Just happened across this story on Yahoo...
San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.
"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Kramer wrote.
Er... judge? We've got a whole lot of laws for which there is no rational purpose. Last I heard, "no rational purpose" wasn't considered grounds for throwing out a law, nor a defense for someone accused of violating a law.
Now, if the "rational purpose" test were to be upheld, I can think of a bunch of laws I'd love to see it applied to....
Update: apparently the "rational purpose" test applies when considering whether or not a law violates the never-ratified Equal Rights Amendment, which is considered to be in effect despite its non-ratification, while the actual ratified Constitution may be disregarded if it's inconvenient. Is this supposed to make more sense?
Comments