“…that this Nation, Under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

-          Excerpt from the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln, 19 November 1863

As I sit in front of my computer this evening – 144 years to the day since President Lincoln delivered a speech that he thought would be quickly forgotten but has arguably become the most quoted speech in history – the television is broadcasting images of hordes of gay marriage supporters nationwide protesting the passage of Proposition 8 in California. As you know, on November 4^th, California voters exercised their right to self governance by voting on a measure to add 14 words to the California Constitution: “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.” This ballot measure – legally put to the people by the people via the petition process, was a direct response to a California Supreme Court ruling on May 16^th (In Re Marriage Cases, S147999) overturning a state law banning same sex marriages. A state law, by the way, that was also approved by the people through the petition process.

I write this not to discuss the protests, although for the record I find many of the acts committed by protestors demanding “tolerance” (such as tearing a cross from an elderly woman’s hand and stomping on it in Palm Springs or hitting a Christian missionary over the head with her own Bible in San Francisco, or lighting a Book of Mormon on fire and throwing it into a Mormon temple in Utah) to be outright repugnant, not to mention blatantly INtolerant and altogether hypocritical. I write this not to deride those who nonviolently support gay marriage, for although I have both religious and secular reasons for opposing it, I have sympathy for what many must be feeling in their hearts – regardless of what the protestors would have you believe, I and millions of others like me are not “gay haters”; I have friends that are gay and I love them just as I love my straight friends though we may have a difference of opinion on the marriage issue. Rather, I write this as an American who is deathly afraid that Lincoln’s “new birth of freedom” may indeed perish at the hands of the California Supreme Court in 2009, taking with it government of the people, by the people and for the people.

This pattern has been emerging for years now – someone on the secular progressive left gets a harebrained idea, finds some PAC to take it to Congress or a state legislature where it gets shot down by the peoples’ elected representatives and then immediately files a complaint in the appropriate court of competent jurisdiction to have the decision revoked. Actually, that’s not entirely true – on the federal level, the organizer of the initiative generally tries to stage an incident surrounding whatever the cause du jour happens to be somewhere on the west coast so the lawsuit can be run through the court system out there and eventually make its way into the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals which is sympathetic to all causes except common sense, but I digress. The bottom line is, the legal question we face in California today is bigger than the issue of gay marriage. That’s right, gay marriage is just the catalyst, the vessel, the hot-button issue that has finally staged the showdown that’s been building since certain judges stopped interpreting law and started legislating from the bench by issuing idiotic opinions based solely in, well, opinion. The house lights are flashing and the ushers are closing the doors – better grab that last glass of wine and take your seats. It’s time for the third and final act of tonight’s performance of The Black-Robed Warriors vs. the American People and folks, I’m sorry to say but even the actors have no idea how this one ends.

The issue here is that the pro-gay marriage people have once again petitioned the California Supreme Court, this time to overturn Proposition 8 – in other words, they are asking the justices to once again thwart the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. I don’t blame them for petitioning, heck if I was in their position, I’d probably petition too just to prove that I fought to the bitter end and tried every avenue to accomplish my goal – that’s what true believers in any cause do.  The problem is not in the petition itself, the problem lies in the fact that the Supreme Court agreed to hear it, and by doing so called into question our entire system of government as we know it.  Not to sound like a trite sports announcer here, but this time it’s different.  This time the stakes are higher. Why? Because they are essentially debating the constitutionality of a CONSTITUTIONAL MODIFICATION! Go ahead and reread that statement; I know it sounds absurd, but it’s completely accurate. Yes, it’s true that the court set the precedent for going against the explicit will of the people in the Marriage Cases decision, but as much as that turned my stomach, they were arguably within the bounds of the powers granted them in doing so because they were overturning a simple law. After that decision, the people, being of the opinion that the court overstepped its bounds and invented a new “civil right” out of whole cloth, took the only legal recourse available to them and petitioned to modify their own constitution. That petition took the form of Proposition 8, and it passed at the ballot box, thereby overturning the court’s ruling. In simple terms, the people held the judges accountable for what they perceived to be a bad decision and told them to go take a hike. The people exercised the fundamental right given them under U.S. and California law – the fundamental right that supersedes ALL other rights - the power to govern themselves.

Unfortunately, the typical “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” get-what-you-want-by-any-means-possible mantra just repeats itself over and over in liberal-land like some tired old bass drum. Just take a gander at the blogs or read some of the editorials in the news rags and you’ll get a long self-righteous lecture on how the Loving v. Virginia (388 U.S. 1, 1967) decision clearly states that marriage is one of the “fundamental rights of man” and, therefore gives same-sex couples the undisputable right to marry. Now, I do not dispute that the quote is accurate, nor do I begrudge free and open debate on the topic, but to draw the conclusion that a case dealing with heterosexual, interracial marriages (the Loving decision overturned the 1883 decision in Pace v. Alabama (106 U.S. 583) upholding laws against interracial marriage) applies directly to homosexual marriage regardless of race is a stretch to say the least and completely ignores other quotes from the same decision such as “under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State”, clearly showing the decision dealt strictly with race. Also, as this is obviously a State issue, you’d think that the proponents would take some time to find a State precedent, but the majority of the editorials and blogs I’ve read do not mention any such cases even though one exists – Perez v. Sharp (32 Cal. 2d 711, California, 1948) – a case abolishing the interracial marriage ban in California that was ironically called upon as precedent by SCOTUS in the Loving decision. Apparently the left’s long romance with the Federal government has left it almost blind to State issues, but that’s of no concern here.

What IS of major concern however, is that no one – and I mean not one proponent of gay marriage that I’ve spoken to or read will acknowledge the difference between the Proposition 8 situation and the laundry list of other “court precedents” that they love to speak of, and that is the fact that the people of California chose to override the court with a constitutional change. That baby gets thrown out with the proverbial bathwater when they create kitschy slogans like “no on H8” or my favorite “you can’t legislate love!” Sorry Charlie, in this situation you may not be able to legislate it, but you can certainly amend it. Citing court precedent is all well and good – heck, cite it until you’re blue in the face, but the bottom line is that court decisions don’t mean anything if the American people choose to exercise their right to self-govern by overriding a decision with a Constitutional amendment.