In modern America, the absurd is forced on everyone with the full coercive powers of an omnipotent state—all in the name of “rights.”

Same-sex “marriage” first was “legalized” in 2003 when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court drove matrimony off Chappaquiddick’s Dike Bridge and let it drown.  In October 2008, Connecticut’s Supreme Court did the same.

But the most drama has come from California.  Domestic “partnerships”—another absurdity in which same-sex “couples” are granted all the rights of marriage but the name—were legalized by the legislature in 1999.  In 2000, voters passed an initiative statute that banned same-sex “marriage,” but it was not a constitutional amendment.  Then in May 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that same-sex “marriages” have equal standing with real marriages.  Thus can four judges overturn reality.

In his majority opinion, Republican Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote:

 

[O]ur task in this proceeding is not to decide whether we believe, as a matter of policy, that the officially recognized relationship of a same-sex couple should be designated a marriage rather than a domestic partnership, but instead only to determine whether the difference in official names of the relationships violates the California Constitution.

 

Official names?  Even William of Occam might be taken aback at such extreme nominalism.

Same-sex “couples” rushed to county clerks’ offices to gain the Golden State’s blessing for the golden rings on their fingers.  Normal folks were outraged and began circulating petitions to place on the November ballot an initiative to repeal the court’s ruling by amending the constitution—what became Proposition 8.

Proposition titles and summaries—what the voter sees in the voting booth—are written by the attorney general, who now is Jerry Brown, the infamous “Governor Moonbeam” who misruled the state from 1975 to 1982.  Prop. 8 backers submitted “The California Marriage Protection Act.”  He changed that to read “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”  Prop. 8 backers appealed his wording in the courts, but lost.

A September 18 Field Poll showed that the rewording dropped support for the proposition from 58 percent to 42 percent.  Still, on November 4, Prop. 8 passed, 52 percent to 48 percent.

A decisive factor was the pro-8 campaign’s decision to emphasize how the new ideology would be forced on schoolchildren.  Section 200 of the state education code states:

 

It is the policy of the State of California to afford all persons in public schools, regardless of their disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes set forth in Section 422.55 of the Penal Code, equal rights and opportunities in the educational institutions of the state.  The purpose of this chapter is to prohibit acts that are contrary to that policy and to provide remedies therefor.

 

After Prop. 8 won, anti-8 activists immediately began picketing Mormon temples, because Mormons contributed $20 million to the pro-8 side’s total spending of $35.8 million.  Anti-8 spending was $37.6 million.

Pickets also went up against Catholic churches and conservative Protestant churches that had supported Prop. 8 through sermons and literature tables on church property.

An exit poll showed that Prop. 8 was backed by only 49 percent of whites and Asians, but by 52 percent of Hispanics and 70 percent of blacks.  The latter had come out in force to vote for Barack Obama (who had opposed Prop. 8) and may have decided the matter.  When the news broke, anti-8 protesters began attacking blacks.

California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, a black Democrat who opposed Prop. 8, complained:

 

I have friends in Los Angeles, who are African Americans in the [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] community, and they went out to protest the vote and had racial epithets hurled at them.  A couple of them were fearful, and they left because they were threatened.

 

So much for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.

The anti-8 side is planning its own initiative for the June 2010 ballot to repeal Prop. 8 and has also filed appeals, which will be taken up by the California Supreme Court in March, with a decision expected by June.  The pro-8 side warned that, should the court overturn the measure, recalls would be launched against the offending justices.  Everyone remembers that Gov. Gray Davis was recalled in 2003.

The court will likely uphold Prop. 8, kicking the matter into the future for a decision by an Obamized U.S. Supreme Court.