Why Anti-Gay Groups Need a Civics Lesson

Whenever equality prevails for LGBT people, right-wing anti-gay groups try to delegitimize whichever democratic avenue was successful for gay and transgender people.

Most recently, it was a federal court case that struck down California's ban on gay marriage. As the New Yorker reported, Judge Vaughn Walker had made it clear that he wanted evidence in the case and "lots of it." As he said in his 138-page opinion that gay marriage opponents "failed to build a credible factual record to support their claim that Proposition 8 served a legitimate government interest.”

Walker continued in the opinion: "the evidence does not support a finding that California has an interest in preferring opposite-sex parents over same-sex parents. Indeed, the evidence shows beyond any doubt that parents’ genders are irrelevant to children’s developmental outcomes."

So what basis is there for a ban on gay marriage? In Perry, Walker explained that "the evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples."

But for opponents of gay marriage it was not about a lack of credible evidence. For them, the ruling against Prop 8 was merely case of "judicial activism" of course. Citizen Link, Focus on the Family's proxy publication, reacted predictably, "the judge’s invalidation of the votes of over seven million Californians violates binding legal precedent and short-circuits the democratic process."

Short circuits the democratic process? You mean the Republic that our Founding Fathers designed? Unlike the direct democracy in Ancient Greece, the Founding Fathers envisioned a representative government that helped to assuage the "tyranny of the majority," which James Madison discussed in Federalist Paper 10. He explained the danger in the first paragraph, "the public good is disregarded ... not according to the rules of justice ... but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." Today, we avoid this "overbearing majority" with an electoral college, representatives in legislatures, and a court system that stops government from infringing on the rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

With all this right-wing talk of repealing the 14th Amendment and the need to recognize "the will of the people," maybe we should return to Athenian Direct Democracy. I just don't know if Focus on the Family would be down with all that idol worship and pederasty.

Photo credit: Adam Amir