No Standing: What Marriage Radicals Really Think of "the People"

8/4/2019 No Standing: What Marriage Radicals Really Think of "the People"

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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: [email protected] 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.

No standing: what marriage

radicals really think of the

people

Is it same-sex marriage rights they want, or

a revolution in the American legal system?

ByJennifer Roback Morse

Photo by Jennifer Roback Morse

Last weeks hearing in the California

Supreme Court on whether the proponents

of Prop 8 have standing to defend the

measure in court seemed to go well for the

defenders of natural marriage. But another

issue lies beneath the surface of the court

arguments. The issue is what kind of people

are the marriage redefiners: Ted Olsen, Rob

Reiner, and the American Foundation for

Equal Rights?

Is their bid to deny Prop 8 proponents legal

standing just the next step in the unfolding

of the civil rights movement, as they seem to

perceive themselves? I think the evidence

from the courtroom shows beyond doubt

that we are dealing with something else

entirely. These people are bent on obtaining

a particular outcome, no matter what the

cost to the rest of the legal system.

Advocates of minimum government,especially libertarians, should be more than

wary about hanging around this type of

person: they should avoid them absolutely,

and call them out wherever possible.

Proposition 8 is the ballot initiative defining

marriage as the union of one man and one

women in the California Constitution. In

2008, California voters approved Prop 8,

with 51 per cent of the vote, approximatelythe margin of victory that elected Obama.

Since then, celebrity lawyers Ted Olsen and

David Boies have brought a suit in the

federal courts to argue that Proposition 8

violates the US Constitution.
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Please note the high stakes here. If the

courts decide that the US Constitution

requires the redefinition of marriage that

will be the end of the line for debate on the

subject in the US. We will have genderless

marriage throughout the US, overturning the

constitutions of the majority of states.

So, the point at issue in last weeks hearing

before the California Supreme Court was

whether the proponents of Prop 8 (that is,

the group of people who put Prop 8 on the

ballot and who are legally responsible for it)

have standing to defend the measure in

court.

Before I went to San Francisco to cover the

Prop 8 trial, Ihoped that the marriage

redefiners would try to distinguish their

case. That is, would they try to come up

with some argument that distinguishes the

proponents of Prop 8 from proponents of

other potential ballot initiatives? If they

make no attempt to do that, we might

conclude that they dont care whether they

destroy the initiative process. They just want

what they want, and they dont care about

collateral damage.

I am sorry, but not surprised, to report that

attorney Ted Olsen made no serious effort to

create a legal argument that would apply to

Prop 8 and not to other ballot measures. As I

sat in the jam-packed courtroom, I sensed

that the justices were appalled by his

cavalier attitude toward the voters. One by

one, the justices poked holes in Olsens

theory.

Justice Carol Corrigan observed that Olsens

theory would give the Attorney General the

right to pocket veto any voter initiative.

Justice Joyce Kennard noted that to agree

with Olsen is to nullify the power of the

people. Justice Kathryn Werdegar noted that

we (meaning the Supreme Court of

California) have always given ballot

proponents standing in court.

In addition, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-

Sakauye noted that this case was the first

case in history in which the proponents were

the sole defenders of a measure. In past

cases, the proponents have stood shoulder

to shoulder with the Attorney General. She

asked what would happen to the states

interest in a law, if the Attorney General

refused to defend it. Does the states

interest evaporate?

Even the newest member of the California

Supreme Court, thenotoriously liberal

advocate of marriage redefinition, Justice

Goodwin Liu, balked at the breathtaking

claims advanced by Ted Olsen. Doesnt it

blinker reality, he asked, to assert that

ballot proponents are no different from any

other citizen who voted for Prop 8?
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But the ultimate challenge to Olsens theory

came from Justice Ming Chin: Would you

really have us hearing only one side of this

case today? In effect, Olsens answer was,

yes, he would have the court hearing only

one side of the case: his own side.

This exchange should be a wake-up call to

everyone, especially for minimum

government libertarians. The behavior of the

marriage redefiners in this case illustrates

that they are not just another group of

citizens with a different opinion. These are

people who want what they want without

regard to the cost to our overall political and

social system. These are not reformers: these

are radicals.

Consider this: Ted Olsen and company

could have made all their arguments about

the unconstitutionality of man-woman

marriage without ever broaching the

question of standing. They did not need to

open this particular legal can of worms.

Evidently, they are willing to have the court

hear only one side of the case, as Justice

Chin observed. Justice Chin was visibly

appalled by the idea, but Olsen and friends

appeared to have no problem with it.

David Horowitz, Americas premier convert

to conservatism from radicalism, offers

trenchant observations about the radical

mentality. In his wonderful little pamphlet,

Obamas rules for revolution, he quotes

the famous radical strategist Saul Alinsky:

Power comes out of the barrel of a gun is

an absurd rallying cry when the other side

has all the guns. Lenin was a pragmatist;

when he returned to what was then

Petrograd from exile, he said that the

Bolsheviks stood for getting power through

the ballot but would reconsider after they

got the guns.

Modern American progressives used to

love the slogan power to the people when

they thought they could control the people.

Now that they are trying to shove something

down the throats of the people, the

progressives are ready to throw the people

under the bus, along with the initiative

process. Todays progressives are

perfectly willing to gut the peoples power

of initiative, just to give same sex couples

the right to marry.

Interestingly enough, very few such couples

actually take advantage of this right in

jurisdictions where it is permitted. This

suggests that the freedom to marry isnt

the only issue at stake here, and maybe isnt

even the main issue. David Horowitz again:

The issue is never the issue. The issue is

always the revolution.

It would take me too far afield to show in

this one article why I am convinced that
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redefining marriage will amount to a

massive transfer of power from civil society

to the state. Suffice to say for now, that

unmooring the concept of parenthood from

biology and handing it over to the state,

which the redefinition of marriage will

surely do, moves parenthood from a natural

pre-political reality to a completely artificial

creation of the state.

That is not my argument here. My argument

here is that the marriage redefiners showed

us their cards in the California Supreme

Court last week. These are scorched earth

people, take no prisoners people. Shame on

us if we dont play our cards accordingly.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is aneconomist and the Founder and President of

theRuth Institute, a nonprofit educationalorganization devoted to bringing hope and

encouragement for lifelong married love.She is also the author of77 Non-Religious

Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage,

Love and Economics: It Takes a Family toRaise a Village andSmart Sex: Finding

Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World.

This article is published by

Jennifer Roback Morse,

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No Standing: What Marriage Radicals Really Think of "the People"

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