Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.
In their outreach to blacks, Latino, Asians and other minority voters, the conservative operatives behind Proposition 8 neglected to mention a key aspect of the initiative that could contribute to rolling back minority rights for years to come.
Prop 8 not only rendered quaint the California Constitution’s equal protection clause — a foundational precept that instructs the state to protect the rights of all citizens equally — it also rescinded the right to marry for California gays. This sets it apart from other states’ anti-gay marriage amendments because it establishes a precedent for conservative efforts to curb minority rights using ballot initiatives and by other means:
Legal scholars say the measure, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, breaks new ground by limiting the courts’ ability to protect minorities.
“They could take away any right from any group,” said University of Southern California Law Professor David Cruz, who filed a brief in favor of gay marriage in an earlier case.
The ban … amended the constitution with 52 percent support — less than is required to approve some state bond measures.
“The entire purpose behind the constitutional principle of equal protection would be subverted if the constitutional protection of unpopular minorities were subject to simple majority rule,” read a brief by black, Asian and Hispanic groups challenging the ban. “This case is not simply about gay and lesbian equality.”
Despite the peril it presents to American social justice, legal experts say that the California Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn Prop 8 because they view it as having been passed within the parameters of existing law.
“In their outreach to blacks, Latino, Asians and other minority voters, the conservative operatives behind Proposition 8 neglected to mention a key aspect of the initiative that could contribute to rolling back minority rights for years to come.”
I have heard some stupid things in my long lifetime, but that statement has to be in the bottom feeder hall of fame.
The California Constitutional change became necessary to curb exuberant fringe radical judges from creating laws pertaining to the definition of marriage which ignores DOMA law and the will of the voters.
The electorate had already mandated marriage be considered only when one man and one woman wed by majority vote. The California Supreme Court whack jobs misinterpreted that to mean equal protection was ignored and proceeded to make their own law and allow SSM to occur.
The voters were forced to do what 30 other states have done and amend their State Constitution to solidify the definition of marriage by voting again and winning again.
The definition of marriage in the constitution strengthens equal protection for all by establishing a definition that can not be misconstrued.
This gives minorities and other groups a stronger constitution and greater protection in the future from groups like the gay agenda from taking their protections away and maligning marriage rights in the future.
Minorities and other groups are ecstatic about keeping judges from subverting long held historic rights such as the right for everyone to marry as man and wife, and their protections are much stronger now that Prop 8 has passed.
The radical left wing agenda has forgotten to mention that, now that prop 8 has passed, we are all better off.
Gay rights is a civil rights issue. The same arguments being used by anti-gay civil rights activists were used against ‘race mixing’; used against mixed race marriage, the integration of the armed forces and sports by blacks and women and well, you know, if you’ve actually had the luxury of observing the last 50 years of civil rights struggles as your posting alluded to. I have and you are just plain wrong in your view regarding gays. Not mistaken, morally wrong.
You legitimize your bigotry using the flag of religion, same as the bigots that wanted blacks forever relegated to ‘door sitting’ and women relegated to kitchens and bedrooms. Even now, you wouldn’t have the courage regarding marriage to say about black people or other minorities of color what you say about gays, though people like you used the same fairy tales to argue against inter-racial marriage. Your arguments are old and as morally corrupt as they always were. You’re just a bigot. Different year + different target for your bigotry is all. You and people like you are running out of targets as the world passes you by but still, shame on you.
The virtue of judges doing their job in applying the Constitution is that social Darwinism doesn’t have to come into play. I recall cities burning on more than one occasion, the last one not so long ago. When justice for specific groups is lacking, when equal protection under the law (14 Amendment I think) is withheld the only recourse those minorities have is to demonstrate their ‘legitimacy’ by exerting a threat against the discriminatory majority. It gets their attention. I don’t have a problem with that. Never have. I always came down on the side of the domestic insurgents.
If, as a posting of yours on a different thread alluded, you are disturbed by the rising militancy of gay people then maybe you need to get out of the path to their civil rights and respect the evolution of civil society. Like the song says “if you can’t lend a hand then get out of the way, ’cause the times they are a changing”. Yea, just get out of the way and let judges do their job.
I’m not debating you, I don’t want your input, won’t read any replies by you, think you don’t have anything worth considering and think you’re part of the problem. I don’t know why you’re here except to divert attention and be a troll. I’m just saying…
I think that most intelligent people know that there is no such thing as a “gay agenda.” It’s a myth that the rabid right-wing in our society like to keep trotting out there. Equality for all is the only agenda for people of integrity and fairness.
In addition, those who were opposed to Prop H8 were not of a “radical left wing agenda” as the thick people who support Prop H8 like to lie and say. The people opposed to Prop H8 were (and are) people who believe in equality and fairness and who are comfortable with their own sexuality. I have a relative who has been a staunch Bush Republican the entire time that man has illegitimately occupied the White House due to “activist, radical right-wing whack-job” justices on the Supreme Court. My relative told me that she voted against Prop H8. She is no “radical left winger” by any means. Some of her rabid Bush friends voted for it. She said she tried to educate them but they couldn’t see past the lies in the television commercials. And from my experience, those who are comfortable with themselves and their own sexuality were/are opposed to Prop H8. They saw it for what it is: Hate. Those who were/are vehemently for Prop H8 need to seriously examine themselves and their own sexuality. I suspect some/many of its rabid supporters are trying to hide their own gay/lesbian feelings which is often the case in this context.
If one wants to protect the so-called “sanctity of marriage” there is one way to do it: BAN DIVORCE. But of course the thick proponents of Prop H8 never say that and they even refuse to address it. They also refuse to answer the question: How to two gay men or two lesbians getting married destroy someone else’s marriage? They refuse to answer it because they can’t. The reality is no one—regardless of one’s sexual orientation—can destroy someone else’s marriage. Only YOU can do that yourself to your own marriage by getting DIVORCED. Period.
Without first recinding the equal protection clause of California’s Constitution on Equal protection, it still must stand as a more encompassing set of rights than the ban that was passed. In that then these two conflict, I cannot imagine the torured logic necessay to allow the latest measure to be judged by the California Supreme Court to have any validity.
Interesting how these over worded legal speak, crap ass measures and propositions even get on the ballot in their current form.
If I proposition you to give me cocaine I’d be arrested, If I proposition you to make cocaine illegal, I am blessed.
With all the money being stolen right now, loosing equal protection will be the least of our worries pretty soon. (My personal opinion is the money never existed, and it’s time for indictments)
How is it that you or I can not transfer five freaking grand from our bank accounts without a FBI red flag thinking we are some kind of frigging terrorist and denying us until the FBI/Terrorist/Red flag is lifted?
Yet trillions of dollars are being tossed around with absolutely zero oversight. Any terrorist money there? You don’t know? You don’t need your security clearance anymore, or your job then!!!
The votes for prop 8 were validated? By who? Or whom, is it a machine? And Voted On an electronic machine put there by who? by who? Who put the machine there? Who validated the results?
Or did Bowen outlaw electronics? As a citizen I don’t even know anymore. I (after drinking 3 beers) can’t find it on their website!! And I am supposed to know how to search!! I get the feeling that the electronic vote tabulation devices were quietly re-introduced since the “Big TEST ™”
And then the marriage part. You church don’t like marrying gays? Don’t, Screwy your backwards ass church. But Separate the CHURCH from the STATE. “By the Powers Invested In Me By The State Of California” is different that “By The Powers Invested In Me By Satan, or GOD, or “IT”, or whatever your stupid religion is”
There are forces going on here hidden behind the scenes that need BRIGHT LIGHT on them.
HINT: Military Industrial Complex
Just boycotting them isn’t enough. We need indictments, and confiscation and jail.
My opinion is we are running out of time. Don’t do nothing stupid. Hear my words: Don’t do nothing stupid. But what are we going to do, we are cut off from the feedback. Even I wrote Obama’s Change.gov, and I am willing to give him time to change things, I don’t know where my head will be at if things get much worse. Yet at the same time KNOWING THAT 65 Trillion bucks are stolen, things MUST GET WORSE.
I like to step back away from the planet. Kinda like the International Space Station. Look at the Big Picture. There’s the SAME PEOPLE that are stealing, go after them. They are the true financial terrorists.
I hope Obama Reads this and then tracks down my feedback.
More and more people are starting to get the truth: “The FED” is unlawful. And not Federal”
How is it someone can get busted with meth and show an ID card and the COPS go away?
Answer that, and I think we have the beginning of the answer of why we are where we are now.
Oh and while we digress to drugs, LEGALIZE MARIJUANA! It’s the new underground HEALTH CARE PLAN!
When you arrest and destroy all that sweet smelling natural herb, you are condemning people to pain an suffer.
9th Amendment trumps Prop 8.
Ninth amendment:
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Quote it often.
Phil wrote: “Even I wrote Obama’s Change.gov, and I am willing to give him time to change things…”
Well, I read your comments and I understood what you said and where you’re coming from.
However, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the Pope of Hope/Chairman of Change that he even cares what you (or I) think because day-by-day it looks like Obama’s “change we can believe in” marketing ploy was just that, as some of us suggested at the time. It was intended to fool those who were willing to allow themselves to be duped/fooled, once again, mind you. I studied the Pope of Hope’s Bush-accomplice voting record and neocon rhetoric so none of his appointments so far surprise me. I voted for Nader/Gonzalez because I wanted/want real, true change. From a realistic perspective (versus a wishful-thinking/false hope perspective) I find it difficult to comprehend that much legitimate, substantive “change” will occur with these “establishment” people he’s stacking the place with.
As the World Socialists write:
“Barack Obama’s vague campaign promises of “change” are rapidly evaporating as the key positions in the next administration are filled with veterans of the US political establishment. Far from ending war abroad and social reaction at home, Obama’s choices underline the essential continuity with the policies of the Bush administration.”
Obama appointees signal continuing aggression and war
http://www.wsws.org/articles/20...pers-n26.shtml
Then this article:
You’re Scaring Me, Obama: Let the Bush Years Die
by Heather Wokusch
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2...ush-years-die/
>>>>> 9th Amendment trumps Prop 8.
Ninth amendment:
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
To put it all in perspective, especially those who believe EVERY (translated)word in the bible, read this open letter to Dr Laura (Who says homosexuality is an abomination, according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance) asking for advice regarding gods laws.
[snip]
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?
Questions
We have had SSM in Ontario, supported by ON Catholic Bishops no less, since 03 and legal across Canada since 2005. Married, heterosexuals, are still getting divorced,(50%)still abusing, abandoning their children…same as it ever was.
I have asked the question, how does SSM hurt “marriage”? How would/did it affect Britney’s two day marriage? Never get an answer. Just some reply like, “Oh next they will be allowing you to marry your pet.
The letter is snark btw…I would never link to a Dr Laura site!!!
Rights retained by the people such as the right to keep marriage between and man and a woman shall not be denied. If Prop 8 had failed, the 9th amendment would have trumped it, and marriage would still be the union of bride and groom and only that union.
“Gay rights is a civil rights issue.”
There are no gay rights or straight rights. Under our constitution we are afforded the same rights regardless of sexual preference. Rights based on sexual preference would be “SPECIAL RIGHTS”.
Civil rights:
“Those rights which are considered to be unquestionable; deserved by all people under all circumstances, especially without regard to race, creed, color or gender”
We all deserve to keep marriage the union of one man and one woman, under all circumstances without regard to race creed color or gender.
Civil rights:
“The privileges allowed by law to individuals that include free speech, the guarantee of equality and the power to vote.”
What part of “…the guarantee of equality…” don’t you understand, troll?
Don’t answer that. Go away.
I’m sick of this crap polemic. I’m sick of pinheaded bigots and sick of the gay/progressive rabies. This is the United States and everyone in it is equal under the law.
Prop 8 is going down. Get used to it, and everybody stop fighting about it before I go postal.
Er… 99… you do understand, don’t you, that it was never this persons intent to engage in “reason”… or even “trolling”?
Their purpose was and is to constantly inject wingnut talking points on this issue into a web venue where they think they can get away with it.
Inflaming the outrage of their opponents is a welcome side-effect, but the real game is listing and re-listing the propagandized talking points in a public venue regardless of facts or logic… or anything else.
Helldigger is a wingnut believer of the old school working to the old plan in the new media… and that’s all.
I do indeed realize that, zap. I have tried to take it up with Brad a few times, but he has this mania for free speech… which is, I’m certain, really a form of lexical machismo, wanting to show his ability to stand up against the vilest assaults. But… dammit… I’m the one who ends up having to stand up against them, even when I don’t chime in.
I gotta read this stuff to make sure things don’t go off the rails, and I have become an authority on the different varieties of trolls, some of whom, this one, might as easily be called a “wingnut believer” or a “talking points bot” and we’re lousy with them around here.
If Brad were not always on fire and could pay some sustained attention, I’m sure he’d begin to get the drift, but… well… he’s a little weird…. So, my way of dealing with it is that I put up with it until I feel myself on the verge of going postal and then my foot goes all the way down. It seems to work okay.
So far. 😛
It’s actually instructive to see where the talking points bots show up. Mention Bobby Junior and bip bam… also Al Gore, of course, and other items. You can see the stuff they fear the very most, and you can see when the word comes down that they fear it the very most… unerringly the talking points bots pop up.
With this issue, it’s got to stop. It’s NOT an issue. I don’t give a fuck how many people have issues with it. It could not be clearer and the polemic is only prolonging the agony and the political advantage of PIGS.
My foot is down.
It is imperative that we recognize that the separation of Church and state is vital to protecting the beliefs of everyone.
The moment we as a society try to prevent a certain group from excercising their beliefs is the moment we all lose freedom.
If two, or even several, people want to declare their commitment to each other in a way which suits their beliefs, who are we to dictate to them whether they can do that or not?
For years, California voters have been taking away State constitutional rights through simple-majority initiatives. That was fine with these city attorney’s offices, because the rights were criminal procedural rights, like protections against search and seizure. Now that the issue is same-sex marriage, these folks are complaining that this will allow the majority to persecute minorities.
Paul
List some or go away.
For years California state agencies have been taking away our civil rights through a mechanism known as administrative law, where agency people rewrite the rules to suit themselves, or the lobbyists who bribe them, get the legislature to sign off on it, and it is law. The voters never vote on any of it.
No point in arguing with you, 99. Happy holidays.
ERMA #8,
I while I did vote for Obama, I did not vote for the other democrats. That is of course if my paper ballot was ever removed from the Diebold Optical Scanner Auxiliary Tray, I didn’t put it in the scanner, I refused to.