Now Oklahoma Gets Molested by Gay Rights Error

Vincent J. Curtis

 

17 Jan 2014

 

On Wednesday, U.S. Senior Judge Terence Kern, a Tulsa-based federal judge, ruled that Part A of an Amendment to the Oklahoma state constitution, popularly approved in November 2004 and which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment.

 

The judge had the decency to stay his ruling pending appeals.

 

This is the same ruling based on the same error as in the Utah case.

 

The right of women to vote in the United States was not discovered in the 14^th Amendment by the Supreme Court of the United States.  The right was recognized by the passage of the 19^th Amendment in 1920.  That is the precedent for recognizing rights in law in America.

 

At present, there is nothing in particular in law which prohibits a gay man from marrying a gay woman, and consequently there is no violation of individual rights under the 14^th Amendment by holding that a marriage is a convention between a man and a woman.

 

The judges seem to base their decisions on an assumed equality between homosexuality and heterosexuality.  While there may be a vague equivalence, everyone recognizes that homosexuality is different from heterosexuality.  That is basis enough for holding that they can be treated differently in law.  They may be equivalent, but they are not equal; and consequently the going through the charade of a marriage ceremony between a gay pair cannot be held to be equal to a true marriage.  There is nothing here for the 14^th Amendment to protect.

 

If gay marriage is to be recognized in the United States, the proper method is for a constitutional amendment, as in the case of the right of women to vote.  What gay rights advocates know is that if an Amendment concerning gay marriage were put before the American people, the product would be a definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.  That is why they are using this court gambit.

 

A few years ago, political commentator Mark Levin published a book entitled “Men in Black.”  It was an account of failings of Supreme Court justices and how those failings created bad judgements, bad law, and bad social policy as a result.  Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade are cases in point.  The Dred Scott decision led directly to the Civil War, and Roe v. Wade prevented the United States from coming to a political decision concerning abortion.  Abortion still roils American politics some forty years after the decision.

 

This history of judicial activism ought to inform the U.S federal judiciary that they should to stay out of resolving political issues through legal judgements, especially ones based upon faulty interpretations of the law.  Political problems are best resolved through the political process in America.