by Linda Gehring

Created on: February 25, 2009

While the heading proposes a fact statement that California's Proposition 8 somehow negates the Constitution and Bill of Rights, I couldn't disagree more. In fact, the Constitution is based in the "common law" of England primarily with the exception of the provisions on the sanctity of jury trials in this country, and the First Amendment which were unique to our country as a free nation "of the people" and not a sovereign one any longer.

With respect to gay marriage, this claim of equality has no basis in fact nor law. Marriage is an institution that predates our Constitution in the common law. Unlike the slavery issue in which there was much dispute when the Constitutional Convention was convened, there was no hint that the founder's intended for institution of marriage to include same sex couples and to remain as it was and had been for centuries. Recognized as a union between a man and a woman. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had this to say about how the Constitution was to be construed:

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." -James Madison

The Constitution is nothing more than a contract between the federal and state government, and it's people. Under the civil law, until the government stepped in and placed a "tax" on marriage in the form of the requirement for a marriage license, marriages were simply conducted by the church requiring two witnesses to the commitment and were simply logged in the courthouse records for the sake of protection of inheritance rights. That was also the biblical basis and how marriges were performed in the Old Testament. Not by city officials, but by the Temple Rabbis. Homosexuality has been in existence since biblical times and practiced quite frequently in Rome prior to Rome's conversion to Christianity when it was a pagan nation. Even at that time homosexual unions were not recognized by the Roman government.

In this country civil unions by a magistrate were initiated for record keeping purposes most of all, again for inheritance purposes and to insure that both parties were unwed again in order to protect rights of inheritance from illegimate birth claims made on the property of an estate. In fact, there are still some states in this county that still recognize "common law" marriages - where no official civil ceremony has taken place, yet the parties to

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