Frank Pastore: “Same-Sex Marriage: Giant Leap in the Wrong Direction”
Frank Pastore writes on Townhall:
. . . The California court asserts some version of a “constitutional right to same-sex marriage” at least 78 times before undermining that very claim in Footnote 52 on page 79 of the opinion, which reads:
We emphasize that our conclusion that the constitutional right to marry properly must be interpreted to apply to gay individuals and gay couples does not mean that this constitutional right similarly must be understood to extend to polygamous or incestuous relationships. Past judicial decisions explain why our nation’s culture has considered the latter types of relationships inimical to the mutually supportive and healthy family relationships promoted by the constitutional right to marry…. Although the historic disparagement of and discrimination against gay individuals and gay couples clearly is no longer constitutionally permissible, the state continues to have a strong and adequate justification for refusing to officially sanction polygamous or incestuous relationships because of their potentially detrimental effect on a sound family environment…. Thus our conclusion that it is improper to interpret the state constitutional right to marry as inapplicable to gay individuals or couples does not affect the constitutional validity of the existing legal prohibitions against polygamy and the marriage of close relatives.
If the 2,000 years of Western tradition was insufficient to maintain this court’s prohibition against same-sex marriage, how can this court appeal to that same tradition to prohibit incest and polygamy? . . .