California Appeals

The March 14th California Superior Court decision permitting same-sex marriage included a stay of 60 days before implementation to permit the certain appeals to the state Supreme Court. The rhetoric is fun already, including the ever dramatic Liberty Counsel President Mathew D. Staver, who's Website includes:

This ruling is not the end of the battle. It is just the beginning. Marriage should not be undermined by the stroke of a pen from a single judge. Marriage is a fundamental policy issue that must be decided by the people. To rule that there is no rational purpose to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman is ludicrous. This ruling, which flies in the face of common sense and millennia of human history, will pour gasoline on the fire ignited by the pro-marriage movement. Californians and the rest of the country will react to this decision by passing constitutional amendments to preserve marriage on the state and federal levels. No society has created a buffet-like arrangement of human relationships from which anyone may pick and choose and call it marriage. Marriage is and must remain the union of one man and one woman.

The press release on that site notes that the decision voids Proposition 22, the one-man/one-woman marriage definition passed by referendum by 61.4% of California voters in 2000. Unfortunately for his side, this looks increasingly like the arguments of the racists in separate-but-equal states in the 1950s and 1960s. What would their referendum percentages have been against giving blacks equal rights with whites?

Staver seems comparatively calm contrasted with Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families. His Website has his views including:

This is a crazy ruling by an arrogant San Francisco judge who apparently hates marriage and the voters. Kramer has trashed the people's vote to keep marriage for a man and a woman and violated his oath to uphold the law instead of making new laws out of his own head. This is the worst type of judge. This case will be immediately appealed.

It's hurtful and insulting to the voters when a judge attacks the voters and destroys the sacred institution of marriage for a man and a woman. This outrageous ruling will inspire average citizens to rise up and fight to protect marriage as it naturally is - for a man and a woman, a husband and wife.

I think we can assume that he won't be the spokesman in the Supreme Court hearings.