JUDGES WAIVE THE RULES ON MARRIAGE

In the year 2000 about two-thirds of North County voters supported Proposition 22. That’s the margin needed to boost a 55-44 percent San Diego city majority to a 62-38 landslide throughout the county.

Last month by a 4-3 vote the California Supreme Court declared that the traditional male-female definition of marriage violates California’s Constitution and nullified the democratic decision made by 4,618,673 Californians. This ruling not only flies in the face of 5000 years of civilized history, it also establishes another dismal precedent for rule by judicial fiat.

The idea that voters should have a say in changing the terms of a basic social institution wasn’t a thought this quartet of magistrates found compelling. Apparently, for these robed eminences, persons lacking J.D.s don’t have opinions that count when it comes to the definition of marriage.

This imposition of elitist ideology (an ideology that ignores the importance of both fathers and mothers) has staggering implications for child-rearing and educational practice. Such considerations mattered not a whit to these blindered oracles--driven as they were by the same arrogance that’s transformed America’s universities into intolerant reeducation camps.

Combined with the SB 777 legislation that bans “heterosexist” language in California public schools, this ruling virtually guarantees that PC educators will soon be asking little boys and girls whether they plan to marry someone of the same or opposite sex. Similarly, grade school libraries will certainly begin to stock and display copies of “King and King”—making sure that gay marriage is given the same affirmative action treatment that was accorded women’s sports as a result of Title 9 legislation.

In effect, the court’s recent ruling reduces democracy to a means for dealing with matters that judges deem insignificant—since all important issues will be discovered lying furtively (like “penumbras formed by emanations”) within the pages of a “living constitution.” Remember Prop 187—a measure overwhelmingly approved by voters but abandoned after being held legal hostage for years.

If the court were serious about interpreting the law instead of imposing elite opinions on dimwitted proles, it would have considered the implications of their ruling for laws that ban polygamy or incest. Historically, polygamy has much stronger credentials than same-sex marriage. But at present that practice has little cachet in Hollywood and New York.

The case for incest was recently litigated, unsuccessfully, in Germany, but the prime-time TV series “Two and a Half Men” is currently playfully ambiguous about such liaisons. You can bet that when Charlie Sheen and his next half-sister bedmate decide it’s ok, our black-robed betters will also, with all deliberate speed, remove that bigoted taboo.

Fortunately, there are still ways to undo judicial tyranny if voters still care about democracy. One way is to support the state constitutional amendment on marriage that’s likely to qualify for the ballot in November. The second is to vote to retire judges, like Chief Justice Ronald George, who find the notion of self-government a quaint anachronism.