CA court declares gays have consitutional right to marry!
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled today -- as was widely expected (as one of the lawyers working pro bono on this lawsuit told us over dinner at our house on Saturday night) -- that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry according to this San Francisco Chronicle story.
This follows in the steps of similar rulings in Massachusetts, Washington state and New York by the so-called "activist" judges. Yep, judges are activists when they don't support the Right Wing/Bush White House agenda. In the case of the California ruling, the judge was appointed by a Republican governor...so go figure. And where would interracial marriages be if the "people" had been allowed to decide on that issue? According to Gallup, it took until the 1980s for a majority of Americans to be OK with interracial marriage. Shocking but true.
In his 27-page decision, Kramer - an appointee of former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican - said the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates "the basic human right to marry the person of one's choice," and has no rational justification.
Rejecting California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's argument that California is entitled to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, Kramer said the same explanation was offered for the state's ban on interracial marriage, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1948.
The judge also rejected arguments by opponents of same-sex marriage that the current law promotes procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. "One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry," Kramer said.