May 16, 2008 | By Nathaniel Ward

Redefining marriage

Throwing out a millennia-old definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, California’s Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex individuals have the “right” to wed one another.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed that the tide of history and “progress” are on the side of those who seek to abolish traditional marriage: “As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It’s inevitable. This door’s wide open now. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.”

“This was a bad ruling and a usurpation of authority that properly belongs to the political branches,” explains Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Robert Alt. “It’s a masterpiece of judicial activism that reflects the judges’ public policy preferences and not longstanding law. Not only that, it undermines public confidence in the legitimacy and basis of judicial decisions.”

Ironically, the ruling also harms those who support same-sex “marriage” by making it more likely California voters will amend their state constitution this November to formally enshrine the traditional definition. Arizona and Florida voters will have the same opportunity. Dozens of states have amended their constitutions to protect marriage this way, and many more have statutes on the books to protect marriage.

Decisions of this sort “seek to redefine the institution of marriage by judicial fiat and affirm homosexual ‘marriage’ as a fundamental civil right,” Heritage Foundation scholar Matthew Spalding wrote in 2004.

“Faced with such a concerted legal and political effort to deconstruct and thereby undermine one of the most basic institutions of civil society,” wrote Spalding, director of Heritage’s Simon Center for American Studies, state lawmakers should consider amendments to their state constitutions to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Heritage has taken a firm lead in promoting the importance of traditional marriage. Heritage’s FamilyFacts.org, for instance, compiles social science research on why marriage matters. Read all Heritage research on family and marriage on Heritage.org.

Watch Steve Forbes Monday at 12:40 Eastern

Join the New York Area Committee for Heritage this Monday, May 19 for a lecture by Steve Forbes, a Heritage Foundation Trustee and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes, Inc.

Watch the event live online on MyHeritage.org on May 19 at 12:40 p.m. Eastern Time.

Endangering energy prices

The Department of the Interior ruled this week that the polar bear should be added to the endangered species list. This is a mistake, as Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner explains:

There are an estimated 20,000-25,000 wild polar bears today, up from an estimated 8,000-10,000 in the late 1960s. By any measure this species is thriving. It certainly doesn’t need further protection from the United States government.

Today’s decision seems aimed at endangering another endeavor: New oil and natural gas production in Alaska and in its surrounding waters. By placing the polar bear on the endangered species list, the Bush Administration has made it extremely difficult – perhaps impossible - to open up even a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), an area estimated to contain 10 billion barrels of oil, no matter what administrative window dressings were put in place. That’s enough to replace what we’ll import from Saudi Arabia over the next 15 years.

Unfortunately, new energy exploration isn’t the only activity that’s at risk now that the polar bear is listed as endangered. Environmentalists want to use fears about global warming (supposedly caused by humans, although the globe hasn’t warmed in almost 10 years) to limit our country’s energy use, and that can apply in any of the 50 states – from Alaska to Florida. They will now attempt to do so under the guise of protecting the polar bear.

The listing of the polar bear as threatened is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to limit our country’s energy exploration and use. The Bush administration should immediately reconsider and overturn today’s decision.

Freedom and prosperity

Thanks to a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the American Spectator is publishing a ten-part series of articles on the components of individual liberty as it evolved in the West and the state of individual liberty in the future – not only in the West but in the rest of the world.

The Heritage Foundation is pleased to offer for free download the second article in the series, a discussion of the importance of the individual ownership of property by noted author Paul Johnson. The article appeared in the March, 2008 issue of the American Spectator.

» Download the article in PDF format

» All articles in this series

Other Heritage work of note

• Heritage’s Dan Lips reports that there’s good news on the education front from the nation’s capital. “A growing number of District children are benefiting from the opportunity to attend a school of their parents’ choice rather than being forced into a specific neighborhood school, regardless of how dangerous or academically deficient it might be.” But there’s room for improvement, and he spells out several recommendations in depth.

• One long-term solution to the problem of illegal immigration, Heritage experts James Roberts and Israel Ortega write, would be to encourage economic and political reforms in Mexico. “The failure of the Mexican economy to perform at peak efficiency and to realize its full potential over the past half-century has resulted in a flood of unemployed semi-skilled and unskilled Mexican job hunters seeking employment with their alluringly successful neigh­bor to the north,” they argue. Increased economic opportunity would encourage more Mexicans to seek employment at home instead of here in the United States.

• James Sherk, Heritage’s Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy, reports that “many Members of Congress want to require state and local governments to bargain collectively with police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel.” While a better policy would be to continue to allow states flexibility in these matters, Sherk suggests reforms that could make the new rules less onerous, for example enforcing a ban on strikes by public-safety workers.

In other news

• Heritage’s Foundry weblog reports on more good news on education: “Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed legislation (HB 1133) to create a $50 million school choice tax credit program. The legislation will allow individuals and businesses to take a dollar-for-dollar credit on state taxes for contributions to non-profit groups that fund tuition scholarships. In all, Georgia taxpayers can claim $50 million in tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations.”

• The University of Colorado at Boulder is looking to add a faculty member devoted to the study of conservative thought. It would be refreshing to have a conservative voice on so liberal a college campus. Nevertheless, it might be better if administrators improved the institution’s overall focus instead of hiring what may be viewed as the campus’ “token conservative” to satisfy critics.

• The House of Representatives has passed a bloated handout program that gives taxpayer money to millionaire farmers. The new farm bill would increase the already lavish $25 billion annual subsidy to farmers. Almost $6 billion a year, the AP reports, would actually pay farmers not to farm their land.

• Liberals in Congress have proposed a new tax increase to offset the expensive of a costly new government benefit for veterans.

• Left-wing filmmaker is making a sequel to his 2004 movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other events at Heritage please RSVP at Heritage’s website. Or you can view these events live online. All times are Eastern.

• On Monday, May 19 at noon, author Arthur Brooks discusses his new book and research on happiness and how it divides along cultural and political fault lines.

• On Tuesday, May 20 at 11:00 a.m., security consultant Michael Sheehan explains how America can successfully crush terrorist cells.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.

Sign up to get this e-mail

Fill out the form below to receive this e-mail product and more from MyHeritage.org as soon as it's released

First Name*	Last Name*
Email Address *	Zip Code *
Are you currently a Heritage member?
	* = Required field.