At 11:30 a.m. on October 10, the Connecticut State Supreme Court legalized “gay marriage,” making Connecticut the third state, behind Massachusetts and California, to sanction the practice.  In a 4-3 ruling that cannot be appealed, because it is based on an interpretation of the state constitution, Justice Richard N. Palmer opined for the narrow majority that relegating homosexuals to civil unions is a violation of the Connecticut state constitution’s equal-protection clause: “Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same-sex partner of their choice.  To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”

The Connecticut court actually did us a favor by cutting the legs from under the Trojan horse presented by the Obama and McCain campaigns: Both favor civil unions for homosexual couples but are against “gay marriage.”  So state legislatures can “protect” marriage by giving legal sanction “only” to civil unions, then the state courts can cry foul, declaring that anything less than “marriage” for homosexuals is a violation of “equal protection.”  Justice Palmer and the majority agreed with the “gay persons” (the plaintiffs) that “the discrimination to which they have been subjected has been so severe and so persistent that, as with race and sex discrimination, it is not likely to be remedied soon enough merely by resort to the majoritarian political process.”  Courts across the land could easily line up behind Justice Palmer, agreeing that homosexual couples “do not wield sufficient political power to obviate the need for heightened judicial protection,” and that “gay persons are demonstrably less powerful than African-Americans and women, two groups that have been accorded protected status under the federal constitution.

The unconstitutional 14th amendment and the deleterious interpretation of its original intent are applied in this Connecticut State Supreme Court decision—and in the same breath in which “marriage” is declared to be special: “We conclude that, in light of the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody, the segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm.”  “We also conclude,” the court quickly adds, that, “for the same reasons that classifications predicated on gender are considered quasi-suspect for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the United States constitution, sexual orientation constitutes a quasi-suspect classification for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the state constitution, and, therefore, our statutes discriminating against gay persons are subject to heightened or intermediate judicial scrutiny.”  The abstract Jacobin right of “equality” is applied to homosexuals in the context of “marriage”—grooms licensed to grooms and brides licensed to brides—and the Equal Protection Clause is handed to them as a weapon to force their way into other state courts under the color of the U.S. Constitution.  The way has indeed been prepared to strike down all state Defense of Marriage Acts.  And how could the courts not strike them down, when words such as “discrimination” and “segregation” are being deployed?  The linkage between the prohibition of interracial marriages in some states, which the federal courts struck down, and “gay marriages” has already been made and will obviously be one of the major points in future briefs filed before the courts.

The vanguard of this decision has already crossed state lines.  The governor of New York, in a disingenuous pretense of defending “traditional marriage” while acknowledging the decision of the Connecticut State Supreme Court, has stated that New York will recognized these “marriages” but will not allow them to take place on his soil.

The Connecticut Supreme Court asserts that marriage is an institution of “transcendent historical, cultural and social importance.”  Then the court, in an insidious irony, gives a biologically abnormal and socially deviant lifestyle equal status in the institution which it has so high-mindedly described.

No matter what any court or legislature says, Christians should understand that God is the author of marriage.  He is the inextricable third party Who knits the union together as the man and woman give their vows.  We would do well to remember that many of today’s “heterosexual marriages,” taken to vow solely within the framework of state licensure, are treated as nothing more than “civil unions”: easy in and easy out, no-fault divorce on demand.

Marriage, the union of a man and a woman who become one flesh, is the foundation of the family, that commonwealth which emancipates us from our compulsions by instilling in us a sense of duty that ultimately, along with other virtues, brings us to be just men.  “Gay marriage” is the antithesis of marriage.  It enthrones compulsions, barbaric impulses, and enslaving desires.  As such, it is simply a variation on an old but tempting theme originally played by the usurper in the garden.