Reprehensible logic

The New York State Supreme Court shot down any wiggle room for same-sex marriage yesterday, and the fallout is being felt everywhere. This is, of course, the one lasting bit of conservative legacy for our ineffectual moron governor Pataki, considering that he's auditioning for a future failed presidential run in 2008, and anti-gay legislation is sure to be a hallmark of that campaign.

What's most repellent about the decision is the language used by Judge Robert Smith in the opinion:

"First, the Legislature could rationally decide that for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that this will continue to be true. The Legislature could also find that such relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement -- in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits -- to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other."

This is a jurisprudential "expert," presiding over one of the highest courts in the land, and he has the fucking balls to include such hateful and disparaging slurs in a court opinion. To opine from the bench that gay relationships are "casual and temporary" is a grave, grave error in judgment, and borders on hate speech. Would he dare suggest that "Japs have tails," or that "cheap Jews have horns"? I think not.

But, as we've noted before, anti-gay sentiment has been practically enshrined from the top down in today's America. This decision, following the Kevin Aviance assault, is a dark day for gay equality in a state that should be at the vanguard of the movement.