One News Now
May 16, 2008
Pro-family activist Matt Barber says the California Supreme Court betrayed “We the People” and engaged in the “worst kind of judicial activism” Thursday by overturning the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in March 2000.
The 4-3 ruling allowing homosexual couples in California to legally marry is expectedly drawing the ire of pro-family groups. Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America (CWA), says it was ridiculous for the California Supreme Court to create a “phantom right” to homosexual marriage that was not in the minds of the framers of the state constitution.
“[T]hey have imposed same-sex marriage on the people of California through judicial fiat,” says Barber, following that remark with a more optimistic one. “The good news is that I believe this will re-ignite the debate over a federal constitutional amendment — and will certainly, I think, give a big boost to pro-family activists in California and help them to get a constitutional amendment passed there. They have the signatures to get it on the ballot.”
Indeed, a coalition of pro-family groups have submitted to the California secretary of state more than a million signatures favoring a November vote on a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. The minimum number of valid signatures needed is 694,354. The secretary of state’s office has estimated a vote count should be released before the end of June.
The pro-family activist believes Thursday’s ruling has large implications for the November elections. The decision, says Barber, could become a big campaign issue. Conservatives and Republicans around the country, he says, can thank the California Supreme Court for what he calls an “early Christmas present.” (see a OneNewsNow special on this decision)
“They have been walking around feeling pretty dejected because of some these [recent] election results,” observes CWA spokesman, “but I think this will motivate the base of the Republican Party and certainly conservatives around the country to vote for Republicans or Democrats who are prepared to stand up and defend traditional marriage.”
Barber, who calls same-sex marriage “counterfeit marriage,” argues that “it’s in the best interest of children to be raised with a mother and a father and “to use children as guinea pigs in radical San Francisco-style social experimentation is deplorable.” He also describes same-sex marriage as “a ridiculous and oxymoronic notion that has been forced into popular lexicon by homosexual activists and their extremist left-wing allies.