Like many, I am greatly disturbed by the California Supreme Court's ruling yesterday to uphold Proposition 8 and can't help but wonder whether or not the justices were more concerned about avoiding threatened recall efforts than they were about upholding the promise of equality under the law under the California Constitution. Indeed, the ruling sets the stage where a group of citizens not specifically protected under the U.S. Constitution (which would trump California law) - say blonds or redheads - could be singled out for more limited legal protections than the rest of the state's citizenry if a majority of voters felt so inclined. Obviously, it is a terrible precedent and the continued fact that LGBT citizens are allowed to be treated as less than full citizens fuels the bigotry of homophobes like the judges I've had to face in my divorce case and the post divorce nightmare.*
While I have not yet read the full 135 page opinion which can be found here via Andrew Sullivan's blog, the silver lining in the ruling is that the 18,000+ marriage performed before the passage of proposition 8 will remain valid - I suspect because even the spineless justices knew that to rule otherwise would run head long into the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of ex-post facto laws. As some have noted, the continued existence of these marriages over time will hopefully demonstrate to all by the extreme Christianists that "gay marriage" is no threat whatsoever to heterosexual marriage notwithstanding the bleating of Maggie Gallagher and those like here who make a living off of sowing hatred towards others.
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The other positive in yesterday's ruling is that it appears that this decision can possibly be construed as restricting the effect of Prop 8 to the effect of removing the designation of gay civil unions as "marriage," but otherwise upholding all equal rights previously declared by the California Supreme Court even it leaves a "separate but equal" defect in California law. The ruling also appears to mean that if the opponents of gay rights should seek to restrict equal civil union rights for gays by constitutional change, any such change would be an "amendment" rather than a revision and thus would be procedurally much more difficult to accomplish since it would require action by the California Legislature.
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In short, the forces of bigotry won yesterday, but not on as large a scale as they will no doubt claim in their typically disingenuous statements to their ignorant, close-minded sheep like followers.
1 comment:
We (Californians) needs a constitutional convention to decrease (from 2/3rds) the required margin to pass a budget, to increase the margin (50%+1 vote) to amend the constitution, to make is MUCH harder to put initiatives on the ballot, and to guarantee equal rights for sexual orientation.
To invalidate the same-sex marriages that took place would have required the state Supreme Court to say it had been wrong. Prop 8 amended the constitution as they interpreted it a year ago. The justices said that it is not their job to change the initiative process. I think they were right about that.
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