S.F. mayor's bold attempt at heroics unappreciated, illegal

By Rene Cardenas

The opinions of both Mayor Gavin Newsom and the editorial board about sanctioning same-sex marriage are reminiscent of Orwellian illogic and double-speak.

The editorial stated that Newsom brought government "back to the people" by "ordering the city to begin issuing marriage certificates to gay men and lesbians." Two paragraphs later, it notes that voters put a "restriction on same-sex marriages, codifying that California should not recognize such unions from other states." If California should not honor unions from other states, I would assume California would not recognize them within its borders.

The "population at large," as the board called it, asserted its voice. Just because others don't like the result doesn't give them the privilege of projecting their opinion as the somehow truer opinion of the general populace. Such a blatant contradiction cannot be excused. The gay lobby's opinion doesn't represent everyone.

The editorial board also believes that the "state should have no place telling consenting adults what to do" (unless they want the Ten Commandments in front of their Courthouse) or "that a marriage between a man and a woman should be dictated at the state or federal level." The government has every right to legislate marriage to prohibit unlikely, but plausible circumstances. For example, the law prohibits marrying within the family. Obviously, few people are in a rush to do this, but there is always someone looking a loophole. What if someone was happily married to his wife but then decided it might be nice to bring in his secretary and her best friend along for the ride? These are unlikely, yet possible occurrences which government action protects society from.

I turn my opinion to those who would equate this "struggle" with the civil rights actions of the 1950s and 1960s. It is a shame and a disservice to those individuals who fought for equality among the races to construct this type of equilibrium. Read the Virginia Supreme Court Justices' opinion in Loving v. Virginia, the case that eventually made interracial marriages a legal and binding act. Richard Loving faced five years of hard time for marrying Mildred Jeter, a black woman. Their case spent nearly ten years in the courts. That's "civil rights." Races are cultural constructs and inherently equal. Men and women, although equal, should not be seen as interchangeable in marriage. A civilization that equates heterosexual marriage and homosexual unions is committing harikiri. This isn't happening in a vacuum, of course. There are so many contradictions in the so-called cultural values in our society. We castigate Mel Gibson for producing a brilliant work of art that "could incite anti-Semitic violence" while hailing a film doused with sex, drugs and violence (made by teenagers, no less) as "provocative." A population cannot assert its faith in the Creator in front of its judicial building, but a despotic mayor can tell voters to shove it and appear as a hero. It's sad to watch the equal protection clause become every radical activist's cheap trick.

û Rene Cardenas is a senior history and Italian major.