Shifting Sanders

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, who broke his campaign promise to affirm marriage in order to cater to his daughter’s sexual orientation, testified today in the Proposition 8 trial. Why? I’m not quite sure. Associated Press writer Lisa Leff has the story.

Sanders, a Republican, now believes it's in the interest of government to support same-sex marriage. A former police chief, he cited examples of hate crimes against gays and of police officers being afraid to acknowledge they are gay.

"If government tolerates discrimination against anyone it is very easy for citizens to do the same thing," he said.

This attempted connection is wild leap. As I've explained many times before, "discrimination" is the wrong word to use, unless it is qualified. We all discriminate all of the time – the question is, on what basis should we discriminate? I doubt that the inability to for one man to get a state marriage license with another man has kept a single person in the closet, or caused people to run around beating up homosexual people or vandalizing their property. Nor will a marriage license stop the tragic practice known to cops as "homocide", in which homosexual people beat or kill each other.

We should prosecute people who violate the person or property of another. We should not neuter our state marriage licensing. Keeping the bride+groom requirement is no more hateful than age of consent laws or laws against bigamy or first cousins marrying. No, they aren't all the same thing – but we're not hating the cousins, are we, when we deny them a marriage license with each other?

Leff also had this article taking a look at Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Richard Walker.

During his time as a federal judge, Walker has ruled in at least two cases involving gay rights issues. In one, he dismissed a lawsuit by two Oakland city employees who alleged their free speech rights were violated when managers removed a bulletin board flier for a religious group that promoted "natural family, marriage and family values."

The city had "significant interests in restricting discriminatory speech about homosexuals. . . .(and has) a duty under state law to prevent workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," Walker wrote in his 2005 ruling.

In the other case, Walker in 1999 rejected arguments from the parents of a San Leandro boy who claimed their religious rights were violated by pro-gay comments their son's teacher had made in the classroom.