The venom of gay activist groups towards President-elect Obama over his choice of Reverend Rick Warren to lead his inaugural prayer reveals the extreme hatred and intolerance on the far left. These gay activist groups are so self-absorbed that they neither acknowledge the magnanimity of President Elect Obama nor the universal right of every man and woman to pray publically on behalf of all despite their sins of against mere political orthodoxy.

Perhaps the first thing that came to the minds of many who heard Reverend Rick Warren’s named to lead the inaugural prayer for President-elect Barrack Obama was “graciousness.” Perhaps the most important moments of the early campaign occurred in Reverend Warren’s church when the President Elect sat before religious conservatives and shared his view on a variety of issues relevant to all Americans. Besides bravely putting aside the notion that he would govern according to the view of his longtime Chicago pastor by going to church with the Republicans also, the open honest forum was one of the only bright spots in John McCain’s campaign. President-elect Obama’s acknowledgment of Reverend Warren was an olive branch to an entire spectrum of the electorate that has fundamental disagreements with the future 44^th President of the United States. In that recognition of Obama’s graciousness, one is naturally drawn to appreciate a religious figure who held honest policy differences with a powerful political figure and yet remained on friendly terms. Reverend Warrens’ ability to transcend narrowly held political ideologies in view of the larger human concerns was only echoed by President-elect Obama’s request for the man to lead an the inaugural prayer.

If President Bush, in retrospect, bemoans his attempt at raising the tone of political discourse in Washington as a failure, he was perhaps, premature. Then again, perhaps not. Within a heartbeat of Barrack Obama’s magnanimous gesture, gay right activists were doing everything but burning crosses on Warren’s church lawn in order to brand the clergyman as a bigot. Likewise, with equal intolerance, they complained bitterly that the president-elect had chosen a person to pray who did not represent “all Americans.” One must assume that these groups would never pray with Reverend Warren no matter who graciously he extended the invitation. However, the reason for their refusal is Reverend Warren’s intolerance. This is the continuing lie propounded by the gay marriage crowd. If you don’t endorse gay marriage, you are a homophobe bigot. In general, any group that insists that men and women pretend that others are married so that they feel “included” must be selfish to the core. This was once again plainly shown by the invidious bile spewed in President-elect Obama’s face by gay activist groups that are self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and harshly intolerant of the views of others.

These activists are plainly not victims. The precursor to all persecution is to establish the sinfulness of one’s opponent’s position. If you have and extreme disagreement with your opponent’s doctrinal position, you demonize the opposition and attack his or her credibility. After one’s credibility has been diminished and your opponent isolated, the persecutions begin. No one is persecuting homosexuals in 21^st century America; however, the left is endeavoring to demonize those whose views on choice and matrimony they disagree with. The result would be to brand certain religious beliefs as a national heresy.

The far left groups are, on a personal level, trying to injure Reverend Warren and his standing, not only in terms of his political views, but as a spiritual person. This should be off the table and not part of the discussion. Reverend Warren may disagree with some on the left in a political sense, but Pastor Warren’s right to pray or lead prayer in a land were religious freedom is our most precious inheritance should never be impinged. President-elect Obama is correct, Reverend Warren’s spirituality and his standing as person whose religious values are sincere should be off the table when it comes to inauguration politics.

While some argue that the people of California are not worthy of the initiative process the state constitution liberally grants its citizens, the very heart of California's law disagrees. The ballot initiative process is not a twentieth century libertarian whim cooked up by 1960's radicals. Instead, it was adopted to directly address the challenges and pressures of a representative government in the modern era.

California's Constitution's Preamble is the usual: "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." This is a wonderful echo of the age of the founding fathers of the United States of America. However section 1 of the first article of California's constitution is not the unusual: "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." This has a bold and defiant tone, the tone of those who have had enough of pretense and hypocrisy. These are grave and solemn declarations. They are the words of men and women who have had some experience being vigilant in the great and ongoing struggle for liberty. Surprisingly, the rest of California's constitution lives up to these brave words. That's not usual either.

For these very self-evident reasons, any refusal by four judges to enact Proposition 8, by describing it as a revision, would to be to drastically alter the heart of California's constitution.

The Constitution of California is a living document, but its life is not ultimately in the hands of a Supreme Court, and its breath does not wait on a two thirds majority of the state legislature. California's constitution is specifically designed to live and breathe with the people of California. Nor was this done for light and transient causes. California's constitution is borne from the lessons of the undergraduate School of Error and graduate school of Painful Experience in this Land of Opportunity.

Of all the states in the union, California has the most experience with constitutions. California drafted its original constitution in coordination with a military proclamation shortly following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California then redrafted its constitution only thirty years later. It was in this second draft of its constitution that California began its loathing of political authorities and its love of the initiative and referendum process. Finally, after years of committee analysis, in 1966 California used the mechanisms within the 1897 draft to significantly revise its constitution. This it did with a constitutional convention and approval of the electorate. Ultimately, the revision committee completed the final part of its revision process with a series of tailor made ballot initiatives (CPS 6). Hence, if California's constitution is one of the most liberal in the union, it is a political path based, not on naïveté , but on experience. In other words, if California gives greater authority to its electorate than any other state, it is because California has learned from its history. Its institutions recognize that those in authority are often as impervious to truth as they are imperfect in character. California's limits on its Supreme Court Justices, as set out in terms of recall and elective terms, is not done without a very clear understanding of the challenges to freedom that arise in every generation, even in nations governed as constitutional and democratic republics.

The problem with the founding father's notion of an independent judiciary is that our forefathers benignly believed that the check on judges would be the laws and the constitutional documents they embodied. California discovered that such a check was not always convenient. While, on one hand, California gives its chief justice tremendous powers over the interpretation and the culture of interpretation that surrounds California's laws, the consequences of its painful experiences with the powerful forces of large business interests during the Civil War period left the people of this state with an extremely sober view of every element of representative government, including the judiciary. California's judiciary is one of the least independent in the nation. While judges are appointed by the governor, the judges are subject to reelection every twelve years. Furthermore, they are subject to recall at any time by way of the recall petition process.

It would not be beyond imagination then to conceive of a unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of the proponents of Proposition 8, and that is as it should be according to California law. In the United States Constitution five judges closely divided with four others in the interpretation of the federal constitution plus the silence of the legislature can equal, in practical terms, via stare decisis, an amendment or a revision or of the constitution. Of course the more divided the judiciary, the more divided the legislature, so, in the course of time, judges have often changed the constitutional rudiments of our federal laws. In California, though, the people must also remain silent for a judicial opinion, an interpretation of the law to become, via stare decisis, an amendment to or a drastic revision of the California constitution.

In the matter of Proposition 8 and Proposition 22, Californians were not silent. They thought long and hard; twice Californians have clarified the definition of marriage. This may have been an altogether silly exercise forced on them from above, but it was, nonetheless, a gracious and constitutional one. All those who oppose that definition ought to accept the verdict in the gracious spirit in which it was legally and duly offered. The definition of marriage Californians have declared doesn't harm anyone, and it does apply equally applied to all. Homosexuals may also get married to one member of the opposite sex, just like every other Californian. Californians do not hold anyone's sexual orientation against them. The people of California have never been perfect, and they are not now. California's constitution though, isn't bad. Other states ought to follow California's example of liberally granting the final say and authority to the people. After all, where do all constitutions that are worth the ink originate?

Information is power if power has already been granted to you. Indeed, in California great political authority has already been granted to its citizens. That power is our history and our legacy, for the California Constitution in Article 2 Section 1 reads: "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 voters of California have recently reformed their state by way of a ballot initiative called Proposition 8. This was a reformation because marriage in California (and in all the world) has always been between a man and a woman. Only in recent months did our justices deem it fit to alter our state laws and our constitution. Because the justices are sworn to uphold the constitution, not alter it, they should be recalled for the failure to discharge their duties. The people of California have also been granted this right. It is within our authority as states Article 2 Section 13: "Recall is the power of the electors to remove an elective officer," and, as the constitutional framers saw fit, in California Supreme Court Justices are elected, not appointed; Article 2 Section 16a: "Judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected at large and judges of courts of appeal shall be elected in their districts at general elections at the same time and places as the Governor. Their terms are 12 years beginning the Monday after January 1 following their election." Because California Supreme Court Justices are not appointed as they are under the federal constitution, but elected, they are subject to recall by the electorate.

The constitutional framers made the manner of recall very simple. The recall process has two parts. Both of these parts are stated plainly in Article 2 Section 14a. The first is: "Recall of a state officer is initiated by delivering to the Secretary of State a petition alleging reason for recall. Sufficiency of reason is not reviewable." The petition to remove these elected officials is "not reviewable." That means that the voters could say, "We the people of California petition for the removal of these four Supreme Court Justices because they are dumb dumb heads, and we don't like them any more." Such a claim could not be rejected on legal grounds; however, such simplicity might not be considered overly persuasive either. Nonetheless, the point is that the California Constitution makes this matter simple because its intent is that the people of California, not its lawyers or its judges, define the nature and scope of our laws.

Those who choose to circulate a petition to recall each of these four judges might contemplate a petition that says:

"We the people of California, petition for the recall of Chief Justice Ronald M. George, Associate Justice Joyce L. Kennard, Associate Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar, and Associate Justice Carlos R. Moreno for the following reasons:

Unless one is of an unsound mind, seeks personal aggrandizement, or sets himself above the body of laws and the constitution he has taken an oath to uphold, the historic documents surrounding the constitution and the historic contexts of the documents surrounding the family law of California cannot be construed to include homosexuality as a suspect category in civil right laws: these are plainly limited to race, religion and gender.

The historic documents of California and the body of documentation surrounding California can not be held to imply or refer to a right for same sex couples to pretend to marriage by law, and any such conclusion is evidence of an unsound mind, self seeking, or a judicial hubris that pretends to be above the body of laws embodied in the constitution of California he swore to uphold.

In altering the Constitution of California and the body of laws it embodies, this jurist has undermined the civil right to marry for all couples; he has reduced marriage to a mere legal contract defined by states rather than upholding the court's legitimate responsibility to recognize the union of a man and a woman. This is an ancient contract between two people based on exalting that which nature and the God of nature has set within the heart of all people everywhere without regard to race, religion or gender. This fundamental joining, like the right to free speech, like the right to worship in accordance with our conscience, like the right to free movement and like the right to defend oneself against tyrants and any who would threaten life and property, exists prior to governments and any government that refuses to recognize such rights is illegitimate.

In altering the Constitution of California and the body of laws it embodies, these jurists have undermined civil society, civil conversation, and the peace of this great state, for we have had untold expenditures of time and money resulting only in increased acrimony and civil unrest. This is entirely the fault of this Court. Rather than undermining the documents and laws of this land designed for the express purpose of maintaining civil discourse, a democratic union and the peace of this people, this court could have urged the plaintiffs in "re Marriages" to utilize the ballot initiatives to democratically amend our State's Constitution. Instead, this court has purposely misrepresented the documents of our state and deceived many of its unwitting populace into feeling that it has "rights" it never received in accordance with the democratic principles of our society.

The ruling of this court expresses an explicit intent to order state representatives to deceive others by applying the historic name and honor of the institution of "marriage" on unions that have no history at all. This legislated fraud would have constituted a tyranny and would have affected young children of every race, religion and gender from the tender ages in which they enter our public school system.

"A petition to recall a statewide officer must be signed by electors equal in number to 12 percent of the last vote for the office, with signatures from each of 5 counties equal in number to 1 percent of the last vote for the office in the county. Signatures to recall Senators, members of the Assembly, members of the Board of Equalization, and judges of courts of appeal and trial courts must equal in number 20 percent of the last vote for the office. (b) The Secretary of State shall maintain a continuous count of the signatures certified to that office."

 Obama's plan to "spread the wealth" must destroy wealth and Europe's plan to nationalize banks will wreck the wealth of nations. These are things any good student of Marxism understands plainly. Karl Marx's vision of a workers' paradise also involved ridding society of mothers and fathers. Marxist Communism was never about utopia. It was always about totalitarianism. It's amazing how close to his vision we are getting.

Spreading the wealth around is an idea at least as old as Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program in which he wrote: “From each according to his ability to each according to his need.” To Marx this notion was a transitional principle leading to the workers’ paradise. It was part of the “dictatorship of the working class.” Ultimately, Marx desired that there would be no wealth to spread around. He desired the abolition of capital. That is, Marx envisioned the abolition of the means to relate to others in terms of employer and wage earner. It was an idea that never worked very well. Why? Have you noticed the flaw in Marxist logic? If there is no capital, there can be no wage earners, or in other words, no jobs. Therefore, Marxism leads to the absence of wealth!  If you study Obama’s tax plan you can see that he desires the abolition of capital also. Even if jobs cannot be generated, even if the United States is in the middle of a recession where jobs are getting scarcer every day, Obama is sticking to Marxist transitional principles.

Although some five star generals might not like to hear it, illogical notions don’t work in the real world. Because of the failure of these Marxist ideas in practice, as well as on the drawing board, one almost suspects the motivation of anyone in any government who proposes them. On one level the motivation seems plain. The appeal of Marxism can be outwardly pleasant. When we humans don’t get what they want, it feels very unfair to us. It is easy to demand fairness instead of responsibility, and it is even easier to promise to make things fair by taking some one else’s property and making a gift of it to those who desire “fairness.” As a parent my response to the fairness argument has always been, “You bet life’s not fair, and a good thing it’s not! We live in America and other’s don’t. What’s fair about that?” Well life may be getting fair for those who live in Red China. We’re not far behind. In fact, capital seems to prefer Beijing.

By the way, some wonder whether the United States bank bailout plans will work. Interestingly, here is the fifth of the ten Marxist preconditions for a workers paradise first outlined in the Communist Manifesto: “Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” Pope Paulson I, by the way, is conservative compared to the Europeans. They are completely behind Warren Buffet’s notion of buying up bank stocks to “recapitalize” them into borrowing, but Henry Paulson had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this table. Even now, he only wants to use a quarter of the cool trillion dollars printed by the congress for nationalizing banks. Will such bailout plans work? It depends on what one means by “work.” If one knows history and knows the failure of Marxist theory, one can be certain that the bail out plan will not produce wealth. However if one hates the United States because of its international prestige, its great abundance, and its liberties, and, as a student of Marxism, has been awaiting a crisis of capital to forward the communist agenda for the express purpose of ruining the wealth of nations, this bail out will work perfectly.

By the way Marx had some interesting notions about marriage as well. The Manifesto reads: “Bourgeois (an employer’s or rich person’s) marriage is (because of rampant infidelity), in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed (system of free love), an openly legalized system of free love. Yes, an organized force that disrupts the marriage one’s marriage was part of the plan for a worker’s paradise. So what happened to “the community of women” that would eventually bring an end to the nuclear family? Do we see such institutions in existence today? Ahhh… no. That was another failed Marxist notion.

In general though, the nuclear family appeared to be a threat to the burly bearded communist theorist. Again, the manifesto reads: “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists…” Outside of the revolutionary party’s “community of women” the destruction of the nuclear family would occur without systematic intervention (except by public schools). Once capital had been destroyed, Marx believed, of nature course the workers paradise would feature no mothers and no fathers. Although Marx claimed that “the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation,” he was wrong about that as well. No, it would be a hundred and fifty years before the Supreme Court of California, not the bourgeoisie, did this. Even if you don’t like McCain or Obama, Californians should get themselves to the polls and vote “Yes” on Proposition 8.

A careful read of the Communist Manifesto will reveal its ambitious aims to amass the power of the state in the hands of the few. This, not a workers’ paradise, is what following the Manifesto’s outlines have always achieved for those who have used its perverse arguments to their advantage. If you’ve ever wondered why America, despite its tremendous powers of innovation,  has been increasingly in debt, in the red, since the late fifties, consider some of the other preconditions for Marxist communism that were first set out in 1847. Precondition #2: A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Precondition #3: Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Precondition #10: Free education for all children in public schools… That’s why we need the flat tax, school vouchers and to protect traditional marriage. We need to say no to the Obamanation.

There are many powerful people who purport to believe that religion, "the opiate of the people (Karl Marx)," is a scourge on humanity. Altruists, they purport to genuinely believe that society would be better if all religions, especially Christianity, were expunged from planet earth.

That's not a constitutional view of course. Freedom of religion is as sacred as the freedom of speech. Like the right to marry, it is part of what is innate in people and what is part of who we are as humans prior to government. It's self-evident, no matter what one believes about religion, that governments need to, as much as is possible, keep out of the business of policing religion. Any law or ordinance that puts government into the business of arbitrating religious belief should be shunned. Indeed, governments ought to be in the business of promoting and exalting those freedoms that abound in a free people. This includes the "right to marry" and the practice of religion openly and freely.

The ACLU may believe in the right of same-sex couples to call their unions a marriage too. That's fine; however, if Reverend James Wilson is correct, perhaps it has a more nefarious agenda in mind. Perhaps there is a secret treasure to be exhumed from the corpse of our mangled California family law. With a victory against Proposition 8 in hand, perhaps the ACLU can end religion in public life completely. We will be able to think religious thoughts, but we will not be able to either speak our beliefs or practice them in public.

Reverend James Wilson wrote in his September 15 article "Proposition 8 protects freedom of religion" at Reading.com that:

"The state Supreme Court decision OK'ing civil rights laws for suppression of doctors' consciences is part of an alarming pattern. The decision held doctors liable after they refused for religious reasons to inseminate a lesbian. The doctors referred her; there was no injury to the woman as she was inseminated and gave birth. But the court said doctors lose their right to free speech and religion when licensed to practice medicine in California. And if the experience of northern Europe and Canada is any indicator pastors will lose those rights should Proposition 8 fail in November. That is because courts in those nations have found pastors (and any who express politically incorrect views) guilty of hate speech.':"

One would ordinarily think this is ridiculously alarmist, but reading the series of bilious comments by readers of Wilson's article gave me pause. Here are several:

"Rev. James Wilson, it's a shame you don't follow Jesus' teachings to love one another instead of spreading hate like this column.
Practice what you preach."
You have no idea what the Bible says, do ya...

Rev. Wilson did not quote the Bible, but anyone who has read Romans chapter 1 knows that he did not quote it out of courtesy.

"He's just being a hypocrite."
it IS "hate speech", MR. Wilson (you don't deserve to be addressed as "Reverend" - that title should be reserved for people who attempt to reflect God's love and compassion in their lives).

Rev. Wilson's most controversial line was that "love without truth is not love." I admit that I've picked some of the most obvious examples of spiteful disregard found in the reader comments. Nonetheless, Reverend Wilson's article is simply one of a tremendous variety of instances in which the volume of the spiteful ad hominem attacks increases exponentially when faith is mentioned at all. The raw enmity expressed in any number of reader comments associated with those expressing religious disagreements with homosexuality itself is a firestorm. Whether the religion is Roman Catholic, Mormon, or Muslim, the hate as furious as it is obvious.

In accorddance with my nature,I had to get into the act. I commented:

"The Reverend's article, although restricted to an audience of Bible believing Christians, nevertheless proves its broader point by the overwhelming anger and hate personally directed at its author for his faith. Are we to trust any movement that so indiscriminately hates those who offer reasonable disagreements with it based on personal religious beliefs?"

Since my post was not faith based, the response I received from a fellow reader, "specialK" was reasonable and well-measured:

"It's not for his faith, rather his active campaigning to rescind and eliminate the civil rights of a small minority of citizens when he himself and the majority here enjoy the legal recognition of your primary relationship. To claim that his rights are being impinged on because I now have the same, or shall I say, equal civil (not religious mind you) rights, should not in any way interfere with the Rev's religion. The hate must only be coming from those who suffer from ignorance and fear."

However, "specialK"'s response was not to the point. He, like many, did not see that freedom of speech and freedom of religion could be impacted by the laws of California. He (or she) thinks that it is alarmist to assume that letting same-sex couples say they're married could, in any way, impact freedom of religion. Still, the motive of those seeking to defeat Proposition 8 should be relevant to us. Is the motive of those who seek to defeat Proposition 8 less government? Plainly not. If it is more government, then what is it they most seek to govern? Likewise, all voters might want to ask, what segment of society are the opponents of Proposition 8 most willing disparage?'

My articles have not been addressed to a faith audience, and so, because I understand the nature of our competitive Western society in which we take adversarial positions in order pursue the truth, I haven't been particularly troubled by readers who ignore my arguments and then endeavor to defame me because my thesis is disagreeable to them. That's all part of the American smear machine we call our national discourse. Even though the often decried ad hominem attack is a well-known logical fallacy, it is as beloved of 21st century America as apple pie and college football.

I also recognize that very often the more intense and unnecessarily disagreeable disagreements contain a question not answered in an article. That intensity is not what I'm writing about. There is a significant difference, an intense intolerance, shown by opponents of Proposition 8 to those who have religious beliefs. They feel entitled to this intolerance. Voters who value religious freedom should be hesitant to ally themselves with such disdain of the sacred and those who believe.

Besides, who knows, perhaps there is something sacred about humanity. Who knows maybe there is something true in these ancient religions handed down from the mists of time. I know, I can hear the barrage coming now... This article is not for them; it's for you.

 

Accepting the Supreme Court's rewrite of our constitution is the wrong way to pursue gay marriage. Here are some reasons why:

1. It is a power grab by the government. Now only the government has the right to say what a marriage is.... and courts at that. Previously marriage was a marriage no matter what a government said.

2. It contracts the definition of marriage. It doesn’t' expand it. Gay couples are not "married." The court has simply denied marriage to all. We can now only become "Party A" and "Party B."

3. The court has ordered everyone to deceive his neighbor by using the word "marriage" in a manner consistent of the joining of a man and a woman when now it doesn't mean even that.

4. The California laws violate basic civil liberties. These civil liberties (the right to marry for instance) should be precious to all Americans, but certainly to true Republicans.

5. The California law is so bad it puts the issue into the hands of federal courts.

Everyone is running around campaigning for things that are not the issue. Wake up, we are being deceived again.

The Supreme Court of California did not increase the value of domestic partnerships; instead, it devalued and dehumanized the notion of marriage, writing marriage, as most understand it, completely out of California law. The result is a massive, unconstitutional, increase in the scope of government. Members of the gay community should be as troubled as every other Californian about this radical increase in government. Surely, this is not what the gay community expected. Additionally, people who would otherwise have had no animus towards the gay community will begin to see it as partners in this court’s deception and tyranny. For instance, in “cheating a little” the court seems to have conferred, on certain Californians, the right to deceive others. 

Deceiving people is what the Court has, directly or indirectly, sanctioned by its discussion of “privacy rights” on page 105 below:

“Plaintiffs point out that one consequence of the coexistence of two parallel types of familial relationship (marriage and domestic partnerships) is that — in the numerous everyday social, employment, and governmental settings in which an individual is asked whether he or she “is married or single” — an individual who is a domestic partner and who accurately responds to the question by disclosing that status will (as a realistic matter) be disclosing his or her homosexual orientation, even if he or she would rather not do so under the circumstances and even if that information is totally irrelevant in the setting in question.”

The opinion of the majority in re Marriage Cases explains that disclosing one’s sexual orientation is protected under a right to privacy, but the Court’s resolution of the issue should not be to sanction intentional deception as a remedy. Under this court’s ruling same sex couples may mislead an employer, whether it is a government office or a private enterprise, by leading individuals to believe that their status is heterosexual. That is, they may rest assured that when they say they are “married,” their employer, insurance company, or fertility clinic will understand the ordinary sense of the word and assume they are heterosexual. Doesn't it seem that the court recognizes that the high goal of “equality” justifies deception as a means to achieving that end? Should we assume that the Court, with its own high view of equality, felt that, for itself too, deception as practically necessary is a dogma worthy of application? Even if we occasionally tell the white lie, Supreme Court Justices are under oath. If we conclude that they purposely employed deception in their ruling, no only should we vote “yes” on Proposition 8, but we should recall these judges.

The deceptions above, seemingly advocated by the Court, could well have potentially serious implications for insurance, credit, and medical institutions. Although the court rightly recognized that some of these requests for information are not relevant, the discretion on when to deceive seems to be entirely in the hands of a member of a same sex partnership.

Some may argue that the destruction of the word marriage would result in “marriage” would no longer implying heterosexuality. Hence, there would be no deception. However, until the process of reconstructing documents in which one’s sexual orientation is necessary information and, instance by instance, allowing courts to decide upon this necessity, many instances of deception on important matters will have been perpetrated and seemingly sanctioned by this Court.

Such deception is simply not a necessary instrument for achieving equality in the United States of America. No one can seriously imagine women seeking equal opportunity by bubbling in "man" on their employment applications. No, in order to equalize the playing field women proudly declared their gender and insisted on access. In fact, African Americans all the more proudly declared their ethnicity as they demanded the equal rights they were entitled to under the law.

Secrecy is no ally of civil rights, so why does the Court appear to confer the right to deceive on a special segment of California? There are other instances of seemingly innocuous kinds of misleading evidence or overly euphemistic uses of legal jargon (such as “family relationships” and “family units). However, the most dangerous element of re Marriage Cases is that it has so altered the meaning of marriage that when most citizens say marriage they mean something that is entirely different than what is meant by marriage in California’s law.

People should vote “Yes” on Proposition 8 because it will put a very deceptive Court Ruling out of business. This is the first of a series of posts which expose elements of the Court’s deceptiveness. This deceptiveness is important to defeat because the deceptive languages and practices employed by the Court will become part of California’s legal structures and culture. This first post handles the use of a new deceptive legal terminology involving the English word “family.”Here, from Dictionary.com:

“Family – 1. parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not. 2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family. 3. the spouse and children of one person: We're taking the family on vacation next week…”

There are thirteen definitions of family given on Dictionary.com. All of the definitions, even the idiomatic ones, explicitly include or figuratively imply children. In “re Marriages…” the California Supreme Court defines the union of same sex couples as a “family” relationship. It is by this euphemism that the Court names the congress of couples heterosexual and homosexual.

Could the court have picked a more deceptive title to describe the relationship that is the basis of a domestic partnership? From this relationship no family can ever, by nature, grow.

All through its judicial history California has used the words marriage and family appropriately. For instance, here is a direct quote from a 1995 case cited in Judge George’s opinion:

“And in Warfield v. Peninsula Golf & Country Club (1995) 10 Cal.4th 594, in discussing the types of relationship that fall within the scope of the constitutionally protected right of intimate association (one component of our state constitutional right of privacy (id. at pp. 629-630)), we [Judge George himself is the we because, in his office as a Judge of the Supreme Court of California, he wrote the court’s opinion] explained that “the highly personal relationships that are sheltered by this constitutional guaranty are exemplified by ‘those that attend the creation and sustenance of a family — marriage . . . , childbirth . . . , the raising and education of children . . . and cohabitation with one’s relatives . . . [page 56].

The comment in brackets and the emboldened text added for clarification show that in 1995 the Supreme Court of California, and its current chief justice Ronald George, knew the difference between a marriage and a family. Marriages were part of the creation of a family. The raising and education of children were part of the sustenance of a family. In 1996 Supreme Court Judge Ronald George was elevated to Chief Justice.

However, by 2003 that the legislature of California introduced confused language into the jurisprudence of the state with this uncodified statement of legislative intent:

"This act is intended to help California move closer to fulfilling the promises of inalienable rights, liberty, and equality contained in Sections 1 and 7 of Article 1 of the California Constitution by providing all caring and committed couples, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, the opportunity to obtain essential rights, protections, and benefits and to assume corresponding responsibilities, obligations, and duties and to further the state’s interests in promoting stable and lasting family relationships, and protecting Californians from the economic and social consequences of abandonment, separation, the death of loved ones, and other life crises” [Stats. 2003, ch. 421, § 1, subd. (a) excerpted from page 38 “re Marriages…”].

It is unclear from the immediate context what the legislature intended by “in promoting lasting family relationships…” This may refer to the resolution of problems same sex couples had gaining access to loved ones during hospital stays. The domestic partnership act made one’s partner [Party A] a legal member of party B’s extended family. In that way, despite objections by Party A’s immediate family, Party B had full access and legal authority over Party A’s medical care.

By 2005 the change of language from confused wording to deceptive jargon was completely effected:

As we (Judge George in his office of the Chief Justice of Supreme Court of California in its majority opinion) explained in Koebke, supra, 36 Cal.4th 824, 843: “[T]he decision . . . to enter into a domestic partnership is more than a change in the legal status of individuals . . . . [T]he consequence[] of the decision is the creation of a new family unit with all of its implications in terms of personal commitment as well as legal rights and obligations” (excerpted from page 46 of “re Marriages…”).

In this quote from the 2005 majority opinion in Kobke vs. Bernardo Club Country Club, the court plainly uses the terms family unit and domestic partnership synonymously. What is new in the court’s jargon in “re Marriages” is the wider use of “family relationship” to mean marriage and domestic partnership. It is in this 2008 opinion that the Court has simply decided to dispense with dictionaries, histories, statutes, or linguistic contexts of any type. Whether or not members of this court participated in making this deceptive change in the jargon for the express purpose of deception in “re Marriage Cases” is an open question. The prior use of the unclear language of legislative intent in the 2003 to express the Court’s opinion in 2005 can be argued as an authentic representation of the liberal intent of the California Legislature.

In the evolution of the jargon of the California judiciary, it becomes plain that “marriage” is now only what a court says it is. In the Court’s eyes the consummating act of marriage is not required, nor is it recognized. Sadly, like marriages, “families” too are now no more or no less than what some court decides they are.

Anytime a basic civil right, an inalienable right, whether enumerated in the U.S. Constitutional documents or not, is violated by a government, that government is dehumanized, the citizens participating in that government are dehumanized, and, of course, those having their constitutional liberties abridged are dehumanized. Consider the cases in Nazi Germany in which Jews were made to wear a yellow Star of David. The Nazi’s ignored the basic and self-evident equality among ethnicities in order to single Jews out as less human, deprived of the dignity of equality. The most devious of the Nazi aims, however, had to do with dehumanizing the populace of Germany itself. By refusing to stand up for their fellow humans, the people of German civil society became callus towards the Jews. Ultimately, the Nazi’s themselves became more and more unfeeling towards human life and the plight of their fellow man. Of course the dehumanization of the German Jew was exponentially quickened because essential religious freedom to worship was likewise stigmatized. Two sets of essential civil liberties were abridged by the Nazis at once. Yet, could the Jews have claimed to have been harmed by wearing the yellow star of David? Shouldn’t they have been proud of their religious background? The wearing of the star was the first of a continuing series of Nazi violations of civil liberties, but the dehumanization of the Jew was already complete before the clear harm began. This prima facia violation of human rights was the harm.

Likewise, no matter how one wants to interpret the odd wording of the 2nd amendment of the United States Constitution, humans in a state of nature, without government, have the right to take up arms and defend themselves. Although the choice is intimidating to some, it must be; for that is the essence of self defense. The right to defend oneself is a severe right that elevates all human life by its severity. The choice to bear arms or not to bear arms defines human character, but it is still a fundamental free choice, a liberty that is part of being human. Although, as the U. S. Supreme Court found, to protect the general welfare and to secure the blessings of all our liberties, the state, as authorized by the people, has the right to limit the liberty to bear arms, court or no court, court or no court the right to self defense must not be compromised.

The District of Columbia completely abridged the right to bear arms and the right of self defense thereby. Law abiding citizens, then, are completely reduced to dependency on government for their defense. They become no more than serfs of the Dark Ages dependent on their feudal lords for defense. They become the chattel of the state, the property of the state. Their humanity is compromised. The state too is dehumanized, for it becomes like a feudal lord, above those whom it exists solely to serve. Yet, how are those that were refused the right to bear arms for many years in DC harmed? There is only slight evidence of that harm. The NRA often points to the rise in violent crime in areas in which the right to bear arms is constrained severely. This may be simply the obvious result of the criminals being emboldened by an unarmed populace. However, it may be that the dehumanizing effects of the abridgement of the right to bear arms emboldens those who contemplate violence.

How do these tests of the abridgement of constitutional liberties relate to the recent ban on marriage in California? In both of these instances, laws abridging human rights have plainly existed without any clear harm initially being found. Both instances are also examples of the truth that any abridgement of a civil liberty dehumanizes the state and its citizens. In California there are no more marriages. Men and women cannot receive a marriage license that says “husband” and “wife”; instead, they become “Party A” and “Party B.” This language is plainly dehumanizing, and it is not the happenstance of nomenclature. The ruling of the Supreme Court of California and its accompanying opinion wreaks with violations of civil liberties and a callus, inhuman refusal to acknowledge the very essence of what it means for a man and woman to join in matrimony.

California’s Court has reduced marriage to only that over which the state has authority. It has looked at all the clothing of marriage and called these changing incidentals ‘marriage’; but the Court has ruled to ignore that unchanging reality of marriage that forms the basis of marriage as a constitutional liberty. In every case, a constitutional liberty is such because its reality is greater than man; its power is independent of governments. It is because of such fundamental liberties’ superiority and priority to government that good governments reside in harmony with these native, inborn rights natural to humanity. Good government perceives that these greater, natural, freedoms are the very blessings of liberty that governments exist, solely, to secure. Marriage is such a liberty because it is more than contracts and commitments conferred by the state. The duties of marriage proceed from the joining in marriage, not from government. This joining for which men and woman were designed (whether by natural selection of by the hand of the God of Nature Himself), this is the very essence of marriage the State refuses to acknowledge. Refusing the title of “husband” and “wife” is not the happenstance of nomenclature; it is evidence that the State of California refuses to acknowledge the essence of marriage, the joining in marriage, that is central to marriage as a constitutional liberty.

Because the state of California, through the voice of its Supreme Pontiffs, manifestly recognizes only those social rights involved in marriage, and because the essence of my marriage, my ‘right to marry,’ to join with my partner as husband and wife, is no longer recognized by California law, my constitutional right to marry is completely abridged. It is in the essence of humanity, male and female, to be able to freely join in marriage. California has a right to regulate marriage, even as the District of Columbia has a right to regulate the right to bear arms, but California does not have the right to legislate marriage out of existence, to deny its reality, and to ignore its core humanity. To designate marriage as a simple set of rights society chooses by tradition to assign dehumanizes us all