"Persecuted by governments. Arrested and beaten for being who we are. Our rights put up for popular vote, time and time again."
Equality California's new ad makes the connection between past persecution and current discrimination, such as the passage of Prop 8:
Actually, gays' rights are usually not put up for popular vote. The immediacy of a popular referendum on your life is so much more compelling than having some mere bureaucrat stand in your way. It's nice to know where you stand, once in a while.
I know where I stand. I hope the California Supreme Court will be standing there with me.
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3 comments:
I hope the California Supreme Court will be standing there with me.
Yep, good luck to the GLBT community (in specific) and to all people who make "justice" a prime mover of their lives.
Do you think it's possible the court will rule in favor of Prop8, just on the technical grounds, that it was a legal vote and that, right or wrong, it is the present method for amending our state constitution? I'm sure the attorneys fighting it have taken that it to consideration. Know what the argument against it would be?
Initiatives are a method for amending the State Constitution, not revising it. That distinction is what is before the Court.
I find it difficult to imagine a legal argument that would uphold Prop. 8 that would also justify having overturned Prop. 22, which one of the Justices labeled in a dissenting opinion an exercise in legal jujitsu.
Either marriage is founded on a rational basis (favoring child rearing, as tax deductions) or stems from a more profound human right. There is no logical (and I believe no legal) middle ground.
If the Court upholds Prop. 8, then its reasoning in Prop. 22 will retrospectively appear quite hollow.
Courts are not above politics, but cutting the baby in two would earn it derision from all sides: you broke it, you bought it. They allowed some 18,000 same-sex couples to marry, knowing the voters did not approve. One would hope they had an exit strategy in mind before undertaking this bold rewrite of such an important institution, and from here I see only one self-consistent exit strategy.
I will say in advance that the Court has my support either way. It can't be easy to be responsible for such weighty issues. Progressives have these last 40 years depended too much on the courage of the Courts, and with Obama are only now rebuilding grass roots support.
And we are starting none too soon.
Initiatives are a method for amending the State Constitution, not revising it. That distinction is what is before the Court.
Yes, I was fortunate to get on to my computer early enough today to see some of the live feed of the hearing and my unfortunate absence of legal knowledge was vastly improved by the end of it.
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