When the CA State supreme court affirmed the right to marriage equality, it was due to the courageous, balanced and fair opinion authored by Chief Justice Ronald George, and signed by Justices Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdegar, and Carlos Moreno; Justice Kennard also wrote a separate concurring opinion.
Who were the Justices who sought to use their power and the law to perpetuate bigotry, hatred and inequality? Their ringleader was Justice Marvin Baxter, author of the dissenting opinion in the May 2008 decision. While his words were rightly ignored then, they take on new importance given his role in molding the opinions of his fellow justices again in this case.
It would do us well, as we approach the March 2009 hearing, to ask: What makes Justice Baxter a bigot?
According to his biography:
Justice Marvin R. Baxter of the California Supreme Court was born January 9, 1940 in Fowler (Fresno County), California. He grew up on the family farm and was educated in the local public schools
Baxter commenced his legal career as a Fresno County deputy district attorney in 1967, where he served for two years. He then became an associate and later a partner in the Fresno law firm of Andrews, Andrews, Thaxter, Jones and Baxter, where he practiced civil law for 13 years.
Unfortunately for all Californians, Justice Baxter was never exposed to diverse social and political beliefs that spring up in cities as a result of his failed rural upbringing, and consequently he has become a champion of state-sponsored discrimination.
So what does Justice Baxter believe?
California law already provides, to the maximum extent of the state’s
power, a right to same-sex legal unions with all the substantive legal benefits of
their opposite-sex counterparts
Baxter is obsessed with the mistaken belief that all benefits that can be provided are being provided to gays. That is wrong, as Google and Levis point out in their brief: a substantial number of benefits would have to be unwound if Prop 8 stands and 18,000 couples are compelled to divorce, including time off, credit, and tax withholding.
In his argument, Baxter insists in:
the people’s general right, directly or through their chosen legislators, to decide fundamental issues of public policy for themselves.
Unfortunately for Baxter, Civil Rights are not Public Policy. Civil Rights have been decided more than two centuries prior, and they are guaranteed over and above the base whims of a bare bigoted majority. To slap the label of “public policy” on issues such as free speech, slavery, and womens’ right to vote is the first step in distracting Americans from the profound questions of Freedom, Justice and Equality that are pivotal in our decision making. Marriage inequality is not public policy any more than poll taxes on blacks was “public policy.” Both are Discrimination, and both are Wrong.
Like most enemies of equality, Baxter is obsessed with the concept of “definitions”. Understanding his moral authority is on rapidly crumbling legal ground, he cites four separate dictionaries to grope for a “definition” of marriage that supports his position. Language is a tool for each new generation, not a prison within which our actions and thoughts are confined. The sheer fact that he is able to cite so many separate sources should suggest to him that it is acceptable to have multiple definitions of the same term. Let Baxter use his own ethically perverted notion of marriage, no man is asking to marry him, and let the rest of California choose the dictionary from which they will find the words to express their relationships.
Next, as a self-styled “conservative,” he appeals to “tradition,” claiming:
there is no deeply rooted tradition of same-sex marriage, in the nation or in this state.
Given the lack of a “deeply rooted” tradition of racial equality in the South, this argument easily falls flat, for we never would have overcome our racial issues in the 1960s otherwise. It is unworthy of a legal mind entrusted with protecting the rights of the people of California to use “tradition” to support discrimination.
Baxter’s only nuanced argument is that his fellow justices paid too much “reliance on statutory law to establish a constitutional right.” This is a nuanced criticism of the following logic: “gays should be allowed to marry because we have so many other laws that affirm same-sex coupling that it’s clear the legislature intended to allow for marriage.”
Even if we grant this to Baxter, Atty General Brown rightly points out that the right to form relationships are protected by the opening of our constitution:
All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights
We never should have voted on this issue to begin with. It’s up to the judiciary to remind California of this fact. Baxter is a bigot and a tool of extremist evangelicals, and he lacks any legal nuance or substance beyond the “because that’s the way it is” argument. Discrimination is not made right because it has been long-sustained, and clearly, justices are not made wise because they have been long-serving.

CA State Supreme Court Enemy of Equality #1