California court upholds gay marriage ban

NY Times:

The California Supreme Court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage today, ratifying a decision made by voters last year at a time when several state governments have moved in an opposite direction.

The decision, however, preserves the 18,000 marriages performed between the court’s decision last May that same-sex marriage was lawful and the passage by voters in November of Proposition 8, which banned it. Supporters of the proposition argued that the marriages should no longer be recognized.

Today’s opinion, written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George for a 6-to-1 majority, said that same-sex couples still have the right to civil unions, which gives them the ability 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.” But the justices said that the voters had clearly expressed their will to limit the formality of marriage to opposite-sex couples.

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I think the ruling is legally sound on both the ban and the recognition of marriages done prior to the constitutional amendment. There will probably be emotional arguments against both results, but the court is right on the law.

The civil unions offered appear to give gays all the benefits of marriage other than the emotional title that some want in a search to be seen as normal. Opponents of gay marriage would have always seen those marriages as pretend regardless of the outcome of this case.