Living with our political losses

One of the curious attributes of democracy is that the minority is always "wrong." Not morally wrong, mind you. Just on the wrong side of a political divide that can be as big as a mountain or as small as a single vote.

It's frustrating, to say the least - especially if you are convinced that you are morally right and yet politically powerless.

Nonetheless, moral absolutes can't be undone by elections, and political decisions can't be overturned by moral polemic. That's just a fact of life. Morality and politics, after all, are two separate spheres which only on rare occasion are in perfect alignment.

As a result, those of us who live under a system that employs the trappings of democracy have to agree to abide by outcomes that may disappoint us, distress us, or even injure us. The pro-life forces who want to see abortion made illegal are a classic case of that. They have fought, ever since Roe vs. Wade was declared the law of the land in 1973, to overturn legal protections for abortion, yet they have been by and large unsuccessful. Although these folks believe murder is being done in their name, they have thus had to accept the result with prayer and protest.

More recently, gay-rights advocates suffered a loss in California when voters there, in a much-publicized vote on Proposition 8, amended the state Constitution to say that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

California voters had already declared their support for heterosexual marriage and opposition to homosexual marriage in the year 2000. Proposition 22, which passed then with a 61-37 percent majority, revised state law to say that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." That law had remained on the books until earlier this year when the California Supreme Court declared it to be unconstitutional.

Such court intervention can be quite frustrating (there's that word again) for people who don't think courts should be in the business of making law. But nonetheless, that is in fact what courts often do - whether they admit it or not. And whether or not you agree with the morality of gay marriage, the argument that a law is unconstitutional cannot easily be trumped once the high court has spoken. Indeed, as opponents of abortion have found out on the national scene, it is almost impossible to get the court to reverse itself once it has ruled on a constitutional issue.

On the other hand, there is no bar against the people of a jurisdiction following the prescribed procedure and changing their constitution to make clear what is and is not allowed under that ruling document. That's what the citizens of California did when a court ruled that gay marriage was indeed legal. In a few brief months, they were able to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would let voters say once and for all whether the state should recognize gay marriage. The voters decided on Nov. 4 that gay marriage should NOT be legal in California, and yet that strangely enough is not the end of the story.

Almost immediately, opponents of Proposition 8 announced that they would go to court again to get the constitutional amendment declared unconstitutional. For a number of reasons, they are considered to have a good chance of succeeding.

In the meantime, gay-rights advocates are protesting throughout California and nationwide over what they believe to be a denial of their civil rights by California - not to mention by the other 42 states that have constitutional bans or laws against same-sex marriage.

That kind of protest is certainly well within reason, as long as it is done peacefully and without violating other laws. But the question of overturning the will of the people through court intervention is not so reasonable. Here's why:

Elections are the cornerstone of our system of government, whether it is the democratic republic that elects representatives to make laws on our behalf or whether it is the direct democracy inherent in California's system of allowing the people to amend their own Constitution through a simple majority vote.

If elections are going to have credibility and integrity, they also need to have consequences. It is up to all of us to honor the results of our elections, even when we find them to be abhorrent. This is true whether we are talking about the election of a president or the will of the people being expressed on a constitutional issue.

As an example, there are a number of people who made the argument before the recent election that Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen, and thus would be ineligible to be president of the United States. This argument was made publicly and forcefully, and yet the citizenry elected Obama by a fairly wide margin. Were these arguments to succeed in court now, after the election, and somehow forced the removal of Obama from office, it would have the effect of nullifying the clear choice of the people and might very well trigger riots as well. Almost no one would countenance such an outcome, especially if it were accomplished by a court instead of through the impeachment process established by the Constitution.

By the same token, it behooves the gay community to persevere in their cause without short-circuiting elections. They have every right to seek to change the law through legislative or constitutional changes, but they ought not to circumvent the plainly spoken will of the people by crying to the courts. Let's remember: Everything in our system, from the executive branch to the courts to the legislature itself, comes from the power of "we the people."

Government operates on a mandate from us, not the other way around. And if the system is used to thwart the people's will, then all hell will break loose - and that is something hopefully none of us wants to see.

. Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com