Exerpts from LaVarr Christensen’s A Principled Understanding of Same-Sex Politics:
I remember it well. It was 2003 and the Massachusetts Supreme Court had stunned our country with its own radical and unprecedented ruling. They ordered the State of Massachusetts, based on their state Constitution, to immediately grant full, legal recognition of marriage to same-sex couples. Then, in California, after 4.6 million people sought to define the definition of marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman, because they didn’t have the second sentence that we have now adopted in Amendment 3, the California Legislature circumvented the will of the people. They created a parallel system of “domestic partner” legislation. Even now in California, the City of San Francisco and the opponents of “Proposition 8” are appealing the election outcome back to the same Supreme Court whose radical and unprecedented opinion prompted the overriding vote of the people in the first place. What a dizzy series of events.
We can see both the principle and the potential precedent in all this. We choose to oppose those proposals that seek to classify and treat same-sex couples as virtual equivalents of marriage and then compel the official sanctioning and public recognition of same-sex unions.
Again, we stress that all citizens, including same-sex couples, already have full freedom to make hospital visits, transfer property by deed and through inheritance by will, purchase life insurance policies, buy and sell property, and obtain employment.
California’s Proposition 8 was an important moral issue that directly affects the future of traditional marriage throughout our country. No state legislature, no elected branch of government, no direct or indirect manifestation of “We the People” has yet consciously and knowingly tried to redefine marriage and extend it to same-gender couples. However, if the people of California had chosen to ratify the earlier decision of four judges who claimed authority to set aside and disregard the prior direct vote of 4.6 million citizens of their state, that important constitutional principle and precedent would surely be in jeopardy. I am extremely grateful for the 6.8 million voters and all those who contributed so much to the success of Proposition 8 in California.
Same-sex marriage advocates never mention or acknowledge the weight of compelling judicial opinions that uphold traditional marriage nor the fact that 40 states have now adopted either constitutional amendments or statutes to limit marriage to the legal union of a man and a woman.
The whole concept of same-sex marriage falsely assumes that men and women are interchangeable and children are so adaptable that there is no desired norm in our society anymore other than the personal pleasure of adults involved in whatever relationship they may choose to form. In reality, however, as Maggie Gallagher has stated:
“Men and women are not interchangeable units. Sex has a meaning beyond immediate pleasure. Society needs babies, children need mothers and fathers; marriage is a word for the way we join men and women together to make the future happen.”