Like so many people, I am disgusted by the passage of California's bigotry-inspired Proposition 8.
With that said, I don't think trying to overturn it in the courts is the best way to go. I want to see it overturned and the right to marry preserved, but I think the only meaningful way to make that happen is through another initiative in two years. My understanding--very limited though it may be--is that another vote can be taken in 2010 to change the California constitution again. That's the way to get this done. By the way, just to digress briefly, what kind of constitution can be amended so easily (majority vote) and so often? I thought constitutions were supposed to be more solid than that, rather than subject to the whims of the people.
If a court throws out "the will of the people," the bigots will have a great rallying cry and forever be able to hold up gay marriages as some sort of fake/stolen institution. Instead, I think it's important for the people of California to rise up and resoundingly reject this bigotry at the polls. It didn't happen this time, but the momentum is in our favor, and the passage of time will let more sensible people wake up and see this act for what it really is.
2 comments:
I was kinda wondering the same thing myself about the constitution. I thought the architects meant it to be more structurally sound than that.
Amen. The fight continues.
Well, I think one of the purposes of the courts is to protect minority communities from the bigotry of the majority. Had civil rights for African-Americans been subject to popular votes, we would be farther behind in that struggle than we are now. Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v the Board of Education, even Truman's desegregation of the military were all acts from the top down, but they helped make a difference. I hear you on the worry that a court decision will strike up the cry of "activist judges" again (god how I hate that term and the ignorance of our system it indicates)though. My feeling is we want to work both angles, the courts and a new amendment. I suppose this is also part of taking a state by state approach, as opposed to a Federal one. And yes, I think state by state is probably a more effective way to go, even if I resent the implications of it.
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