A Seminal Moment

(If you need to look that word up on www.dictionary.com, I'm using the fourth definition.... just FYI)

We as a people are about to have a defining moment in deciding what kind of government we're going to have, and how we're going to be ruled. For those of you that disagree with my politics (and I know you are Legion), this really transcends the Republican/Democrat divisions, and even liberal vs. conservative. It is simply a question of what kind of government we're going to have over us, and what it's limits are going to be.

In this instance, the case in point happens to be in California, but don't think it won't spread if allowed to stand there. If things there turn out the way I anticipate, we'll see the same sort of thing in our own states, maybe even at the national level.

As I mentioned the other week, California's voters chose to limit the institution of marriage to heterosexual couples. Whether or not you think that is fair or wise is beside the point: That is simply what the voters chose. Their state supreme court had earlier ordered the state to start issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples, but when asked to weigh in on the question, the state's voters chose to change the state constitution to make marriage only between men and women.

Now, the state supreme court is going to decide whether or not the voters can change the constitution to nullify its own decision.

The very fact that the court feels that it has any say in making that decision says a great deal. The people, clearly disagreeing with its earlier decision, have voted to reverse it, and now the court has basically said it is in its power to ignore that vote. To call that arrogance is a gross understatement.

Make no mistake: If this court overturns Proposition 8- and I have every expectation that it will, what with 6 out of the 7 judges voting to take the case- California will have passed from a democracy into... something else. Call it a judicial tyranny, an oligarchy, what have you, but it can no longer be pretended that its judicial system is answerable to any law.

Constitutions can be ambiguous, sure. But in this case, any ambiguity in the state's constitution that the court felt required homosexual marriage was erased when the voters decided 'yes' on Proposition 8. For the court to then refuse to be bound by that breaks faith with people it purports to serve.

Obviously, the justices won't come out and say that. They'll cloak it in legal jargon, perhaps saying that the California legislature needs to propose such an Amendment first. Don't be fooled- such arguments are a farce. Legislatures exist to enact the people's will in their stead, since they can't decide every issue by popular vote. They don't exist to overturn the clear will of the people as expressed by voting to amend their constitution. In addition, California's constitution provides several options for its Amending, one of which is simple popular vote; there's nothing saying certain amendments require different options than others.

We give our leaders power over us with the understanding that they too have laws that restrain them, and that there are boundaries we mean them not to cross. If they've come to the point where they think they no longer have to even pretend to honor those boundaries, then they must be reminded that it is they who serve us, not vice versa.

That, friends, is what it means to be a free people.