San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled Monday that California’s ban on gay marriage is discrimination and is therefore unconstitutional. Judge Kramer cited Brown v. Topeka Board of Education in his decision, calling the ban a policy of “separate but equalâ€, when taken with civil union rights.
When confronted with the cliché argument about marriage being a means to procreate and gay couples cannot do that Kramer said:
“One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married,” he wrote. “Thus, no legitimate state interest to justify the preclusion of same-sex marriage can be found.”
The case is now pending appeal. Kramer is the latest of four trial judges since August to rule in favor of gay marriage. Some Conservative groups are promising mass movements to amend that state’s constitution to ban gay marriages. Eleven other states did just that in last Novembers elections.
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I think it’s about time that someone saw the forest through the smoke screen. There are no good reasons why gays should not be able to legally marry. Straights certainly aren’t able to get it right.
The Marriage Police should really focus on something to stem the outrageous divorce rates. It is so easy for (straight) people to marry and then change their minds (Hello, Brittany) as if they’d decided they didn’t like the jeans they’d just bought. These people bring children into this world and then show them that there is no such thing as a commitment. That even people are throw away. They give these children no second thought when they run off with spouse #2,3,4, etc and drag Johnny and Sally along for the ride. These kids don’t have a sense of permanency or respect for others. They have to think of themselves from day 1 and then somehow learn another way of thinking when adulthood pops up.
The Marriage Police should be screaming for marriage classes, parenting classes, and any other kind of class that would make this society a little better for the rest of us. It’s harder to get a driver’s license than it is to get a marriage license and the children, well, the children aren’t even given a second thought. Until something like gay marriage is brought up. Divorce is a mess. Single parenting is a crazy hell. And there are no groups to stem the tide. In my opinion marriage should be a difficult contract for anyone to enter into. There should be classes and tests and some little old couple giving advice.
Then divorce should be almost impossible to obtain. In Ireland a couple has to be separated for six years before they’re granted a divorce. We should have something like that here. Of course, if the pre-marriage classes were a success then there wouldn’t be much of a need for divorce-on-the-grounds-of-too-boring-and-too-hard. Then maybe more mothers could stay home to be mothers, or even more fathers, and these kids could grow up with some structure and some idea on how to treat others. Make marriage a hurdle to get into and then impossible to get out of and more people will think long and hard before committing.
Parenting is another issue entirely, but one I think is directly tied to marriage and divorce. How many young people have good parenting role models? A single parent has to work 50-60 hours a week to make ends meet (if they aren’t collecting welfare and living in the projects) and their kids are with some other type of “caregiverâ€. And sometimes spend most of every day with that caregiver instead of with the parent that they love and look up to. Is this somehow tied to the rise in stress levels of kids, obesity levels, etc.? I have no scientific data to back it up, but I think so. Kids need constant support and encouragement and a single parent cannot give that. Twice a week just doesn’t get it. Parents should have to take classes before they graduate high school. They should know how to care for a child in a psychological aspect. Letting bad parents raise more bad parents is, in my opinion, contributing to the decline of our children’s social, emotional, and physical well-being.
The Marriage Police should be concerned with stopping the cycle that is dragging our society down the drain. Divorce and single parent households. Kids not getting enough encouragement and support, not enough positive attention from absent parents. Let the gays get married and show us all how to do it right
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