Jay Nixon Urges Delay in California Same-Sex Marriage Decision

***UPDATE: MSNBC reports that the California Supreme Court refused the request to delay GLBT marriages***

The Post-Dispatch is reporting that Missouri Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Nixon has joined with Republican officials in ten other states to ask that the California Supreme Court delay its enforcement of its recent ruling on same-sex marriage.

The formal reasoning behind their request is that the court should wait until voters have had their say on the recently added ballot proposal that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Because the court originally deliberated that limiting marriage to men amd women is unconstitutional, amending the state’s constitution otherwise is the only way to reverse the ruling.

At any rate, if voters do approve the proposal, and California's constitution is amended to limit legal marriage to a union between men and women, the California Supreme Court's ruling will be null and void, meaning that couples that marry in California between mid-June, when the initial ruling goes into effect, and Election Day, on November 4, would presumably enter some kind of legal limbo.

Indeed, this point has been taken up as a cause by Nixon and his Republican colleagues, who have emphasized that delaying the court’s decision until voters have made their own decisions will eliminate what amounts to unnecessary litigious headaches.

Granted, the desire to avoid headaches in the courtroom is probably natural from an attorney general’s point of view, but another issue seems to be at hand.

Nixon has said he fears that if same-sex couples marry in California and come to Missouri, ‘numerous issues regularly handled in the state’s courts could be affected ... ranging from child-support enforcement to employee-benefit decisions to spousal-privilege issues.’

In other words, married same-sex couples coming back from California would force Missouri to re-examine and revisit its own rules and regulations regarding same-sex unions.

That, in itself, would be a positive step for Missouri because re-evaluating increasingly out-of-date notions about what constitutes a marriage and other contingent concerns is never a bad idea. But also, Nixon's decision seems to have been motivated by fear -- Gov. Blunt evidently provoked Nixon into appealing to the California Supreme Court (see above links). Fear is not a proper reason to do anything, especially something of this magnitude. Is Nixon's move an indicator of things to come should he be elected Missouri's next governor? Let's hope not.