EDIT: Calif. mayor went too far

Gay and lesbian couples deserve to be allowed to marry in all cities and states across the country, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom hurt that cause and trampled on the rule of law everywhere Thursday by organizing an act in blatant disregard for California law – he arranged for a lesbian couple, and later 15 other same-sex couples, to be officially married in City Hall. Gay marriages are prohibited in the state of California and Newsom’s actions are troublesome. The couple has every right to disagree with what is an unjust law, but it is inappropriate for a city’s highest elected official to use his legal powers to help others break the law. It is not his place to step in and this is not the correct way to go about changing the law. The one place where gay marriage activists are making progress is in Massachusetts, where they are going about it through the legal process. Arguments in Massachusetts are being made in a legal fashion – and the law is changing. If Newsom truly disagrees with the law prohibiting gay marriage, he must move for it to be changed and not make a mockery of the legal system. People must follow the examples being set in Massachusetts if they have any hope of changing the current laws in an orderly fashion. While the lesbian couple has every right to perform an act of civil disobedience to demonstrate their belief that a law keeping them from having the same rights as heterosexual couples is unfair, the mayor does not. People elected to hold public offices should be held to a higher standard than those who elected them. They are elected to uphold the law and make sure that others uphold it as well – hence they should not be telling others to break them either. The mayor does not have the power to decide which laws to follow. All laws must be followed by all citizens – public officials included. If Newsom disagrees with a certain law and decides he does not want to follow it, he has every right to use the means the system gives him to attempt to change the law. He should not simply promote that the law be blatantly ignored. Although Newsom is not breaking the law himself, it is being broken arbitrarily with his blessing. If laws are continually broken because someone decides they do not agree with them, the meaning of laws themselves will be lost. Critics accused the Supreme Judicial Court of committing judicial activism and acting out of line by ruling that gay marriages should be allowed. They were not – they made a scholarly judgment based on the Massachusetts Constitution. While Newsom is on the right side of the issue, he’s on the wrong side on his plan of attack.