Redstate

Posted at 10:37am on May 29, 2008 California tolerance.

By Paul J Cella

Suppose you are a government employee in California, authorized to conduct civil marriage ceremonies, and you object on moral or religious grounds to same-sex marriage. According to the plain logic of the California Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month, you are simply a bigot; the spring of your objection is irrational prejudice. There is no ground for tolerance for your views, precisely because your views impinge upon the fundamental rights of others. Recall that even someone (like Senator Obama) of the view that while marriage should remain an institution exclusive to a man and a woman, civil unions should be established for homosexuals, is also a narrow-minded bigot, again according to the force of the Court’s logic.

Fortunately, San Diego County is more magnanimous than the judicial despots of the Court. County employees will not be forced to perform marriage ceremonies to which they have a moral objection. Los Angeles County employees will not be so lucky. Tolerance forbids their objections. Wrote the City Attorney: “County clerks have no legal standing to grant county employees the authority or ability to choose which marriages they wish not to officiate at, based on their personal views or biases. [The Court] has been crystal clear on this issue — same-sex couples must be afforded equal protection under the law.”

It is instructive to observe the machinations of Liberalism on this issue. It is not enough that approval of same-sex marriage be institutionalized in law; disapproval of its opponents, too, must be institutionalized in law. We cannot “agree to disagree,” in the common catchphrase. For a state employee to resist blessing same-sex unions is tantamount to his denial of equal protection to a certain class of people; in short, unconstitutional.

Libertarians can hardly go a day without denouncing the “imposition” of morality by traditionalists; yet the imposition contemplated by Los Angeles County, in accordance with the Court’s clear logic, eludes their attention. In this our dear Libertarians simply resemble Liberals in their quaint innocence of what a public orthodoxy is. To use their cherished parlance, never has there existed a society that did not impose morality. The imposition of morality is a concomitant of social order. No orthodoxy, no society. That Liberals and Libertarians are uncomfortable with words like “orthodoxy” in no way changes the fact that they seek to impose one just like anyone else.

In our country, no one imposes morality like supreme courts. We are at the point where it is possible to answer the question, Who rules America? with a single word: “Courts.” Perhaps someone among out Liberals and Libertarians would like to make a forthright argument for judicial aristocracy. That at least would have the virtue of candor.

Posted in California | Culture | gay marriage | Tolerance — Comments (414)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:17am on Apr. 10, 2008 Losing credibility much?

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

The MSM has just discovered what we've known for months now here in the real world.  The way the Democrats are behaving in Michigan lately is A) not so good and B) could cost them at the polls in November.  For Pete's sake, a recent Rasmussen poll put Republican John McCain ahead of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama here in the Wolverine State, a State that hasn't gone red since 1988.  That's 20 years.  That's longer than a good portion of Right Michigan readers have even been alive.  

Posted in Archived | Barack | Detroit | gay marriage | Hillary | Kwame Kilpatrick | Michigan — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:21pm on Nov. 16, 2007 Spitzer to Push Gay Marriage

By reldim

Promoted from Diaries by Dan McLaughlin.

Because apparently the licenses for illegals debacle wasn't damaging enough, the NY Post reports that Spitzer wants a new Democrat-controlled State Senate to push through the gay-marriage bill the Assembly has already passed this session.

Polling has not shown gay-marriage to be widely popular in New York. A listed poll in the article notes that support for it runs somewhere around 45%, with about an equal number against. Earlier polls showed the opposition to be stronger. Democrats need a 3-seat pickup in the Senate to take control, and in a presidential year, that chance increases. However, between the licenses issue and now this, Spitzer is handing Republican candidates in the rural and even suburban areas of NY new reason to retain their Republican Senators and even to add a few more to the batch.

(Read on)

Posted in Eliot Spitzer | gay marriage | State Politics — Comments (106) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:46pm on Apr. 17, 2007 Where Values & Reality Collide: The Sad Tale of Emma Rose

By Erick

Emma Rose is near her seventh birthday. As she approaches that birthday, she suffers from an inability to read or write well. She cannot solve basic math problems. She wets the bed. In fact, until about the age of six, she was not literate at all. As the clock keeps ticking she becomes less and less literate -- a regression to an abnormal state for a girl of her age due to the reckless disregard by a judge of a basic legal concept.

I've blogged about this before. The Southern Voice, a gay oriented publication in Atlanta, has also written about it. I've been digging around, tracked down a court order in the case, and nearly came to tears. This case is a tragedy where good people are having to confront reality as balanced by their values.

Judge Lee Parrott, a good and decent man and a good judge before whom I've practiced law, unfortunately, has made a poor choice in balancing his values with the reality of a situation. Instead of applying the law and asking the question “what is in the best interests of the child,” the actual issue the judge must determine, Judge Parrott asked, “What is in the best interests of the child on the assumption that what might truly be best is abhorrent to me personally?” The result is tragic.

Please do read on . . .

[Ed's Note] As a point of clarification, Georgia allows adoptions by individuals without regard to their sexual orientation. The judge's task is to determine what is in the best interests of the child, given the child's present circumstances.

Posted in gay adoption | gay marriage | Law — Comments (80)/ Email this page » / Read More »