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p> COMPROMISING POSITIONS br> Re: W. James Antle III's California Dreamin' : /p>

Much like John McCain's "compromise" on global warming (reducing carbon emissions by 60%, versus Barack Obama's goal of reducing it by 80% in the next few decades), "civil unions" and "domestic partnerships" were always steppingstones on the path to homosexual "marriage." Politicians, take note: this is what compromise gets you.

However, this issue is more serious than the manufactured global warming crisis, as bad as that is: it strikes at the very heart of our civilization, and the long-held notion that has been proven again and again: children and societies are much better off when the latter sanctions and supports married mothers and fathers. Ask any honest sociologist, and they will tell you that married couples and their children are happier, healthier, and wealthier. Certainly, no family is perfect, but marriages are a major asset to every society. But whether it's no-fault divorce laws, or narrow state Supreme Court majorities taking it upon themselves to re-write the rules of civilization, crippling this institution has devastating consequences.

Not to mention that homosexual "marriage" in California came about not by the will of the people, but through a slim majority of unelected judges who think they are philosopher-kings, rather than enforcers of laws that others, namely, our elected representatives, have written. As one of the dissenting California Justices wrote, the Court "does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice."

We would also do well to remember Abraham Lincoln. Regarding another horrendous Court decision, the Dred Scott case, he said, "If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decision of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers."

How appropriate is that statement, given that this Court has violated the will of Californians. Just a few years back, 61.4% of voters in the Golden State voted for Proposition 22, and thus upheld marriage. (By the way, this happened in spite of some 800 pro-Proposition 22 signs being stolen during the course of that campaign -- a crime that was never pursued by California's then-Attorney General, who snidely titled Proposition 22 the "Limit on Marriage" act on the official ballot -- all of which undoubtedly shrunk its support.)

But marriage is not something that needs to be affirmed at the ballot anyway -- though some 15 states, if memory serves, did so in 2004, and by overwhelming margins. Neither is it to be left to the whims of judges, as when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court brazenly declared, "Government creates marriage." (Does it also create motherhood?)

No, marriage is an institution as old as time itself, shared by cultures Christian and non-Christian. If you change it to include two men, two women, two siblings, or whatever, it's no longer marriage. It's like putting a mask on a cat, and calling it a duck. It simply does not work, and the numbers bear this out. In the Netherlands, which has had legalized homosexual "marriage" for over a decade, the average union between two men or two women is been 1.5 years. Meanwhile, some 75% of married couples (that is, one man and one woman) are faithful to their vows.

Of course, some might equate this statement of simple facts as bigotry. However, I would concur with Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and one of the most astute defenders of this institution today: "Most Americans understand that marriage is not bigotry. It is common sense. Because they are the unions that both make new life and connect those children to their own mother and father."

So, what is to be done? At the grassroots level, there is a movement to put marriage into the California State Constitution. Governor Schwarzenegger is set to oppose it. As if we needed more evidence, this proves, once again, that Schwarzenegger's election was a Faustian bargain for conservatives.

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