California Court Redefines Marriage

In a 4-3 decision, the California Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s constitution mandates redefining marriage to include same-sex couples. The decision arose from a lawsuit challenging the state’s definition of marriage following the mayor of San Francisco’s decision to offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004.

The court thus said the question it would address was whether the state could “officially designate” the relationship between opposite-sex couples a marriage and the union of same-sex couples a domestic partnership. The court said the right to marry guaranteed by the California Constitution means “the opportunity of an individual to establish—with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life—an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as a marriage.” The right includes, for the court, “a ‘positive’ right to have the state take at least some affirmative action to acknowledge and support the family unit.”

The court rejected the idea that procreation was central to marriage because people who cannot have children are allowed to marry and the right to marry is as important “to responsible individuals who can be counted upon to take appropriate precautions in planning for parenthood” as to those who might have children without specifically intending to do so. In addition, the court said marriage was important because of the “personal enrichment” it offers to those who marry. The court said “a stable two-parent family relationship, supported by the state’s official recognition and protection” would benefit children raised by same-sex couples.

The crux of the court’s decision was the entirely novel proposition that “sexual orientation” is a special category requiring the highest level of constitutional protection. The court believed a separate status for same-sex couples constitutes “significantly unequal treatment,” and could be understood “as a mark of second-class citizenship” and the state had no compelling interest “in retaining a tradition that excludes an historically disfavored minority group from a status that is extended to all others—even when the tradition is widely shared.”

Three justices dissented in two opinions. The first argued the court does not have the right “to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice.”
posted by William Duncan at 5:05 PM | link

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