California Supremes Take a Club to Traditional Marriage
by Allie Martin and Jody Brown
August 3, 2005
(AgapePress) - An attorney with a Mississippi pro-family group says a decision by California's Supreme Court shows the need for a federal marriage amendment.
Earlier this week, California's high court ruled unanimously that businesses in the Golden State must treat same-sex "domestic partners" the same as married couples. The ruling came from a case where a golf club had denied a family membership to a lesbian couple.
B. Birgit Koebke and Kendall E. French, according to court documents, have been in a lesbian relationship since 1993. Koebke had been a "regular" member Bernardo Heights Country Club in San Diego County since 1987. Regular members at the club may golf with their spouses and any qualifying child on an unlimited basis and without paying additional membership or usage fees.
In 1995, the board of directors for the country club denied Koebke's request to designate French as her "significant other" to enable them to golf together on the same basis as married couples. Subsequent requests were also denied, resulting in the lesbian couple filing complaints against BHCC.
Court documents note there is no information in legal records indicating the two women filed as domestic partners, although a copy of the filing was provided to the court. Nevertheless, in the opinion handed down [PDF] from the California Supreme Court, Justice Carlos Moreno stated: "A business that extends benefits to spouses it denies to registered domestic partners engages in impermissible marital status discrimination."
Brian Fahling is senior trial attorney with the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy. Describing the court ruling as "troubling," Fahling says it demonstrates the need for a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage.
"This doesn't bode well," the attorney says, "and it certainly, I think, points out the importance of states having constitutional amendments protecting marriage and guarding against imposters that might attempt to make a power grab, if you will, such as happened in California, where they want [some same-sex relationships] to be treated like marriage even if they can't get called by the name of marriage."
States like California, says Fahling, that do not have a constitutional amendment protecting marriage need to act quickly before marriage is "trivialized out of existence" by homosexual activists who will use the legal system to force others to legally accept their lifestyle.
"Those in the radical homosexual movement know they cannot succeed through the democratic process. That's been proven time and time again," Fahling points out. "[So] they have conscripted the courts, and the courts have done their bidding."
And the courts, he explains, are imposing the will of the homosexual agenda on an unwilling nation. "Apparently the only way we can stop that now is through the amendment process," Fahling says. "It is essential that our federal constitution be amended to protect marriage."
Fahling's legal group says the ruling in B. Birgit Koebke v. Bernardo Heights Country Club is certain to fuel the debate over two initiatives currently being circulated in the Golden State. One would repeal the existing domestic partner law; the other would amend the state constitution to limit and preserve marriage as existing only between one man and one woman.
