters, charlatans, and hucksters on our tax dime, to wrest this statute out of its plain context while pretending to wear the garb of justice is either the babblings of madmen, the height of arrogance, or outright criminal malfeasance.

Note #2 On the California Supreme Court's Opinion: the Appellate Court

The California Appellate Court did not seem to be forceful enough in the language of its opinion. This, in turn, left the Supreme Court a little wiggle room in which to continue its legal chicanery and "gottcha" word games. Here, from page 51 of the opinion (with my addendums and notes in parentheses):

“…the constitutional right to marry under the California Constitution properly should be interpreted to afford only a right to marry a person of the opposite sex,”

(These words ought to have been included for plainness: 'The constitutional right to marry, discovered by case law under the California Constitution, was surely in the mind of the framing court, a right for those who can marry to marry. There is no injury to the plaintiffs because they do not have the ability to be married to each other. Hence, their ability to marry a member of the opposite sex remains without offense...')

"...and that the constitutional right that plaintiffs actually are asking the court to recognize is a constitutional 'right to same-sex marriage.'”

(These words ought to have been redacted for accuracy: "same sex marriage". Instead, these words might have been more prudent: 'right to an imaginary kind of marriage that does not exist. Since there is no such thing, the plaintiffs might just as well complain that the Constitution of California has unjustly restricted their ability to freely speak with griffins.')

“In the absence of any historical or precedential support for such a right in this state, the Court of Appeal determined that plaintiffs’ claim of the denial of a fundamental right under the California Constitution must be rejected."

On this last paragraph, the appellate court cannot be undermined. However, they had already given the court some unintended leverage for its deceitful word game:

“— the (Supreme) court (in Perez -- about interracial marriage) did not characterize the constitutional right that the plaintiffs in that case sought to obtain as “a right to interracial marriage” and did not dismiss the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge on the ground that such marriages never had been permitted in California.”

This is true, but the court in Perez did not have to look far for the definition of marriage. This was found in the entire history of the civilized world. In fact, no state, except those in these United States, may have ever been so backwards as to refuse the right to marry on the basis of race. The 1944 Perez decision was correct because the right to pursue happiness and liberty was not limited by race. The Court could find this right in Perez because a. Jefferson had slipped this right into the U.S. Constitution while those who ratified it were too stupid to notice or too greedy to care, and b. this fundamental human right was ordained by God for all people (The other rights unremunerated by the founding documents include all such God given abilities; however, it is the right of the people to convene conventions to describe these yet unremunerated rights, for they have not been relinquished by the people of These United States to the Federal Courts or to the Supreme Courts. These unremunerated rights may only be set forth in a constitutional convention.).

In this case the rights are not limited by race, by gender, or by religion. In fact, the “marriage” gay rights activists envision are limited because of the inability of same sex couples to enter into marriage. The court will seek to redefine marriage to seek an offense that can only be remedied by a redefinition of marriage.

Note #1 on California's Supreme Court's Decision

Here is where the majority opinion takes up its argument:

“First, we must determine the nature and scope of the “right to marry” — a right that past cases establish as one of the fundamental constitutional rights embodied in the California Constitution…” (page 5, 2nd paragraph)..

The ‘right to marry’ is a phrase that does not exist in any way, shape or form in the California Constitution. It is a right that other judges have read into the constitution. This is what the court's opinion is saying when it says, "a right that past cases establish..."

The phrase “fundamental right to marriage” does not sound terribly suspect, even removed from its specific historic context. The historic context of course is that Jefferson put words in the United States Constitution that he knew the current Americans were not living up to. Patriotically, and with great dignity, California put these same words, with some cool addendums, into its constitution. Years later, a wise judge pointed out the trick Jefferson had played on his fellow Americans and, with as much force as the court could muster, ordered his fellow Americans to live up to their own words. Californians could not make interracial marriage illegal without a significant degree of hypocrisy.

Certainly, there are fundamental rights such as the right to bear arms and the right to free speech that come with limitations relative to age and background. The idea of a right to marry certainly seems consistent with the right to the pursuit of happiness that is the staple of the American Constitution. Likewise, California’s declaration of rights, like the United States Constitution, suggests that it may not have enumerated all of the inalienable rights, and it also includes the right to pursue happiness: “All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.” Still, wresting anything from its context is suspect. One has the fundamental right to marry if one is not already married, if the spouse is not coerced in some manner, if one is not a minor and so on. Nonetheless, who can argue that governments should not refuse to allow consenting adults marry?

The problem is not that same sex couples cannot marry; they can marry any member of the opposite sex they choose. That’s not the issue. Ironically, as becomes evidenced by the later, finer print of this document, the court must “expand” (according to the court) the “definition” of marriage to produce a. an offense and b. a union that same sex couples can enter into. With amazing, unwitting irony, the court has chosen to site the exact decision that makes its own ruling unconstitutional, for the court does not expand the definition of marriage at all. Instead, it radically limits marriage by proclaiming all marriages civil unions. There are no more husbands. There are no more wives. There will be no more fatherhood, and motherhood is banished. By defining marriage as something marriage isn’t, this court has denied the very “right to marry” that was declared to exist in the California by a former court.

The Media is Wrong Again: California Same Sex Marriages are Not Legal

According to Dictionary.com, for something to be legal it must be “permitted by law; lawful.” There is no law sanctioning same sex marriage in California there is only a court ruling. The courts may not make law; hence, the marriages in California cannot be said to be legal. On the surface it may seem that since the California Supremes struck down the law saying that marriage in California is only between a man and a woman, that, hence, the same sex marriages in California cannot be said to be illegal either. Still the media widely reports that same sex marriage is now legal in California. It is not. Court ordered extra legal “marriages” are now being officiated by California government representatives. That’s a little more accurate. How accurate can anyone be when the foundation of law in California, its constitution, has been ripped to shreds by the very body that has sworn to uphold it?

Interesting Things From California's Constitution

Interesting Things from California's Constitution

From the Preamble to California's constitution:

“We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution.”

The mention of God in political life is not the establishment of religion. It is the free exercise thereof. The lawyers and the courts know this, but they are deliberately ignoring our constitutional rights.

From the California Constitution, Article 2, Section 1.

“All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.”

The authors of this constitution were serious about this article. This is not just the political double-talk to which we in the twenty-first century have grown far too accustomed. While the process by way of which the legislature may amend the constitution is every bit as complex as that of the United States Constitution, the ability of the people to amend the constitution is quite simple. A referendum with a reasonable, yet serious number of signatures is presented to the secretary of state, and a simple majority decided the issue. No matter who we elect to write laws for our nation, corruption abounds, and, rather than serving as the referees, Jefferson envisioned, the courts have behaved so abominably that we need to enact an instant replay, via a California style referendum procedure to protect ourselves from judges who are betting on the games.

Of course there is a down side to this. The majorities in a great number of these United States would have, historically, had the potential to write some horrid amendments into their constitution. However, in retrospect one can only wonder whether or not the open debate leading up to some of those amendments might have gone farther to heal the wounds of racism in America than the courts intjecting themselves into the situation ever did. When the founding fathers authored the constitution, democracy was new and terrifying. The wealthy were terrified that the poor would take their properties by way of the vote. It is sad how very correct they have often proven to be.

Nonetheless, the notion of setting the legislature and courts as the arbiter’s of mob rage has not worked well in the last fifty years. If the abuse of states rights led to the Civil War and the increase of nationalism, it is appropriate that the courts' abuse of their authority should result in a return of authority to the people of these United States. While an amendment to the constitution defining marriage (again), or one declaring the right to bear arms (again), or another declaring plainly that majorities in every community have the right to proudly exercise their religion while they meet in free and lawful assemblies: graduation, school athletic events, and town counsel meetings might all be hard to gather a two thirds majority for; on the other hand, it might be difficult to persuade the people of the United States that we ought not to amend the constitution of the United States to include an initiative, referendum and recall procedure like California’s. How do the pandering politicians try to explain that we are to incapable of judgment to be trusted with this right?

Then at least we can recall judges that overstep their bounds and pass amendments to clarify their wicked imposition on American society.

Jefferson on Natural Rights as Created by Nature's God

What did the founding fathers mean by the separation of church and state? Read it for yourself from Thomas Jefferson’s own lips. I have paraphrased in places and added the convenience of modern bullets. Of course I cannot help annotating and exclaiming.

The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom Thomas Jefferson, 1786

Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; (and:)

• that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do;
• that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible (opinions), and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;
• that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical;
• that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness,
  and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind;
• that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry;
  that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it;
• that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
• that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
• that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;
  and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself (and, as history has often shown, truth prevails against the entire world),
• that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
And though we well know this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no powers equal to our own and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind (this refers to the freedom of religion discussed in all of this Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. For the sake of discussion compare this view of natural rights, to Darwin’s view *) and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right. (The simplicity of all of this is that the government not punish any person for praying or not praying or for attending church or not attending church. The modern doctrine has been to appear to expand Jeffersonian liberty by punishing, for instance, those who would choose to pray together in public schools.)

* The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is however impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand, a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's reason, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.

Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc. of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals. They are also capable of some inherited improvement, as we have seen in the domestic dog compared with the wolf or jackal. If it could be proved that certain high mental powers, such as the formation of general concepts, self-consciousness, &c. were absolutely peculiar to man, which seems extremely doubtful, it is not improbable that these qualities are merely the incidental results of other highly-advanced intellectual faculties; and these again mainly the result of the continued use of a perfect language. At what age does the newborn infant possess the power of abstraction, or become self-conscious, and reflect on its own existence? We cannot answer; nor can we answer in regard to the ascending organic scale. The half-art, half-instinct of language still bears the stamp of its gradual evolution. The ennobling belief in God is not universal with man; and the belief in spiritual agencies naturally follows from other mental powers. The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals; but I need say nothing on this head, as I have so lately endeavoured to show that the social instincts,--the prime principle of man's moral constitution-- with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habits, naturally lead to the golden rule, “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye to them likewise,” and this lies at the foundation of morality (from ORIGIN OF SPECIES and DESCENT OF MAN).

Darwin does not declare that there is no God. He simply argues that the Bible is no more true than the arguments of those global warming experts of yesteryear who declared the earth flat and Copernicus a heretic. However, Darwin’s discussion is not about the free choice to believe at all. Belief or a lack of belief, Darwin speculates, has everything to mental development and culture. Darwin does not recognize that the choice of nations to believe in God has resulted in freedom, liberty and what he calls civilization. This notion of a predetermined evolution of man and culture was a theme of Darwin’s contemporary Karl Marx.

One Nation Under God and Freedom of Religion

These two notions seem at odds with one another. What were the founding fathers and the architects of state constitutions around the land thinking? It's possible that the nation was founded on the political balderdash that is commonplace in Washington DC, but perhaps not. Perhaps there was an idea that we are commonly misunderstanding today.

Indeed, at least in the case of the founding of the United States, the notion of Darwinism and secularism were unheard of when the original constitution was composed. As a consequence, everyone, just everyone believed in God. The problem in those days was that everyone worshipped God differently and, based on these differences, people killed each other. Yep, pretty barbaric. Fortunately, the colonists, for all of their faults, had a better idea. They put down the sword (or musket) and said "freedom of worship."

The modern argument is that any mention of 'God' involves religion and hence, by definition, impinges on the freedom of worship. This idea of people objecting to even the mention of God was impossible for the writers of the constitution. Permitting this extra constitutional logic into the laws of our land has had the following effect:

• 
  As a nation we do not expect "God to be watching." Our national life does not involve any discussion of what is pleasing to God. Our national life has lost the "Fear of God," the reverence for God that is the ancient hallmark of men and women of moral character.
  
• 
  Although a longer discussion of the common values of the founding Fathers as "Deists" those who settled religious differences by referring to their common God not as the God of the Hebrew, Christians or Muslims, but as the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth -- The God of Nature... would shed light on many of the relativst dramas of our day, the simplicity of the commonly held biblical values have been torn to shreds.

The main idea behind this series of blogs is to investigate modern issues in terms of this Deist logic. Why? Not because I am a Deist, but as a political voice, each person seeks an area of widest appeal. I suppose even a Transcendentalist or two could get into the act. Finally, not because I'm a Darwinist, --indeed, the fight for "true science" is central to the tenets of "Deists" in the public arena for a free nation-- but because the Darwin theory of natural evolution is the most widely accepte theory of nature, this theory will be the one primarily referenced. Perhaps we can get even a few hopeless athiests to come along for the ride.