CA Marriage Ruling Clears the Stage for ASJ Plan

Reading the California decision closely, it leaves the door open for what ASJ has suggested all along!

Last month the California Supreme Court legalized gay “marriage” in that state. The split-decision essentially ruled that it was not sufficient for the state to allow a separate “civil union” provision for gays thereby reserving the term “marriage” exclusively for heterosexual couples. This was true, the court said, even if, as the court admitted, “the current California statues grant same-sex couples who choose to become domestic partners virtually all of the legal rights and responsibilities accorded married couples[.]”

One dissenting justice did feel that this “substantive” equality was solid legal ground for distinguishing gay partnerships from straight marriage. But for the majority, equality in all things but the name is not sufficient. The majority rationale was shocking. The proposed plan of “reserving the historic designation of ‘marriage’ exclusively for opposite-sex couples poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect.”

Yes, believe it or not, the court is mandating not only legal rights, but dignity and respect in the eyes of others. So apparently, not only do California gays have a right to both free speech, and to a microphone, they also have the right to hear applause when they’re done talking.

But so much is wrong with the logic of this decision that the Apostolate of St. Jerome won’t even begin to engage it rationally. Besides, nobody knows how long this decision will remain in effect since Californians may get the chance to amend their constitution through ballot initiative.

Our interest in this case is that it vindicates the plan of attack that ASJ has been advocating since it became clear that the U.S. court system was predisposed to granting victories for “gay rights.” The decision gives us the chance to toot our own horn and prove that the ideas that stem from our theology are better-suited to preach the Christian truth in the modern world. Those familiar with ASJ know that our solution to the gay “marriage” mess is to get government totally out of the marriage process. If Christians want to reserve the term marriage only for a man and a woman, then we should work to confine marriage solely to the realm of religion where state organs like the courts can’t touch it.

So despite our disagreement with this ruling, we’re happy to report that the court has left open to Christian groups what ASJ sees as the winning option. The California court has said that married couples cannot have a different designation from gays, but it explicitly denies that the ruling gives gays a right to the name “marriage.”

Our point then is that pro-marriage groups have only themselves to blame when the noble name of marriage is equated with sodomy as has now happened in our most populous state, which has a history of setting legal precedents elsewhere. They could spare us all the agony of having to watch gays marry if they would just insist with ASJ that the state have nothing to do with sexual relationships of any kind. Our proposal complies with state court’s mandate by using the same term—whether “civil union” or “domestic partnership,” but certainly not “marriage,” for any such relationship between consenting adults, gay or straight.

We need not decide in this case whether the name “marriage” is invariably a core element of the state constitutional right to marry so that the state would violate a couple’s constitutional right even if — perhaps in order to emphasize and clarify that this civil institution is distinct from the religious institution of marriage — the state were to assign a name other than marriage as the official designation of the formal family relationship for all couples. Under the current statutes, the state has not revised the name of the official family relationship for all couples, but rather has drawn a distinction between the name for the official family relationship of opposite-sex couples (marriage) and that for same-sex couples (domestic partnership).

With the italicized words, the CA Supreme Court leaves open a tempting option for those who want to preserve the traditional meaning of marriage. But only the ASJ approach can take them up on their offer.

Of course, in advocating for celibates, we argue that these unions or partnerships need to be open to celibates as well. For why should the state require a sexual relationship to confer some civil privilege?

In fact, ASJ believes that Christian morals require that we stop lending credibility to a state process that recognizes homosexual unions. We can do this by making marriage purely a religious thing, as even the California court says is possible. If the state then wants to grant some kind of privilege to couples—whether straight, gay, or celibate—they would do so by granting “civil unions.”

What many Christians are really fighting for—and wrongly—is a state affirmation of marriage. ASJ opposes this because it favors the married over celibates. But we argue that all Christians should oppose this in the current judicial climate because, as this California decision makes plain, it forces the state to favor gays over celibate people. As with so many other problems facing the Church, here too, the best way to defend the dignity of marriage is to defend the dignity of celibacy.

 This article appeared in the June 4, 2008 issue of The Loyal Lion.