By the power not vested in them, four judges yesterday pronounced California and gay marriage a couple. There are 38,000,000 people living in California. Their disapproval of officially recognizing so-called same-sex marriage, expressed at the ballot box in 2000, apparently has no bearing on state law. Only the votes of seven people, rather than those 38,000,000, matter. By a margin of 4-3, the California Supreme Court has decided that the state's refusal to officially recognize gay marriages violates the state's constitution. The part in California's constitution that references homosexual unions eluded my notice. I did, however, see various redundant provisions explicitly outlining the right of Californians to self government. "All political power is inherent in the people." "A voter who casts a vote in an election in accordance with the laws of this State shall have that vote counted." "The people find and declare that the Founding Fathers established a system of representative government based upon free, fair, and competitive elections."

The ruling is appalling and right in line with California court rulings of late. I concur with your conclusion - I arrive at the same conclusion but for a different reason. It is the role of the judiciary to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Were 38,000,000 Californians to pass a law declaring that red-headed people (a minority) could not marry, it would be the court's proper role to overturn that democractically enacted law as an infringement of equal protection.

The fatal flaw in the CA Supreme Court's ruling is the judgement that it is not a compelling state interest to preserve traditional marriage. If preserving the fundamental building block of society is not a compelling state interest, then I have no idea what is. Entering into a government-sanctioned same-sex unit is not a liberty, it is not even a "right," much less a fundamental right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. But even if one accepts that gay "marriage" is a fundamental right and therefore state infringement of it triggers strict scrutiny, it is clearly a compelling state interest to limit marriage to the traditional, procreative unit of a husband and wife.

This is nothing new. Progressives have been re-defining the language in order to impose their social views for a very long time.

Let's see now: Can we still use words like "Husband" and "Wife"? I mean, who knows which is which now?

Good Grief, is there going to be a new Fairness Doctrine, subjecting us to an endless string of sequels to Brokeback Mountain? All those romance films and novels with Boy meets Girl stories - discriminatory I tells you!

Anybody want to bet on how long it takes the guy with the trained goat to apply for a "marriage" license? Don't laugh: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10694972/

The silver lining is: lots of new material for one-liners. The dark cloud is: you'll probably be charged with a Hate Crime for laughing.