Tyrannical Intolerance

When my native and socially backward state of Kentucky passed an amendment to constitutionally ban gay marriage in 2004, I am unashamed to say that I joined in with the bigoted majority. That much should not be surprising to anyone who knows me well. What is surprising is that the state of California also voted for a gay marriage ban.

For a moment of brutal honesty, I must admit that I did not take the now-infamous Proposition 8 very seriously when I first heard of it. I assumed it would pass. After all, those weirdoes in California would pass it, wouldn’t they?

In an act almost as unthinkable as Sean Hannity campaigning for Ron Paul, those allegedly pinko Californians passed the proposition 52-48. This was shocking because for years California has been running under a judicial dictatorship which granted marriage licenses to homosexuals. In an act that should have warranted his incarceration, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom joined in the act by granting licenses himself. The ballot initiative was just supposed to confirm that the people always wanted what the court had already ruled. Now the minority is shocked because a silent majority stills exists.

Less than 24 hours later, the mobs of gay marriage activists appeared to protest the vote. In watching the rabble-rousers and professional protesters, one thought leapt into my mind: Liberals only care about democracy when they win. I noticed this phenomenon on Election Night/early morning 2004 when President Bush was reelected and Republicans retained control in both houses of Congress. I was watching the results and listening to the talking points with a fellow baldy. At 2:00 am, there was a new shift of talking heads and the Republican was glowing. The Democrat, sensing it was all over for John Kerry, made a plea for the president to govern from the Center, despite retaining Republican majorities. It was laughable for 2 reasons: 1.) George W. Bush never governed from the Right as president, he did, however, govern on the side of the Republicans, NOT the Right, and 2.) The president’s party was victorious on all fronts - why should he have conceded the agenda? In 2008, no honest person believes Barack Obama, elected with a mandate and massive majorities in both houses of Congress, will actually govern from the mythical Center? “To the victor go the spoils.”

Should what has been voted on not count as law? That’s what these protesters seem to believe. Since the majority did not vote in the activists’ way, it should not count. I even know of someone who believes Barack Obama’s first unifying act as president should be to overrule the vote and end the bigotry in California. Aside from the ridiculous notion that an honest liberal believes that a majority of Californians are bigots, I am compelled to ask, What’s so unifying about anyone overruling the will of the majority?

If any real bigotry exists in this episode it is the bigotry towards Christians and anyone else whose conscience forbids them from tolerating the marriage of homosexuals. If some people believe that homosexuals should be allowed to get married, that’s fine, go ahead and vote your conscience. But there are still are a lot of people, in this case a majority of people, who still believe homosexuality is a sin and should not be rewarded. These people have every right to vote their conscience. Demanding the reversal of a mandate (George W. Bush was reelected by a slimmer margin than this proposition) is the ultimate act of the politically irrelevant and the sorest of losers.

This may seem like ranting about activists whom I oppose, which of course is one of the best reason to have a blog. Someone might be inclined to wonder, why does this cranky writer dedicate so much attention to what a bunch of activists are whining about? The reason is that this whole incident is actually less about gay marriage and more about the judicial dictatorship. It is because if the noisemakers do it long enough someone will step in and intervene.

The greatest victory of the Proposition 8 initiative was not that it banned gay marriage in California, but because it was a victory against the judicial dictatorship which illegally legislated from the bench and granted marriage licenses to homosexuals. It is a common error that only Christians and other religious folks oppose gay marriage. Secularists who still have admiration for the constitutional restraints on the government have reason to rejoice. No one should approve of judicial legislation. It is in direct violation of their constitutional function. The voters' rejection of gay marriage in California testifies to the undeniable fact that just because something has been codified into law through the court, does not mean the people approve it. For politicians' vacuous talk about the virtues of democracy, this time in California, it actually vindicates the voters who resented the high court's unconstitutional usurpation.

This issue is by no means over. This is evident because already since the election, gay marriage has been approved in the ironically nicknamed "Constitution State" of Connecticut, by judicial order, not popular vote. As of now, there are still only two states where gay marriage has been permitted, the aforementioned Connecticut and its neighboring Bay State, Massachusetts. The characteristic they share is that their gay marriage statutes were via judicial order, not legislative approval.

The murder of the unborn has already been an established law for a generation, which by no coincidence, was also granted through a judicial order. November 4 was perhaps only a momentary victory against the judicial dictatorship, but a victory nonetheless. When the inevitable pressure comes for the California high court to grant marriage licenses again, there should also be a proportionate response from those who oppose both gay marriage and the usurpation by that court. They should say “No Dictatorship!”