>>The only argument for gay marriage is - we want it.<<
That may be why the decision is 121 pages. It is clearly more than 3 words. It is a response to 6 cases.
If you are still in Minnesota, do you understand the California Constitution and the context of the California Supreme Court's decision?
On page 4, the decision summarizes the question:
"The question we must address is whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution." 3
And those circumstances, on pages 2-4, were:
"In considering this question, we note at the outset that the constitutional issue before us differs in a significant respect from the constitutional issue that has been addressed by a number of other state supreme courts and intermediate appellate courts that recently have had occasion, in interpreting the applicable provisions of their respective state constitutions, to determine the validity of statutory provisions or common law rules limiting marriage to a union of a man and a woman. (See, e.g., Conaway v. Deane (Md. 2007) 932 A.2d 571; Goodridge v. Dept. of Pub. Health (Mass. 2003) 798 N.E.2d 941; Lewis v. Harris (N.J. 2006) 908 A.2d 196; Hernandez v. Robles (N.Y. 2006) 855 N.E.2d 1; Baker v. State (Vt. 1999) 744 A.2d 864; Andersen v. King County (Wn. 2006) 138 P.3d 963; Standhardt v. Superior Court (Ariz.Ct.App. 2003) 77 P.3d 451; Morrison v. Sadler (Ind.Ct.App. 2005) 821 N.E.2d 15.) These courts, often by a one-vote margin (see, post, pp. 114-115, fn. 70), have ruled upon the validity of statutory schemes that contrast with that of California, which in recent years has enacted comprehensive domestic partnership legislation under which a same-sex couple may enter into a legal relationship that affords the couple virtually all of the same substantive legal benefits and privileges, and imposes upon the couple virtually all of the same legal obligations and duties, that California law affords to and imposes upon a married couple.2 Past California cases explain that the constitutional validity of a challenged statute or statutes must be evaluated by taking into consideration all of the relevant statutory provisions that bear upon how the state treats the affected persons with regard to the subject at issue. (See, e.g., Brown v. Merlo (1973) 8 Cal.3d 855, 862.) Accordingly, the legal issue we must resolve is not whether it would be constitutionally permissible under the California Constitution for the state to limit marriage only to opposite-sex couples while denying same-sex couples any opportunity to enter into an official relationship with all or virtually all of the same substantive attributes, but rather whether our state Constitution prohibits the state from establishing a statutory scheme in which both opposite-sex and same-sex couples are granted the right to enter into an officially recognized family relationship that affords all of the significant legal rights and obligations traditionally associated under state law with the institution of marriage, but under which the union of an opposite-sex couple is officially designated a “marriage” whereas the union of a same-sex couple is officially designated a “domestic partnership.”"
So, when they build their decision on pages 77-79, they refer to already in place provisions regarding children:
"Our recognition that the core substantive rights encompassed by the constitutional right to marry apply to same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples does not imply in any way that it is unimportant or immaterial to the state whether a child is raised by his or her biological mother and father. By recognizing this circumstance we do not alter or diminish either the legal responsibilities that biological parents owe to their children or the substantial incentives that the state provides to a child’s biological parents to enter into and raise their child in a stable, long-term committed relationship.49 Instead, such an interpretation of the constitutional right to marry simply confirms that a stable two-parent family relationship, supported by the state’s official recognition and protection, is equally as important for the numerous children in California who are being raised by same-sex couples as for those children being raised by oppositesex couples (whether they are biological parents or adoptive parents).50 This interpretation also guarantees individuals who are in a same-sex relationship, and who are raising children, the opportunity to obtain from the state the official recognition and support accorded a family by agreeing to take on the substantial and long-term mutual obligations and responsibilities that are an essential and inseparable part of a family relationship.51
Accordingly, we conclude that the right to marry, as embodied in article I, sections 1 and 7 of the California Constitution, guarantees same-sex couples the same substantive constitutional rights as opposite-sex couples to choose one’s life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized, and protected family relationship that enjoys all of the constitutionally based incidents of marriage."52 |
