By Mark Ellis Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

“We applaud the Court of Appeal for refusing to engage in judicial activism with such an important issue as the definition of marriage,” said Kevin Snider, Chief Counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute. “The people of California have spoken clearly through Prop. 22, and it’s encouraging to see the court enforce the law as it was enacted.”

Proposition 22 was passed by a wide margin of California voters in 2000. Same-sex marriage activists immediately challenged the proposition in court. They argued it violated the state constitution by discriminating against homosexuals. A San Francisco judge, Richard Kramer, agreed with the challengers, striking down the law last March.

The 05 october, the California Court of Appeal, First District, overruled Judge Kramer and reinstated Prop. 22. The court emphasized its limited role in interpreting, rather than making, law. The court stated: “The six cases before us ultimately distill to the question of who gets to define marriage in our democratic society. We believe this power rests in the people and their elected representative, and courts may not appropriate to themselves the power to change the definition of such a basic social institution.”

In a lengthy dissent, Judge Kline agreed with the lower court’s decision that the people of California did not have a “rational basis” for restricting marriage to a man and a woman, and that homosexuals possess a fundamental right to marry. The dissent also took aim at the hundreds of years of religious tradition, which have shaped marriage laws and policies, claiming that such understandings “cannot influence the civil law” and are “not universally shared.”