Mixed Feelings on the California Ruling
I have some mixed feelings on the ruling by the California Supreme Court to uphold the voter approved ban on gay marriage. It would have been nice to see the law overturned- I think it is a bad law and bigoted.
Be that as it may, I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of invalidating a vote of the people even if it is bigoted and went against my wishes as a gay man. The thing is, people voted on this issue. They heard all the sides and a majority voted…against gay marriage. Maybe I’m naive or maybe I’m not a good homosexual, but I believe the vote of the people have to be respected- even if I disagree with it. The most basic act in a democratic society is to be able to vote in an election. It was something that my ancestors were not able to do because of their color. And maybe it is because of that, I have a hard time basically telling voters that their vote doesn’t count because the vote was less than desirable by people like me.
One of the lines of arguments that comes from supporters of gay marriage is that an election should not be used when deciding on human rights. That might make some sense, but then should any voting body be used?
I want to see gay marriage legal in California. Heck, I want to see it everywhere. But I think in this case, gay marriage supporters are going have to go back to the drawing board and try to educate and legislate for change. That’s the way democracy works.
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16 Responses to “Mixed Feelings on the California Ruling”
Dennis, we have the phrase “tyranny of the majority” to describe the results of direct democracy being held up as the ultimate law. Look at the amendment procedure for the US Constitution if you want a better idea of how to balance the rights of minorities with a democratic society. If all your protections are subject to a simple majority vote then they don't really exist except when they're not needed. California should just scrap the voter initiatives completely (unfortunately, that would have to be approved by the voters, so they're probably going to be stuck with it forever.)
The original Marriage Cases were decided on the basis of California's constitutional guarantee of equal protection, which is apparently a dead letter post-Prop 8.
List of new propositions for California
1. Smoking banned within borders of the state.
2. SUV sales and driving banned in State.
3. Any political party that demeans elephants by using them as logos.
4. Any political party that demeans donkeys by using them as logos.
Hey! This constitution by majority is pretty cool.
They don't call it mob rule for nothing you know.
If a proposition worked once, why not again? Instead of the four from HemmD, why not one that invalidates Prop8?
Prop8 passed by about 52%, and some of it was because of misinformation by those opposed of (or is it scared of) gay marriage. Polls conducted after last Nov showed Prop8 would have lost around December once the misinformation was invalidated. Continuing that trend a campaign for a new proposition could maybe work.
Rambie – in practical terms, yes, that's the solution. Put it on the ballot every election until it passes. But since the amendment process is arguably the problem in the first place, it's not much of a long-term fix.
and to follow on Michael Steele's “gay dependents would hurt business” theme, how about:
6. ban all marriage and child bearing by employees, to eliminate spending on health insurance for dependents.
however, I'm all for the citizen referendum process. When both the legislative and executive branches sell their legislative power to campaign contributors, the only way around it is citizen referendum. In CA, all food that contains carcinogenic or mutagenic ingredients must carry a warning, clearly something that food companies would never have allowed legislators to pass.
The people who supported Prop 8 are not at all affected by their own vote.
If they (the majority) had to vote on taking away their own rights, then the outcome would have been very different, but the vote was strictly about taking away the existnig rights of others, which they merrily did.
It was a solid decision. One has to respect the rule of precedence. The CA supreme court has long held that a “revision” of the constitution (requiring a preceeding super-majority vote of the legislature before put before the electorate) represents a fundamental restructuring of state government institutions. If Proposition 13 was not considered a revision, then really very little would be. Hyper-democracy through initiatives may not be good for the Golden State but it is the way we have lived for the last 100 years.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you Dennis. I support same sex marriage but agree with the court's ruling. The rule of law must stand first and foremost, and its up to the people to come around within the framework of it. End runs around State Constitutions are no different from end runs around the US Constitution. The same sex marriage advocates in California just need to work harder in the future and use Constitutional means to get the changes that they wish for. Time is on their side, they will just have to endure a delay.
I'm still having difficulty grasping how some fetishes, labelled “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” are a cohesive group with an identifying qualifyer?
The only thing binding these people as a group is that they have a deviant usage of the procreative sex drive? [Please help me define the grouping if you can, I seek to understand..] Inasmuch as the evidence supports that sexual preference is learned in humans, what we essentially have is a group of people who have learned to associate the endorphin rewards of the sex drive with objects other than the opposite gender? I'm at a loss to understand how a group that practices certain loosely related behaviors under the spotty umbrella of “deviant” from the evolutionary purpose of sexual reproduction can form a cohesive “minority group”? The people who practice these deviations have no other link to their group other than a behavioral phenomenon that they've decided to turn into a culture which for political purposes, ONLY includes the fetishes of “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender”, but not other fetishes.
Then we get into polygamy…which IS coming next at a courtroom near you. Passing the buck like the CA Supreme Court did is really going to cost the State of CA a serious glut of legal cases challenging challenging challenging the marriages allowed to remain legal in spite of the law saying they aren't…why can't other gays be married when their next door neighbors are…yadda yadda…
And let's not even go to the totally known about but purposefully overlooked butch/fem thing…imitating the normal they are striving for while ironically seeking to blend the lines [please, again, I'm striving to understand this phenomenon..can anyone help?]. There just are so many red flags to this drive to normalize something that isn't that it boggles my mind anyway. I guess people who are good at stepping over elephants don't have a problem with it at all. Maybe it really is just my problem, but I have a hunch there's more than one person wondering what we're doing with this?
GreenDreams, we Californians are twice blessed, with not just referenda (wherein legislators send citizens issues for decisions) but with initiatives (wherein citizens invent new laws on their own).
In the midst of an enormous budget pinch, we recently passed a $10 billion unfunded mandate to start building a high-speed train. We just declined to close even part of our deficit in our recent election, because legislators shouldn't bother us with such trivialities but should get back to spending them money they are legally required to materialize from the air. We're not above passing a measure to declare the moon a hate-free zone. If you think a random law generator is healthy in a Darwinian sense, providing the courts fodder for their own version of natural selection, you'll like California's initiative system.
Regarding warning labels on food containing carcinogens, sounds like a big-government boondoggle. Liberals long ago recognized that citizens cannot and should not be expected to read. Besides, everything gives you cancer.
Leonidas, “The same sex marriage advocates in California just need to work harder in the future and use Constitutional means to get the changes that they wish for. Time is on their side, they will just have to endure a delay.”
Uh… except we already HAD the right to marry and 18,000 same sex couples did marry…. We didn't want to CHANGE anything. The bigots and homophobes wanted to change the California Constitution…. Interesting how these same people say that the “activist” judges should follow the US Constitution…. that judges should stick to the original intent of the COnstitution. Yet when the Constitution doesn't go their way these bigots are willing to go against the Constitution and change it.
While the rule of law should stand, sometimes the majority is just plain wrong. It was wrong to burn “witches” at the stake. It was wrong to kill Jews in the 1930's and 1940's. It was wrong to enslave people and deny them rights. It was wrong to take away the rights of full citizens of this country just because the majority doesn't like them.
I would have thought that our society, especially one that claims that all citizen have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, was more enlightened than allowing bigoted, close-minded people to be bullies and take away rights from others simple because they are not liked by the majority and can be walked on, trampled on and run over with no repercussions.
Some people also think its wrong to descriminate against the unborn friend. Where are you going to draw the line? Clearly it needs to be drawn somewhere. And no, I'm not a pro-lifer but am using the example to get you to see the absurd…
[...] Sanders at The Moderate Voice has mixed feelings, because he doesn’t “feel comfortable with the idea of invalidating [...]
Allowing the removal of a civil right by popular vote is just wrong. You know that vote is based on bigotry and ignorance. Do you think in the 60s any southern state would have allowed inter-racial marriage if it was based on a popular vote? The issue should be is it right and is it fair. That's why we have courts to protect minority populations. They did their job initially, but allowed a flaw in the state law to override their decision.
SB – you know overall that I am fine with gay rights and gay marriage, especially when done by legislators or voters. But the opposite has to be true as well. If the People, as a whole, make their will known through the legal and prescribed means and methods, it is the law.
Interracial marriage is a great example. Indeed many States did ban it, only to eventually have SCOTUS overturn them all in Loving v. Virginia. However, had the 'will of the People' been such, nothing could have prevented a new Constitutional Amendment to specifically overrule Loving v. Virginia. It is the nature of Constitutions that have any ability to be amended that such things are possible.
Go do what you need to win your rights, but don't think the way to win what you want is to remove the ability of the People to modify Constitutions just because you didn't like the result.