California Supreme Court Says the Sky is Green

In 1990, if you had told the average person (including myself) that one of the most divisive issues of the first decade of the Twenty-First Century would be same sex marriage, you probably would have been laughed at. I know that for me personally it wasn't even a blip on the radar of possibilities. But here we are twenty years later and it is one of the most high-profile social issues of our day. Ten years ago, California voters overwhelmingly voted to ban same sex marriages - pre-emptively dealing with the issue just as people started to become aware that this was a potential hot-button. Two and a half years ago, the California Supreme Court finally issued an opinion on the voice of the people (justice moves swiftly here in California, after all).

In the meantime, California voters had passed laws creating what is known as a 'Domestic Partnership'. This new legal term was used to recognize a relationship between two members of the same sex that was intended to duplicate the relationship between a married man and woman. This new legal recognition by the state was created in 1999 (actually before Proposition 22 came to a vote), and was gradually enhanced to emulate more and more legal spousal priviledges such that by the time the Supreme Court issued its decision Domestic Partnerships provided virtually the same legal benefits that a marriage did in the eyes of the state.

But even this wasn't good enough for the California Supreme Court. In a 4-3 decision, the Court declared that providing all of the legal recognitions associated with marriage without actually providing the word "marriage" was a violation of civil rights. The court ordered the state to immediately (in this case a roughly one month window) start providing marriage licenses to same sex couples.

The court's decision, unfortunately, fails a most basic test - one that far too many people have simply forgotten these days. 'Marriage' is not, has not, and hopefully never will be merely a term used to describe two people living together in a long-term committed relationship. There's another phrase used to describe that - 'living together'. Marriage instead signifies the intention to start and raise a family - man, woman, children. It's true that many people seem to have forgotten that in this day and age. But popular opinion can't change the cold hard facts. Man, woman, dog does not a family make. Thus, the court's decision makes about as much sense as it would have if the court had said, "The sky is green."