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ebonlockI just can't help squeeing a bit, even if it's a short term victory:
Calif. judge strikes down gay marriage ban
Ruling says there is 'no rational purpose' for limiting unions
SAN FRANCISCO - A judge ruled Monday that California can no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman, a legal milestone that if upheld on appeal would pave the way for the nation’s most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed.
In an opinion that had been awaited because of San Francisco’s historical role as a gay rights battleground, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.
“It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners,” Kramer wrote.
The judge wrote that the state’s historical definition of marriage, by itself, cannot justify the unconstitutional denial of equal protection for gays and lesbians and their right to marry.
“The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional,” Kramer wrote.
Kramer’s decision came in a pair of lawsuits seeking to overturn California’s statutory ban on gay marriage. They were brought by the city of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couples last March, after the California Supreme Court halted the four-week marriage spree Mayor Gavin Newsom had initiated when he directed city officials to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians in defiance of state law.
I have to say, though, that this paragraph just boggled my mind:
Two groups opposed to gay marriage rights, The Campaign for California Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, argued that the state has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation.
So the state is in the business of encouraging procreation? Um...since when? And why the hell didn't I get this memo?
Calif. judge strikes down gay marriage ban
Ruling says there is 'no rational purpose' for limiting unions
SAN FRANCISCO - A judge ruled Monday that California can no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman, a legal milestone that if upheld on appeal would pave the way for the nation’s most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed.
In an opinion that had been awaited because of San Francisco’s historical role as a gay rights battleground, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.
“It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners,” Kramer wrote.
The judge wrote that the state’s historical definition of marriage, by itself, cannot justify the unconstitutional denial of equal protection for gays and lesbians and their right to marry.
“The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional,” Kramer wrote.
Kramer’s decision came in a pair of lawsuits seeking to overturn California’s statutory ban on gay marriage. They were brought by the city of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couples last March, after the California Supreme Court halted the four-week marriage spree Mayor Gavin Newsom had initiated when he directed city officials to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians in defiance of state law.
I have to say, though, that this paragraph just boggled my mind:
Two groups opposed to gay marriage rights, The Campaign for California Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, argued that the state has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation.
So the state is in the business of encouraging procreation? Um...since when? And why the hell didn't I get this memo?
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 10:24 pm (UTC)You learn something new every day, huh?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 12:24 am (UTC)So *that's* why the "morals" people are all for abstinence-only, no-contraceptive-information education! The truth is out...
Tongue-in-cheek aside, if Newsome starts marrying people again, we're thinking of having our state nuptials. Want to be a witness?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 12:41 am (UTC)YES! YES! YES!!!!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 12:52 am (UTC)this just in...
Date: 2005-03-15 03:12 am (UTC)http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/national/14cnd-gays.html?hp&ex=1110862800&en=36ac25fbb09fc5d8&ei=5094&partner=homepage
EXCERPT: The judge also dismissed the state's argument that marriage has long been recognized as existing primarily for the sake of producing children. Judge Kramer said it was an "obvious natural and social reality that one does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married."
Setting aside the bar on same-sex marriage will not intrude on the state's legitimate regulation of marriage, like setting a minimum age for effective consent, the judge said. "Thus, the parade of horrible social ills envisioned by the opponents of same-sex marriage is not a necessary result from recognizing that there is a fundamental right to choose who one wants to marry," he wrote.