Pubdate: Tue,  2 Mar 2004
Source: Decatur Daily Democrat (IN)
Copyright: 2004 The Decatur Daily Democrat.
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/3284
Website: http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/
Author: Joseph Perkins
Note: Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

UNDERMINING THE RULE OF THE LAW

I am profoundly troubled by the gay marriages in San Francisco.

Not because I am a "homophobe," a label unfairly applied to anyone who
does not embrace the gay agenda. Not because I am some sort of
religious nut, who thinks that homosexuals ought to be burned at the
stake. Not because I am a bigot, who prefers not to associate with
gays.

But because city officials in San Francisco have brazenly flouted both
state and federal law. It is part of a recent disturbing pattern in
California in which ideologically motivated elected officials, as well
as activist judges, have taken it upon themselves to suspend the rule
of law.

The gay marriage outrage was touched off a fortnight ago when San
Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unilaterally decided to grant marriage
licenses to same-sex couples.

Since then, more than 3,300 gay couples from all over have flocked to
the city by the bay to get unlawfully married. Many of the ceremonies
have been performed by a state assemblyman, Mark Leno, a gay Democrat
from San Francisco.

Newsom insists that he is acting within the law. He maintains that he
is merely upholding the equal protection rights guaranteed by the
California Constitution.

But San Francisco's recently elected mayor conveniently ignores a 1977
statute that is part of California's Family Code, which defines
marriage as that between a man and a woman. He also dismisses a 2000
state ballot measure, Proposition 22, overwhelmingly approved by
voters, which affirmed that "only marriage between a man and a woman
is valid or recognized" in the state; which declared that California
need not recognize same-sex marriages that might be performed elsewhere.

California higher education officials are almost as brazen as San
Francisco's lawbreaking mayor. In recent years, they have tricked up
the admission process for the academically elite nine-campus UC system
to get around Proposition 209, which forbids racial preferences in
public education.

The law has survived challenges before both the California Supreme
Court and the United States Supreme Court. Yet, UC officials continue
to bestow preferences upon "underrepresented minorities" - Latinos and
blacks - at the expense of whites and Asians.

Indeed, 65 percent of students admitted to UC Berkeley and UCLA with
below average SAT scores in 2002 were Latinos and blacks; 58 percent
at UCSD and 49 percent at UC Riverside.

The long and short of it is that low-scoring "underrepresented
minorities" have a much better chance of being admitted to UC schools
than whites and Asians.

That clearly violates the eight-year-old California law, which
unequivocally declares that the state "shall not discriminate against,
or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the
basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin."

There are also certain exceptional cases where state law ought to be
ignored. Not because some mayor or some board of regents thinks so,
but because state law conflicts with superior federal law.

That is the case with the highly controversial California law that
allows marijuana use for -- purportedly -- medicinal purposes. It
clearly runs afoul with the Controlled Substances Act, the federal law
that classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance with a high
potential for abuse. And it violates the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act,
which requires that a drug be scientifically proven safe and effective
before it can be used for medicinal purposes.

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is no medical
marijuana exception to the federal Controlled Substances Act and the
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Yet, state and local officials in
California pretend that the ruling was never issued.

Indeed, San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne recently informed the
City Council, "Our current procedure protects the rights of qualified
patients and primary caregivers to have access to legal amounts of
marijuana."

If San Francisco Mayor Newsom is offended by the law limiting marriage
to a man and woman, if the UC Board of Regents doesn't care much for
the law forbidding racial preferences in admissions, if San Diego's
police chief and City Council have a problem with federal drug laws
prohibiting marijuana use for medicinal purposes, they should work to
change those laws.

But they should not presume to ignore those laws, to undermine the
rule of law. For as Thurgood Marshall said: "Lawlessness is
lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor
frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake