Sunday, May 18, 2008

Register approves gay marriage decision

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the California Supreme Court's decision that a law restricting marriage to man-woman couples was invalid under the California constitution. This should be a "teaching moment," reminding people that a written constitution, and especially one that includes a bill of rights or sets forward a set of protected individual rights, exists partly to limit government power, as a protection against government, by whatever majority, violating those rights. Thus a supreme court using a constitution to invalidate a law is not being "activist," but doing its job. Courts have been known to go over the line and invent "rights," but having read the decision, I don't think that's the case here.

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