Your Old Road is Rapidly Aging

Perhaps today you felt a tug and a tear somewhere not quite inside but clearly within you. At first it was a subtle and ineffable drift. Some part of your being was drawn sensibly but invisibly away. Eventually, you stifled a whimper as something was pulled from your core- as if your awareness of your self- the you that is inside your hands but is not your hands- the you that draws you beyond the horizon of you- was gently but surely gripped and coerced from your soles, from your chest, your arms, your face. And finally like a breath that would not return or as if sight were reversed, it emptied your being with a final tear as delicate as it was painful.

But rather than empty and unaware, you are left with a heavy oblivion that can not carry itself.

You are your phantom limb.

Why did this happen?

Because, today, California's Supreme Court destroyed marriage.

While this may be a day of unspeakable joy for some, for others it's a sign of the apocalypse... mostly those who believe in an apocalypse.

Remember when I wrote this? Really? Don't you have anything else to do?

Anyway, the decision is in. The question was: "The question we must address is [I just said that] whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution."

The decision is: "... upon review of the numerous California decisions that have examined the underlying bases and significance of the constitutional right to marry (and that illuminate why this right has been recognized as one of the basic, inalienable civil rights guaranteed to an individual by the California Constitution), we conclude that, under this state’s Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process. These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage. As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society.
Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender— does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

If you're not afraid of catching The Gay, you can download all 172 pages of the decision here.

Now before your inbox is filled with all manner of alerts and battle cries (read: requests for money), realize this is not judicial activism- though that dog whistle will be blown. This is, understand clearly, a plain, conservative reading of the state constitution and legal precedent. It is not a decision based on what the Republican appointed judges think policy ought to be because of personal preference or inclination. It is not a twisting of definitions to suit their own agenda. It is based on what they understand to be the rights guaranteed and protected by our constitution. So, disagree with it if you must, but don't disagree with it as a dummy.

That said, I can understand if you feel that, today, the very foundations of being have been destroyed. How will we go on? How will my marriage survive? How will I not be forced to marry my shoes? How will the way we say things ought to be remain if we don't believe in them real hard and force others to do the same?

Coincidentally, providentially, serendipitously, by cosmic accident- whatever your sensibilities allow- this week I had to find my and the Qweenbean's marriage license to verify to an insurance company we were married and it got me a'thinkin'. It's a strange thing that the state has any business in saying that we are allowed to have the type of relationship we have agreed to try out. She said it's a good thing there is because I would have married my cat to make a point. Whether that's the case, I think that will be an out for some churches. Marrying cats? No, I mean after they've exhausted themselves with initiatives that will ultimately prove unconstitutional, churches will have to decide if they want to continue being agents of the state- more concerned with producing good citizens than people who have no place to lay their heads.

To me this is a good thing, not least of all because all of this head resting has made for lazy brains.