Note, this is an analysis of the Majority opinion, I take no particular position on gay marriage.

My interest is in the larger issue of judicial activism. 

Via Stop the ACLU

I’m listening as I post to Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel speaking to my local radio station (540 WFLA) about breaking news on a California same-sex marriage case. Staver is an attorney who argued the case on the side of upholding a same-sex marriage ban.

According to news posted just minutes ago:

A state appeals court ruled Thursday that California’s marriage laws do not violate the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians, a critical defeat to a movement hungry for a win after high courts in New York and Washington upheld similar bans in those states.

The complete ruling is a whopping 128 pages long, and can be seen here.  I won’t post it all, but it’s summary is interesting.

The majority opinion, written by Justice McGuiness is an amazing one, not solely for the nature of the ruling itself, but for the stance it takes on judicial activism.

He slaps the dissenting Justice right in the first paragraph:

Our dissenting colleague advances theories and arguments not made by the parties or relied on by the trial court and concludes a constitutionally protected privacy interest compels expanding the definition of marriage to include same sex couples.

He acknowledges the severity of the issue nationally and defines the nature of the debate:

Obviously, the question is one of great significance, and it requires us to venture into the storm of a fierce national debate. Both sides believe passionately in their positions.  Both sides believe passionately in their positions. One side argues the time has come for lesbian and gay relationships to enjoy full social equality, and it is fundamentally unfair for the state to continue to reserve marriage as an institution for heterosexual couples only. The other side stresses the need for judicial restraint and the importance of preserving the traditional understanding of marriage—which is very important to many Californians, who fear such a fundamental change will destroy or seriously weaken the institution at the heart of family life.

Remember Westboro Baptist, those fun filled folks who run the "god hates fags" website and who protest military funerals?  Well, they are back at it again.

They claim on their disgusting web site that:

“The Amish school girls were killed by a madman in punishment for Gov. Ed Rendell’s blasphemous sins against Westboro Baptist Church. Gov. Ed Rendell — speaking and acting in his official capacity to bind the State of Pennsylvania — slandered and mocked and ridiculed and condemned Westboro Baptist Church on national Fox TV. We are continuing to pray for even worse punishment upon Pennsylvania.”

So the protests were on at Amish funerals for girls slain by a deranged idiot.

Pardon me for a momentary lapse of civility.

HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE THESE PEOPLE?  How sick, and stupid and insensitive and disrespectful? 

Rant off.

Fortunately they will not protest afterall.  They got a better offer: Air Time.

A Topeka church that had said it planned to protest at the funerals of five Amish girls killed in Pennsylvania this week now says it won’t have the protest.

That comes after a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, Mike Gallagher, offered the Westboro Baptist Church an hour of airtime tomorrow in exchange for dropping the demonstration.

Confirmed at the Mississippi Sun Herald.

Members of a radical Baptist church based in Kansas Wednesday dropped its plan to picket at the funerals of five Amish girls slain in Lancaster County on Monday.

Westboro Baptist Church said it had planned to appear at the Amish services to protest Gov. Edward G. Rendell’s signing of legislation this summer restricting its picketing at funerals of American soldiers and for what it said were "blasphemous" comments he made about the group.

Church leaders, in a statement Wednesday, announced that they had dropped those plans and instead would appear on a nationally syndicated radio talk show. The Web site of show host Mike Gallagher indicated that the group was offered an hour of airtime Thursday morning in exchange for scrapping the demonstration.

Good.

I haven’t blogged on this but I have been watching it to see how it played out.

Michelle Malkin is a blogging phenom who generates a lot of discussion on the right, and a lot of anger on the left.

She has faced threats and racial smears many times, and lately another round surfaced.

(see my previous blog) 

What started it, just for a quick refresher, was Michelle’ rant wrote in her syndicated column about Charlotte Church’s departure from her formerly angelic image.

Wonkette, a liberal site, began a campaign to prove Michelle was equally depraved, and therefore  hypocrite.

They uncovered photos they claimed showed Michelle on a spring break romp 14 years ago, complete with a bikini clad Michelle.

Problem was they were all faked. 

Michelle blogged the attack on her here and here, and quickly began to unravel the fraud.

In her latest blog on this she crossposts a Townhall.com blog by the real owner of the photos, Ashley Herzog.

Ashley has had her pictures hijacked, photoshopped and used to defame Michelle, and she isn’t very happy about it.

She has, as she notes in her blog, written Wonkette and Gawker to have them post retractions and take the pictures down.  Neither has responded. So Ashley has taken the fight to them: