Fair is fair. Persons upset with the state (not for running us into the ground economically or anything) over the constitutional adoption of the traditional, ages-old definition of the word "marriage," will very likely seek to introduce a public proposition to perform a "take back" on Proposition 8. It's never too early to start brain-storming campaign slogans, so,  if it's Prop 9, then the campaign can be "9 is Fine!" and if it's 10 we can go with "10 for rights again!"

No points for making a campaign centered around the number 11.

What prompts this post? Just that, once again, the forces opposed to keeping the definition of "marriage" pat are taking an ironic path to getting said definition changed.

Now, let's set aside all of the past discussion and analysis I have droned on and on about in past posts. Set all those reasonings aside for the moment.



Even the smart lawyers descending on our fair state to defend the "rights" of gay persons of all sorts of genders to "marry," are starting to push a line similar to the following:

... gays and lesbians who cannot marry were made into second-class citizens by California's voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

"This case is about equal rights guaranteed every American under the United States Constitution," former U.S. Solicitor General Olson told a news conference in Los Angeles.

"For too long, gay men and lesbians who seek stable, committed, loving relationships within the institution of marriage have been denied that fundamental right that the rest of us freely enjoy."

The line of reasoning usually has this terminus: any majority of Californians, they posit, should not be able to alter their state Constitution so easily.

But herein resides the germ of the latest flaw: a minority of persons, intent on altering an ancient, pre-historic concept of societal law, are buttressing their position by complaining that a majority of persons have too easily altered a state constitution less than 200 years old. And the complaint is: such an "old" concept as the state constitution should not be so easily altered.

But the desired outcome of the argument is: to alter an unimaginably old concept more easily than a state constitution.

In brief: homosexuals are not being denied the right to "marry" any more (indeed, LESS so) than I am being denied the right to actually become, in the eyes of the state, a Black woman.

"Don't be silly!" you think. "You can't be Black, or a woman, because you don't conform to the definition of what Blackness is, or what a woman is!"

But in California, at least, we say: "not so fast... definitions are bad!"

At least, where it suits ourselves.

Well. I understand my little analyses aren't going to help either side, since no one seems to be thinking along my lines. But in the spirit of  another blogger I follow, sometimes I blog so that I can sleep at night.

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POST SCRIPT: Some readers are concerned that I am obsessed with this political battle because of my deep-seated, possibly subconscious, hatred and/or fear of homosexuals. This is not the case. No one who knows me has ever — ever — seen me treat homosexuals, or even to think of "them," any differently as a class. The issue has never been about homosexuality and its "acceptance" or "rejection" in society. I think homosexuality is a sin, yes. But I am aware of dozens of my own sins that dwarf the sinfulness of sexual perversion. Maybe more. The reason no one ever catches me treating homosexuals any differently is because I never have. In terms of humanity, sex is such a small part of what it means to be human that one's sexual preferences are nonessential to my view of you as a person. Indeed, one's faith in God, one's reason, and one's emotional life are much more important factors, but a person's a person. On that score, Horton and I agree.

Don't you see? I am fundamentally moved, in this case, by the almost wholesale modern societal rejection of a concept whose roots reach into biology, paleontology, religion, sociology — a concept so well-established it makes evolutionary theory look like a blushing infant in comparison.

If I tried to start a movement to redefine "evolution" to encompass creation science, I'd be laughed out of any place I dared to try it out in. And evolution is only 100 years old or so. If I tried to redefine "White" or "Black" or "Indian" to include all races, no one would consider my proposal sane, and race is an idea with scientific underpinnings only 100 or so years old — and, genetically, those underpinnings are even in question.

But redefine "marriage" and "family?"

"Okay!!" says a growing number of people, "as long as it makes people happy!"

The rejection of a well-established principle, in any field, in favor of an untested alternative, usually demands evidence, and the stronger the principle, the stronger the evidence need be to reject it. When this principle of life is itself rejected, I raise an eyebrow.