Viewpoint - July 2, 2008

The courts in California, which are more like the courts of Caligula, recently ruled that gays can marry, thus launching the state’s first wave of gay marriages that did not involve Liza Minnelli. While this is great news for California’s leather chaps business, it is a big slap in the face for the voters who will probably overturn this ruling in November.

Until then, folks should get used to courts’ usurping citizen’s desires. I remember when the libs thought this was terrible when Gore won the popular vote and lost the election in what they said was a court ruling? Never mind that Hillary claims this happened to her in the Democrat primary. Clearly the libs are comfortable with double standards as long as the ruling goes their way. Intellectually honest they are not. This is going to be the ongoing trend with the liberal elitists gaining power, courts overruling voters on issues of importance with the arrogance that only judges with lifetime appointments can.

Despite disagreeing with activist courts and a system where 9 judges presume themselves smarter than 37,000,000 California voters, I agree with the decision. My view is that gay marriage is another area in which government inserts itself and need not. I am all for more liberties and less government so I view this as a non-issue.

Basically the whole gay marriage thing, for the lefties who push it, is all about the gesture. The first lesbian couples married during the last “in your face” go around when passed in Massachusetts, divorced quickly, dividing their Indigo Girls CD collection and claiming irreconcilable similarities. Moreover gay marriage will present us will a whole new set of problems. First, when they drive somewhere, who rags and who drives the car and does not ask for directions when lost?

Gay marriage is a sticky wicket for even Democrats like Hillary Clinton who was criticized by a leading gay rights group as “a disappointment on same-sex marriages.” Bill Clinton chimed in saying she ain’t so great on opposite-sex marriage either.

The right wingers who ran Bush/Cheney’s attempt to federally ban same-sex marriage hid their religious agenda in the Constitution. If it were up to them gays could not even be wedding planners.

Being “strict Constitutionalist” made it hard for the neo-cons to argue this. Apparently according to them, our Founders, who wore wigs and satin Capri pants wanted to keep gay sex as casual and with as many partners as possible. Unable to point it out in the Constitution, especially with all that “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” stuff in there, they turned to “sanctity of marriage” argument. Like the Obama “change” slogan, I think that is code for something. Conspiracy theorists think that it was an attempt by Dick Chaney not to have to pay for his gay daughter’s wedding.

As I have said in the past, if the religious right really wants to slow down gay sex, the best way is to let them marry. And if the gays start losing half their stuff and a house in divorce, they may rethink their demands.

What I do not understand about those that are religious and are adamant about gays not marrying is the following, if God made everyone, then how can you spend your time condemning gays because He made them? Do you really think they choose to be gay? How can you not think they are born that way? Have you ever seen Richard Simmons?  He just did not develop over night nor did he catch gay one day?  There were some guys so gay that we actually feared for their safety.

While I am no fan of the mechanics of gay male relationships (I hold an entirely double standard when it comes to hot lesbians) as a person who values liberty and personal responsibility, I will not spend my time persecuting consenting adults. It is a waste of my time on earth.

And if your hate of gays is religious based, then you need to examine the part of the Constitution that gives you your rights to pursue your beliefs. You are free to choose your religion. You are free to practice it as you see fit as long as it does not harm others.  What is not sensible is for any one group to codify its particular religious beliefs into law. It is certainly the right for a church to forbid such gay activity in the church (or in the case of the Catholic Church to make them priests), but it is not its right to impose its interpretation of the Bible as civil law.

Liberals have to stop trying to legislate from the bench. Conservatives, who used to be about liberty and individual responsibility until they lost their way, have to put their personal and religious feelings aside. Back when it appealed to me, the GOP was for less government intrusion and more freedom. Both Parties need to rethink what they have become.

Ron Hart is a southern libertarian columnist who can be reached at: RevRon10@aol.com