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New York Supreme Court of Appeals says No to Homosexual Marriage

Abolishing marriage in court “usurps” legislature’s mandate

By Hilary White

NEW YORK, December 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Supreme Court of New York State has ruled that it has no competence to re-define legal marriage, overturning a previous ruling that would have allowed homosexual partnerings the same legal status as normal marriage.

Court's Appellate Division ruled 4-1 that Justice Doris Ling-Cohan erred in her presumption that the courts have the authority to create constitutional rights out of whole cloth. The ruling stated, “We find it even more troubling that the court, upon determining the statute to be unconstitutional, proceeded to rewrite it and purportedly create a new constitutional right.”

The ruling overturns the earlier decision in which five homosexual partners had followed the reliable method of homosexual activists everywhere in trying to use the court to force the New York City clerk to issue marriage licenses. In Ling-Cohan’s ruling she said that the terms “husband,” “wife,” “groom,” and “bride” must be applied interchangeably to men and women, rendering the terms essentially meaningless.

This tactic has worked well in most other jurisdictions. In Canada same-sex “marriage” was forced into federal law at first by a series of well-orchestrated provincial court cases. In Ontario the legal fallout of institutionalizing homosexual unions has resulted in the virtual legal abolition not only of such terms as “husband” and “wife,” but of “mother,” “father,” “widow,” and “widower” in dozens of statutes.

The New York appeals court said this kind of judicial activism, “was an act that exceeded the court's constitutional mandate and usurped that of the Legislature.”

“The legislative policy rationale is that society and government have a strong interest in fostering heterosexual marriage as the social institution that best forges a linkage between sex, procreation and child rearing,” the ruling stated.

This usurpation of the democratic process is fully endorsed in Canada, however, even at the highest levels. Recent declarations by Canada’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Beverly McLachlin, show that democratic principles are not welcome north of the US border. McLachlin told an audience of law students in New Zealand earlier this week that it is the duty of judges to overturn and re-write laws according to “unwritten norms” known only to themselves, even in the face of “hostile public opinion.”

Homosexual lobbyists have vowed to continue the fight in New York State.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05022511.html

Canada’s Chief Justice Says Courts Must Ignore Written Laws in Favour of Judge-Decided Unwritten “Norms”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05120604.html

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