Celebrities Decry Democratic Process

Hundreds of Hollywood celebrities voiced outrage over the result of California's popular referendum amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Many of those same celebrities were earlier celebrating voter turnout and the glories of democracy, which produced an Obama victory--yet that same democratic process that's resulted in a decision they can't tolerate has left them indignant. Gay folk singer Melissa Etheridge, who exchanged vows with her partner five years ago, is protesting:

[My girlfriend] and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

That eloquently articulated argument will go over really well in the state penitentiary. (Oh, and that taxation without representation thingy involved the British Parliament's decision to tax the colonials without their having any say in the matter, a problem that has long since been rectified here, as one presumes you were allowed your one vote--just like everyone else--in Tuesday's referendum. The fact that yours was outnumbered by those of dissimilar mind has nothing to do with any unfairness in the process, my dear.)

She then indignantly asks, "When did it become okay to legislate morality?"

Let's see... since the inception of this nation, and every nation that's come before? When the state criminalizes, e.g., pederasty, it is making a moral judgment that sex with minors is wrong; when animal rights interest groups lobby congress to pass laws banning animal cruelty, it's based on their judgment that cruelty to animals is wrong; and when senators vote to protect babies from being shoved into a linen closet and left to die after botched abortions (senators NOT named Obama), it's a judgment that such behavior is wrong. We legislate morality all the time; it's what the laws of this nation are founded on, so the tired phrase that so many pro-choice activists (and, it seems now, gay activists) wield about "not legislating morality" is simply founded on ignorance.

But should anyone be surprised? This is Hollywood, after all...