The Gamut

Yahoo! News - SF Files Suit Challenging Same-Sex Marriage Ban

The city argues that the ban is unconstitutional. Meantime, Governor Schwarzenegger has vowed to vigorously defend the state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

States run by republican governors like Arnie are constantly arguing the idea that they have a sort of paramount autonomy. Yet, paradoxically, they seem to want to keep municipalities completely under their thumb.

Here in Ohio, there is a wide variance of political ideologies to be found. Cleveland and Cincinatti might as well be in two completley different nations, and Youngstown could stand to have its own planet. Then there is the peculiar situation in Cloumbus where the whole city could be divided into four quarters along the interstate routes of I-70 and I-71 with each quarter being declared a seperate duchy.

So if the philosophy that states need idiological protection from federal oversight has any validity, why doesn't the logical conclusion follow that communites within the states deserve the same right? Obviously the flavor and philosophy of San Fransisco is different from the flavor and philosophy of Bakersfield.

My neighboring state of West Virginia came to be when they ceded from Virginia because the powers-that-be in the capital were ignoring their needs. It would be a shame if SF had to take that drastic measure to assure that it's individuality was not usurped by an Austrian with Nazi sympathies who came to power in a bloodless coup, but if that's what it takes, I say go for it.

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