California Supreme Court Ruling : You cannot call it marriage

The absurdity of this is still sinking. No, I am not mad at the ruling (read NY Times article) much. Why ? Because I understand what the judges are trying to do. Or at least if not agree with the ruling, I can see their logical conclusion.

The Chief Justice and the 5 other assenting judges of the California Supreme Court felt that it was not the court's prerogative to challenge or alter a decision reached by a democratic process ( the slim majority through which the Prop. 8 was passed a few months ago).

In some ways I was also greatly relieved when the bench re-affirmed that under California law, same-sex civil union was still allowed with all the same benefits like those enjoyed by "heterosexual marriages". And that the hundreds of marriages that had taken place when the law was in effect were not going to be voided.


But this is what I don't get. The absolute unwavering insistence by the religious Right on their claim to the word "marriage".

Can somebody please explain to me their rationale ? On what grounds can one section of citizenry claim ownership on a word ?(I say one section of citizenry because they received only 52 % of the votes, barely a simple majority)

As much saddened I am by the ruling .. I am very sure (and I can count a few of my friends in it) that we don't give a damn.

If I have to call it a civil union, you know what? So be it. If I have to call it "full-of-shit" I couldn't have been happier.


I think the entire LGBT community must react to this news with utmost nonchalance ... we must retort with such a level of indifference and show our friends on the Right, that it doesn't matter what they get to call our commitment to love and lifelong partnership... that it doesn't matter if they alone get to enjoy the "fruits of this heavenly matrimony - marriage" .. Because seriously, we have better things to do than haggling over what it can be called and cannot.

I am very sure if a large swathe of the LGBT community refused to acknowledge this as a defeat and instead felt .. now we have California, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont .. 6 out of 50 states that does not discriminate a human being .. and that we have work to do in other states and other countries.. the religious right would undoubtedly feel even more insecure.

They would feel insecure when they see our conviction is in fighting the real issues .. in getting equal rights for everybody .. in preventing any person being discriminated because of their gender or sexuality .. they will know they have a lost cause because those are issues its difficult to bring rationale arguments against.


Gandhi did not organize armies of his countrymen to show the British how much more stronger he and his supporters were than the British. Gandhi knew that to fight the British, one did not need a greater opposing force .. in fact, one needed no force at all.

When the British would see man after man, standing proud and upright, holding hands together in unison but never once raising an arm to protect himself or his fellow protester from a harsh baton-blow, Gandhi knew the British would be compelled to concede and recognize the futility of their batons .. the futility of opposing silent non-violent protesters ...the futility of suppressing the yearning of something so basic and fundamental to a human, the right that make him equal to everybody else.


Often when I read the entries on Wikipedia on the long years of Apartheid, the Jim Crow laws discriminating blacks up to the fifties and sixties, the systematic ethnic cleansing in Europe in the forties and nineties .. I wonder how could a sane world have allowed any of that and for so long ?

Years from now when two boys holding hands together ... entering the dance floor on their prom night will be looked upon with as much interest (or rather dis-interest) as any other couple on the dance floor ... our sons and daughters and their sons and daughters will wonder how could we have tolerated such ignorance and antipathy towards our fellow human beings .. and for so long.