Gays Have No "Right" To Marriage In Europe

The push for "gay rights" suffered a significant setback yesterday in a very surprising venue. The European Court of Human Rights ruled again that gays do not have a "right" to marriage, nor, when in a civil union, the same rights as a heterosexual married couple. This from the Daily Mail:

Same-sex marriages are not a human right, European judges have ruled.

Their decision shreds the claim by ministers that gay marriage is a universal human right and that same-sex couples have a right to marry because their mutual commitment is just as strong as that of husbands and wives.

The ruling was made by judges of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg following a case involving a lesbian couple in a civil partnership who complained the French courts would not allow them to adopt a child as a couple. . . .

[T]he Strasbourg judges ruled that because the French couple were civil partners, they did not have the rights of married people, who in France have the sole right to adopt a child as a couple.

The judges added that couples who are not married do not enjoy the same status as those who are. They declared: ‘The European Convention on Human Rights does not require member states’ governments to grant same-sex couples access to marriage.’

In the 2010 case, Schalk and Kopf v. Autriche, the EUCHR first held that there was no European right to homosexual marriage. The reasoning of the Court stands in direct contrast to Perry v. Schwarzenegger, where an activist gay federal district Court judge overrode the will of 7 million Californians to write into our Constitution a new civil right to homosexual marriage. In the Schalk case, the EUCHR held that there was no textual right to homosexual marriage in the European Convention on Human Rights, and thus it was an issue of social policy to be left to the individual nations. That is precisely what should happen with the issue of gay marriage in the U.S.

It should also be noted that this presents an interesting conundrum for the activist wing of the Supreme Court. In Lawrence v. Summers, the Court, in holding unconstitutional state laws that outlaw homosexual sodomy, relied in part on EUCHR decisions holding likewise. The left wing Court members will have to do some legal gymnastics to if they want now to ignore the EUCHR decision on gay marriage when the issue finally makes it to the Supreme Court.

The issue of "gay marriage" is also of particular import today in the UK, where the "conservative" PM David Cameron plans to foist a right to gay marriage on the people of his nation, a very sizable portion of whom are deeply opposed. Cameron promised that the new mandate would allow Britain's churches to refuse to conduct homosexual marriage ceremonies, but the EUCHR also addressed that in the case yesterday:

The ruling also says that if gay couples are allowed to marry, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it declines to marry same-sex couples.

So we wait to see whether Cameron continues ahead with his plans to push gay marriage down the throat of the people of his nation regardless of this ruling. If he does, he needs to challenged for his position in the Tory party. In fact, he should have been challenged over his refusal to allow the people of the UK a referendum on EU membership after promising it during the election campaign. He is a spineless left-wing snake with about the same commitment to conservative values as Obama.

At any rate, until today, I thought that the lefties, particularly the Euro-leftes, had never run into a new claimed "right" that they wouldn't embrace, regardless of the plain language of their Constitution. Make that doubly true for "gay rights." But life is nothing if not surprising.

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The Road To U.K.'s Hell Is Paved With The Best Of Intentions

The EU Convention on Human Rights was promulgated in post-WWII Europe in response to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Not only did the ECHR spell out the rights of individual citizens - it also established a supra-national body to have the final say over those rights. For a long time now, the decision to adopt and join the ECHR has haunted the Brits, and I have blogged frequently here on the insanity of Britain being unable to deport some of the most vile and dangerous of radical Islamists because of the ECHR. That said, a recent series of outlandish decisions from the European Court of Human Rights is finally starting to choke the Brits. This from the Daily Mail:

For the third time in a week, Strasbourg’s unelected European Court of Human Rights is under the spotlight.

First, Tory MPs made it clear they have no intention of bowing to the court’s demand to grant the vote to tens of thousands of prisoners.

Next Lord Carlile, the Government’s reviewer of anti-terror laws, said its rulings against deportation had turned Britain into a ‘safe haven’ for those who wish the country harm.

Now Damian Green, the immigration minister, has said its rulings have turned human rights into a ‘boo phrase’.

He said the court’s judgments – and our own judiciary’s liberal interpretation of them – meant the public immediately expected bad news when the phrase ‘human rights’ was uttered. ‘Clearly, something is wrong if you get to that stage’, Mr Green said.

His remarks will fuel the anger of MPs towards the European court.
In 2005, 17 judges ruled in favour of John Hirst, who argued prisoners should be able to vote. He had been in jail for killing his 69-year-old landlady with an axe, after which he calmly made a cup of coffee. Under pressure from the court, the British government announced last year that it would comply with the ruling. Hirst celebrated by drinking champagne and smoking cannabis – and put a video of it all on YouTube.

The court believes it can overrule the UK Parliament and Supreme Court.

But the astonishing truth is that its 47 ‘representatives’ need never even have served as judges in their homeland. . . .

The judges – one for every nation in the Council of Europe – have blocked the deportation from Britain of countless foreign criminals and awarded thousands in compensation to alleged Islamic terrorists.

The court gave £4,700 to Soviet spy George Blake for ‘distress and frustration’ after the Government banned him from publishing a book about how he betrayed Britain.

And £7,000 was handed to Stuart Blackstock, who shot PC Philip Olds in the 1980s, after his release from jail was delayed. . . .

The British judiciary is in no doubt that the European court is seeking to impose a federal law upon the UK.

Ex-Law Lord Hoffmann said: ‘The Strasbourg court has been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on member states.

‘It considers itself the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States.’ . . .

Britain has the Magna Carta and the 1649 English Bill of Rights, among other sundry compacts with the Crown that, in toto, establish an English Constitution. Indeed, these same compact largely inform the U.S. Bill of Rights. So why would Britain possibly need to adopt the ECHR and submit their nation to the whims of a supra-national body?

They did so because the British system is dysfunctional, to put it kindly. None of the ancient compacts with the Crown are binding in Britain today, except as subject to the whim of Parliament. At least a century ago, the British Parliament unilaterally claimed complete sovereignty - i.e., that they have the final say not subject to review - and that the ancient compacts were binding only on the monarchy, not the Parliament.

What that means is that whatever Parliament passes, whether it be restrictions on speech or the ownership of guns, for but two examples, it is not subject to any check and balance. It is a tyranny of the majority. And that is why former PM Brown was able to sign away Britain's sovereignty to the EU - thus presenting a complete break with the ancient compacts - without a referendum of the people of Britain. It is a tragedy that will not end until the people of Britain rise up against the Parliament the way they rose up against the Crown in 1642. The fact that they are just now getting rightfully upset with the ECHR suggests that may be long in coming.

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