As a Goldwater conservative I completely agree. Before the State has a right to ban any kind of voluntary association or contract there has to be a pretty compelling interest. No good (non-religious) argument has ever been put forward to ban gay marriage.
I think true conservatives should fight for the rights of individuals to do as they please as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others.
Any religious organization who wants to not allow such marriages in their own churches has a right to do so, just as Catholics had a right to pretend to not permit remarriage of divorced people. But marriage as a civil institution should be governed by contract law, not Biblical interpretation.
This is not so much judicial activism as preventing legislation that contradicts constitutional guarantees.
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>>The old fashioned way, we voted on it, and like most direct votes of the people (Propositions) the courts have overruled the will of the people.
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>There sure is something old fashioned about discrimination.
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>I would have thought your dog would have been fighting for more indvidual rights and less intrusive laws.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
