Just days after the California Supreme Court Decision, hosts John Snyder and Alexandra Berauer discuss the legal basis for the ruling which sanctions marriage between homosexual couples. Guest David Llewellyn, Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence brings to the discussion the history of Prop 71 and the legal background of how the case wound its way to the highest court in the State. Topics discussed include the nature of marriage, the power of courts to define reality, the importance of understanding that the foundations of this decision were laid down over forty years ago, and that the California Supreme Court is only carrying forward a line of defective legal reasoning that has largely remained unchallenged by social conservatives.

Host John Snyder challenges our society to reclaim the family and the Church because the encroachment of the state into these other two foundational institutions is less the result of government growth, (although this is certain part of the reason) as much as it is a reflection of the weakness of our once intrinsic understanding of family and church. The triumph of homosexual marriage should be seen less as a triumph for gay rights as much as the legal acknowledgement that our culture already largely believes that marriage is little more than the exchange of love vows. It follows, if love is the dominant and defining feature of marriage, then the court using contemporary cultural standards is correct to so rule. Hence, without arguments about the differences between men and women, their contributions to one another, the offices of husband and wife, the sacredness of union, the family as the crux of financial responsibility and the importance of children to a healthy society, all the reasons that families have existed through time, there remains little reason to imagine the court would rule otherwise.

In short, it is the failure of American culture to understand the deeper significance and dynamics of marriage which has brought about this legal turn of events. More than for any other reason, our failure to understand what a marriage is, has given rise to the political left's successful assault on the family and the accpetance by so many that the state possesses the legal power and moral prerogative to define marriage.