... and then...
I am stunned that in this election, prop 8 managed to pass.
In California? on a night like this?
Oh, you bigoted, narrow-minded, morally-corrupt little people of the churches of the central valley - we'll show you. Enjoy your moment, because this will get struck down next election (in 2010). And it may very well happen next year, when the courts determine - as they will, once the lawsuits roll in - that the amendment itself is unconstitutional on the same grounds it found so before (with regards to prop 22 and the more recent law). Sorry folks, but unequal protection under the law is unconstitutional, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot write into the constitution an unconstitutional amendment.
Don't listen to me, after all, I'm not a legal scholar, and while I'm pissed, I'm not talking from the pain in my heart. Oh no. The California supreme court has said the same thing when it made its original decision. Not only that, but the court has anticipated something like Prop 8, and has written in its May decision exactly how it will treat it should it pass. Remember, Prop 8 is a ballot measure classified as an Initiative. The people who came up with Prop 8 classified it as such so they could get it on the ballot in time for the election, but by doing that, they made the initiative itself illegal. Since it deprives a class of people from their basic rights, this should rightfully be defined as a revision to the constitution, which is something that the voters (whom the framers fully understood to be mostly ignorant) cannot put on the ballot. And don't think that the court has already addressed this issue in June; it has not. All it did was say it wouldn't listen to it until after the election.
Here is the quote, right from page 6 of the text of the decision:
"... we conclude that, under this state's Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual's liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process." (highlighting is mine)
The court has set itself up for the possibility of a racist ballot initiative (for that is what it is in the eyes of the law which, remember, takes no account of religion due to separation of church and state) such as Prop 8 passing in November, and has reinforced that in June when they chose not to stay the decision until the election. It understands, as those twisted little minds don't, that equal protection trumps discrimination even if 99% of the population wanted the latter(*). To put it in very simple terms, just like we can't pass an amendment to not allow heterosexual couples to marry on the basis of sexual preference, we can't do so for homosexual couples either. Just like Loving vs. Virginia in 1967.
When the issue reaches the court - again - which it will in a few months, the court will simply point to its earlier decision and kill the amendment on constitutional grounds, forever burying this nonsense.
Wait and see.
(*) actually, to be technical for a minute, a significant majority of the population could do it. The way it works is that two thirds of the legislature propose a revision to the constitution. So conceivably, if enough constituents wanted this, they could get enough legislators to do it. But it cannot be done the way they tried to do with with Prop 8. Again, wait and see.
In California? on a night like this?
Oh, you bigoted, narrow-minded, morally-corrupt little people of the churches of the central valley - we'll show you. Enjoy your moment, because this will get struck down next election (in 2010). And it may very well happen next year, when the courts determine - as they will, once the lawsuits roll in - that the amendment itself is unconstitutional on the same grounds it found so before (with regards to prop 22 and the more recent law). Sorry folks, but unequal protection under the law is unconstitutional, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot write into the constitution an unconstitutional amendment.
Don't listen to me, after all, I'm not a legal scholar, and while I'm pissed, I'm not talking from the pain in my heart. Oh no. The California supreme court has said the same thing when it made its original decision. Not only that, but the court has anticipated something like Prop 8, and has written in its May decision exactly how it will treat it should it pass. Remember, Prop 8 is a ballot measure classified as an Initiative. The people who came up with Prop 8 classified it as such so they could get it on the ballot in time for the election, but by doing that, they made the initiative itself illegal. Since it deprives a class of people from their basic rights, this should rightfully be defined as a revision to the constitution, which is something that the voters (whom the framers fully understood to be mostly ignorant) cannot put on the ballot. And don't think that the court has already addressed this issue in June; it has not. All it did was say it wouldn't listen to it until after the election.
Here is the quote, right from page 6 of the text of the decision:
"... we conclude that, under this state's Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual's liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process." (highlighting is mine)
The court has set itself up for the possibility of a racist ballot initiative (for that is what it is in the eyes of the law which, remember, takes no account of religion due to separation of church and state) such as Prop 8 passing in November, and has reinforced that in June when they chose not to stay the decision until the election. It understands, as those twisted little minds don't, that equal protection trumps discrimination even if 99% of the population wanted the latter(*). To put it in very simple terms, just like we can't pass an amendment to not allow heterosexual couples to marry on the basis of sexual preference, we can't do so for homosexual couples either. Just like Loving vs. Virginia in 1967.
When the issue reaches the court - again - which it will in a few months, the court will simply point to its earlier decision and kill the amendment on constitutional grounds, forever burying this nonsense.
Wait and see.
(*) actually, to be technical for a minute, a significant majority of the population could do it. The way it works is that two thirds of the legislature propose a revision to the constitution. So conceivably, if enough constituents wanted this, they could get enough legislators to do it. But it cannot be done the way they tried to do with with Prop 8. Again, wait and see.
posted by Blinkered at 5:35 AM
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