Quick note before I start ranting:  I have maintained a blog for quite some time over at MySpace.  This blog is, after a fashion, a continuation of that.  I am going to attempt to be a little more organized here than I was there.  We’ll see if that works or not, but in the meantime this week’s posts are being mirrored there.

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Rant on.

Last week, Judge Vaughn Walker–who shares a last name with me, which makes me hope and wonder I am related to him–overturned the ill-intentioned, infamous proposition 8 in California which banned gay marriage. Both sides of this issue were quick to respond: The gay rights advocates celebrated, and the opponents…whined.

There’s a quote in the above-linked article I find particularly whiny. A fellow named Brian Brown, who runs the (in my opinion misnamed) National Organization for Marriage, said, “With a stroke of his pen, Judge Walker has overruled the votes and values of 7 million Californians who voted for marriage as one man and one woman.” With one sentence, Mr. Brown overlooked the millions who voted against this measure.

I would almost see his point, except the proposition passed by only a two percent narrow margin. Fifty-two percent of the voters voted for proposition 8. A few less Yes votes on it and it would never have passed in the first place.

That aside, Mr. Brown needs to take a class in American government. The job of a judge, particularly one at Mr. Walker’s level, is to see that the principles of the U.S. Constitution, not the vote of the people, is upheld. Fifty years ago, there were laws preventing blacks and whites from marrying each other, and judges saw the laws, laws voted on and enacted by votes, as unconstitutional and as such struck them down. This is what they do.

Coming back to my parenthetical adjective above, the National Organization for Marriage is not, as I said, what its name describes. Such a name should be applied to a helpful organization, one which perhaps supplies counselors to married couples who can’t afford them but who need such help. They might assist with wedding plans. Any number of things marriage-related, really, except to prevent people from getting married.

That, to me, is a huge contradiction. Imagine, for example, if the National Organization for Women came out in support of laws which supported spousal abuse and then claimed it was “supported” women because it helped them fit some “traditional” role the organization’s leaders (probably men, if this was really what it did) felt women should have. It’s outrageous, but that’s what the NOM is doing.

The fact is we’re at yet another crossroads in basic human rights. Marriage is a commitment people make to each other. This has always been the case. Governments have stuck its nose into the business and, quite frankly, screwed it up. In America, a marriage is (legally speaking) a contract between two people and the state they live in. A marriage, in my opinion, should be between the people involved, period.

Anyway, I am happy for the gay rights victory in California. This case could potentially go to the Supreme Court, where a Landmark Decision could be made. I only hope it is a decision for justice and not for religious bias.

Rant off.