The people never OK'd gay marriage

I am writing to correct some faulty information in Burt Constable's recent column on gay marriage.

First, he wrote: "In blue California, voters reversed a law that legalized gay marriage."

There was no law that legalized gay marriage; it was simply a decision by the California Supreme Court that legalized gay marriage.

The voters of California had passed a law in 2000 defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Second, he wrote: "Californians ... took away gays' civil rights that had been on the books."

Gay marriage had never "been on the books" in California. Neither the voters nor the state legislature ever passed a gay marriage law.

Gay marriage became legal only through the exercise of raw legal power by the state Supreme Court, not democratically.

Gay marriage has never become legal in any state - whether Massachusetts, California or Connecticut - through an act of the people, either directly or through their representatives.

Gay marriage has only become legal by the state courts acting on their own without an act of the people.

The people of California simply acted to overturn an act of the state Supreme Court that was clearly in opposition to the action of the voters several years earlier.

Californians simply reaffirmed their earlier action in defining marriage by passing Proposition 8.

Lars Johnson

Hanover Park