Last week the Governor of New York announced that same-sex marriages performed elsewhere will be recognized in his state in response to a New York state court ruling this year. The decision, Martinez v. County of Monroe, involved the case of a woman whose employer declined to offer benefits to her female partner even though she had been married abroad.

With this move, traditional marriage is being dealt yet another blow, and once again it is not coming from either the legislative process or through an initiative of the people. Rather, brazen judicial activism is telling the people what they should believe.

Gay marriage is not legal in New York and the recent ruling by the state’s highest court said that same-sex marriages could only be legalized by the Legislature. Nonetheless, the ruling also said that nothing in New York law impeded the recognition of a same-sex marriage performed outside of New York.

Massachusetts, the only state to allow same-sex marriage, does not allow non-residents to marry. As a result, only California with its recent narrow court decision to legalize same-sex marriage could marry New York residents that sought such unions. However, even if California’s court chooses to stay its decision for a time, same-sex marriages solemnized in Canada and other countries would be recognized in New York.

It is absurd that not only will New York now be forced to recognize same-sex marriages from another state that it will not authorize itself, but it will also be forced to recognize such unions from other countries. This is a political cop-out that bypasses the will of the people in New York and the United States.

Advocates of same-sex marriage have been quick to declare that this latest development is simply the work of an independent judiciary, but that assessment ignores the role of the courts: to interpret the laws written by the legislature and enforced by the executive. While the judiciary is to function independently in its role, that role does not include the writing of legislation.

Judicial activism brought us the “right” to abortion on demand. In overriding the will of the people and their representatives the Supreme Court created an issue that has dominated and poisoned American politics for more than thirty years. Now state courts are doing the same thing with marriage and dealing another blow to politics and the political process. Can we afford that?

The crisis over the definition of marriage is another example of judicial activism run amok.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Politics .