>>>Not in California. "The will of the majority" trumps -- and even changes -- the constitution at will.
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>>Which certainly comes in handy for organizing lynch mobs or public stonings.
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>>I still find it stunning that civil marriage is considered in any other way than as part of contract law. I would never question the right of a religion to include or exclude any group of people or set of behaviors it likes in determining what it calls "marriage" but anything with legal implications by the government should be governed only by the right to enter into a consensual contract.
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>>The idea that this imposition of religious beliefs on civil law should be allowed makes me very sad.
>
>Indeed.
>
>I've long been a proponent of removing ALL legal privileges such as tax advantages, etc. for married couples until all citizens have the right to become coupled. It's unjust taxation. We had a little fight over that a while back.
I think the constitutional argument should be that this is unlawful interference in a contract freely entered in to. There is just no rational basis for forbidding commitment between consenting parties. Being married by a church is not considered marriage by the state unless the proper license is obtained. That license is the issue. I just can't see any legal basis to deny it to any two (or more) people who accept its terms.
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.
