The CourtZero book, Chapter Thirteen

It's a short chapter. For the audio book version, click here. For previous chapters in the CourtZero book, scroll down in this blog.

As I said, it's a short chapter, but it begs one timely question. What did the governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, do about it?

For what it's worth, hit the links above for my answer to that question.

Chapter Thirteen
Marriage and court-ordered morality
Case one: we were all
wrong about marriage
Since the beginning of time

The Massachusetts Supreme Court decision to order the Massachusetts legislature to change the law to allow same-sex marriage is a watershed moment in American jurisprudence. Whether you personally like the decision or not, it is worth at least a few moments to take a look at the Court’s reasoning.

The highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the case of Goodridge, declared a couple of interesting things. First, that the state treating marriage as, well, what it has always been, was “arbitrary and irrational.” It is significant when a court declares that all law and tradition that has existed in history up until that point is “arbitrary”. What then is not arbitrary?

The Massachusetts court defined marriage as “exclusive and permanent commitment of marriage partners to each other.” So marriage is now defined as marriage partners committing to marriage. By golly, these judges are geniuses! Confused? So was the Massachusetts Senate, which asked for and received a clarification from the court. Some quotes from February of 2004:

“[We acknowledge that] many people hold deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions that marriage should be limited to the union of one man and one woman, and that homosexual conduct is immoral. Many hold equally strong religious, moral, and ethical convictions that same-sex couples are entitled to be married, and that homosexual persons should be treated no differently than their heterosexual neighbors. [We] reaffirm that the State may not interfere with these convictions.”

It should be obvious that even as it said those words, the court chose one of those deep-seated views over the other, and thus “interfered with these convictions.” Without doubt, the Court legislated morality, whether or not you agree with their view of what is moral. What one really ought to take away from these cases is not just that the word “marriage” now has no particular meaning in Massachusetts, but that individual courts feel perfectly free to ignore governors, legislatures, and even the historic body of law issued by other judges.


Marriage Case Two:
So you think your vote counts?

In the aftermath of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision ordering the legislature to change the law, Louisiana, among other states, considered changing their State Constitution to make it clear that the law defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Louisiana, with a population of 4,468,976 according to the 2000 census, voted on an amendment that was designed for one purpose, to resolve the question of whether same-sex unions in any form would be given the legal status of traditional marriage. Recently 78% of people voting passed an amendment that defined all legally recognized unions as between one man and one woman.

One man, a judge named Morvant overturned the will of the people, saying that the ban is unconstitutional. Why? Because it banned both same-sex marriage and civil unions. According to the judge, voters had to choose a ban on only one.

Article XIII, Section 1(b) of the Louisiana Constitution says that constitutional amendments must embrace only one topic, and Judge Morvant said that since the amendment had the effect of banning both same-sex marriages and civil unions, the amendment voted in by 78% is unconstitutional.

Is that so, Judge Morvant? Do you mean to suggest that defining marriage to mean one thing is not one topic? Do you expect the voters to respect your reasoning? Did the voters need to have separate amendments to address same-sex marriage, civil unions, bestiality unions, polygamy, bigamy, sex-slavery and the legal effect of giving a promise ring in the eighth grade in order to embrace the one topic of what the definition of marriage is?

Of course not. The judge has an agenda, and points out in a startling manner that in the 21st century, even our ability as citizens to amend our constitutions has been taken over by lone judges who believe that they alone can rule us all. The bottom line is that the votes representing the proportionate will of 3,485,801 people lose. The opinion of one man wins. If that is the governmental structure you want, no matter where the judges’ whims might lead them next year, then you should put down this book now and go about your life. No, I didn’t really mean that. You, most of all, should read on.