Gall, Interrupted

Michigan’s gay wedding snake dance has been rudely interrupted by a Circuit Court of Appeals decision to extend indefinitely a stay of Judge Friedman’s ruling against the Michigan Marriage Amendment. (“Federal appeals court extends freeze on Michigan gay marriages”). The stay will remain in place at least until the state’s appeal of the decision has run its course, and possibly until the U.S. Supreme Court gets to rule.

Predictably, the media is reporting all this from the point of view of the 300 same-sex couples (read: “victims”) who rushed to get married on Saturday, and who now (Shocked! Shocked!) face waiting all that time find out if they’re legally married.

Of course, those 300 couples were perfectly well aware that they were rushing into relationships that might well turn out to be invalid. They knew perfectly well that the attorney general would file an appeal and request a stay. That’s why they hurried to take advantage of the handful of county clerks who opened up for unheard of Saturday hours to the sole end of issuing as many licenses as possible before a stay was ordered.

And the ACLU knew all this, too. Saturday’s mad rush to get same-sex marriages completed is part of their plan to prevail by foul means – or fouler – and hopefully outside of court. They’ll use those existing marriages to intimidate the attorney general, the governor, and Michigan’s elected (i.e., politician) state judges to just give up now rather than tangle with all conceivable manner of hairy cases they’re threatening. The Detroit Free Press describes how the ACLU is

preparing to launch legal challenges if the state doesn’t recognize the validity of the marriages of same-sex couples performed Saturday.

The challenges could come if the state refuses to grant benefits to a spouse in a same-sex marriage, blocks adoptions by those couples or hinders the joint filing of state income tax forms, Kaplan said.

“There are more than 1,400 state laws dealing with a legal civil marriage,” he said. “And if the state maintains that these marriages are not legally valid, we have a problem with that and we’ll explore a legal challenge against the state.”

Just like the ACLU, especially on the heels of a courtroom victory, to believe they can sue us all into gender utopia.

But I’ve noticed too that this penchant for resolving things through the judicial process only lasts until the instant they get what they want – after which the same lawsuit-happy bunch condemn further judicial intervention as an iniquitous barrier to social justice.

For instance, in complete disregard for the 2.7 million Michigan voters who passed the marriage amendment by a 59%-41% margin, advocates have “gathered more than 14,000 signatures on a petition calling on Gov. Rick Snyder and Schuette to drop the state’s appeal of Friedman’s ruling.”

“We’re asking Gov. Snyder to abide by the judicial ruling and order your attorney general to stand down. There should be no more wasting our taxpayer dollars and making phony cases about what families should look like with baloney science,” said state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing.

Senator Whitmer’s weak grasp on the state constitution doesn’t speak well for what I suspect is an even weaker grasp on on the national one.  She ought to know that the Michigan attorney general doesn’t answer to the governor: he works for the people of Michigan, in this case the 2.7 million voter majority who spoke plainly on marriage in 2004.  He made this powerfully clear on Tuesday when he wrote in the Free Press:

[I]n Michigan, the people rule. So, when 2.7 million Michigan voters support a constitutional amendment, that means something, and an attorney general is duty-bound to defend the wishes of the voters.

Regardless, Senator Whitmer sees no reason why her 14,000 shouldn’t trump our 2.7 million.   After all, her minority is on the “right side of history.”  And the rest of us?  Well, as  Judge Friedman said in conclusion of Friday’s opinion, to hell with the people.

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