Judge Walker’s ungrounded slurs will be overruled

Proposition 8 says, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Judge Walker overturned it on the grounds that no rational person could believe that marriage is a union of husband and wife.

Walker has thus declared insane or hateful the majority of Californians and the majority of Americans in other states, not to mention the vast majority of human cultures across time and space that have created a special status for sexual unions of male and female that brings mothers and fathers together to raise children.

Oh and the majority of judges in other states who have disagreed with Judge Walker? In Walker’s world, they are all irrational bigots too, apparently.

Walker is a federal judge, but the “rational basis” test on which he based his ruling applies equally to all 50 state constitutions. Yet majorities of judges in blue states like Maryland, New York, and Washington state have found that marriage is rational because unions of male and female uniquely serve the government’s interest in “responsible procreation.”
As law Prof. Nelson Lund, critiquing Walker’s ruling put it: “Only unions between men and women are capable of producing offspring, and every civilization has recognized that responsible procreation is critical to its survival.  . . The fundamental purpose of marriage is to encourage biological parents, especially fathers, to take responsibility for their children. Because this institution responds to a phenomenon uniquely created by heterosexual intercourse, the meaning of marriage has always been inseparable from the problem it addresses.”

Are all these smart folks really irrational haters? Only the heroic Judge Walker sees with sound mind or good heart here?

Judge Walker’s ruling stuffed 80 conclusions into the box “finding of fact” in a transparent attempt to block his findings from review. Higher courts generally defer to trial judge’s findings of fact, and so with a wave of his magic judicial wand Walker took the opinions of some experts and tried to change them into scientific truths with which no rational human being may henceforth disagree.

Take for example “fact” number 61- “Proposition 8 amends the California Constitution to codify distinct and unique roles for men and women in marriage.” To which the only proper response is, huh?

Or “fact” number 79- “The Proposition 8 campaign relied on fears that children exposed to the concept of same-sex marriage may become gay or lesbian. The reason children need to be protected from same-sex marriage was never articulated in official campaign advertisements. Nevertheless, the advertisements insinuated that learning about same-sex marriage could make a child gay or lesbian and that parents should dread having a gay or lesbian child.”

Translation: The campaign never actually said this, but Judge Walker ruled it is as fact anyway.

For supporters of our traditional understanding of marriage, the worst alleged “facts” are numbers 71 and 72-  “Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted,” and “The genetic relationship between a parent and a child is not related to a child’s adjustment outcomes.”

Translation: Children do not need a mom and dad and it does not matter whether natural parents raise their children or abandon them, as long as other parents step in.

In Judge Walker’s world that’s a fact.

Judge Walker’s tactic is likely to backfire. Gay marriage advocates are cheering Judge Walker’s opinion because it reads like an advocacy brief. The Supreme Court is going to notice.

So will the American people.

Rush Limbaugh put it best: Judge Walker “did not just slap down the will of seven million voters. Those seven million voters were put on trial, a kangaroo court where everything was stacked against them. . . . Those of you who voted for Prop 8 in California are guilty of hate crimes. You were thinking discrimination. That’s what this judge has said! Truly unprecedented.”

Yes it is.

This decision is a slur against the good name of the American people.  Walker’s ruling will be overruled, if not by the Supreme Court then by Congress.