Dana at CSPT explains why same sex marriage is a fait accompli.
Even if the California initiative passes, it could not invalidate any same-sex marriages performed and recognized by the Golden State prior to passage; such would be an ex post facto law, and inherently unconstitutional. If the proposed state constitutional amendment tried to hold such marriages as invalid, the whole thing will be thrown out as unconstitutional; if it has an exemption for those unions legalized between June 17 and passage, that would leave California in the odd position of recognizing existing same-sex marriages, but allowing no more. That hardly seems workable to me.
New York will be the next state. Governor David Paterson’s directive to state agencies that they recognize same sex marriages performed elsewhere will, if not struck down by the legislature, leave the Empire State in the odd position of recognizing same-sex marriages for people living in New York, as long as they were performed elsewhere, while not allowing such within the state. That’s another wholly unworkable situation.
I don’t at all like the idea that such is being imposed on a clearly reluctant society by judicial fiat, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize a fait accompli when I see one.
I've stated many times over the last year that while I personally don't approve of same sex marriage, I can live with it, provided voters choose to recognize it. Like abortion, having judges determine that the rest of us are simply wrong is more likely to delay acceptance of gay marriage rather than accelerate it. At let's put this in the most honest terms possible: black people and women found ways to persuade enough people of the rightness of their cause. Homosexuals should be willing to go the hard route, as well.
I can't help but wonder what these same supporters of judicial remedies for all ills would say if judges were making quite the opposite decisions. That is, instead of discovering unseen, hidden rights in well and plainly written documents like the Constitution, what if judges determined that various "rights" did not exist? Indeed, the caterwauling from the Left about the conservative swing of the Roberts Court was breathtaking. Oddly, most Americans seem to agree with the Roberts Court in the cases the Left hates. Exactly who is out of step here?
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