I’ve got a good friend of mine who lives in San Fran with his wife and I stayed with them for a couple of weeks after the 2008 election when ‘Proposition 8’ was on the California ticket. My mate is anti-gay and voted to make gay marriage illegal, his wife voted the other way – it made for some great discussions.
In summary Prop 8, if it was passed it, would make gay marriage illegal in California.
It was voted in with 52% of the vote and over 7,000,000 Californian’s saying that they wanted gay marriage to be illegal.
On Wednesday, Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8 violated constitutional rights and I suppose by default gay marriage is now legal in California.
All the usual gay friendly folks are out praising the decision and I can’t understand why anyone would want to stop anyone from getting married.
One line of thought that I haven’t heard is what about those 7,000,000 – or more than half of Californian’s who don’t want gay people to get married? I believe in gay marriage but above that I believe in the will of the people which has been overruled here. I’m not 100% that I’m comfortable with that although in this case I am happy with the result.
What if it was the other way around and a majority of the electorate voted in favour of gay marriage and some stuffy judge made it illegal?
Just a thought – a good day overall though!!!
Even old Arnie said that ruling “affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves”.
8 Comments
Bob Miller
If you want to read further there has been some excellent coverage at this web site:
http://prop8trialtracker.com/
FS
I don’t believe that “The People” should have any say in my pursuit of happiness. Whom I love and would want to marry shouldn’t be the concern of others. But I also believe that “marriage” should be a civil contract. Most people tend to equate the civil contract with the religious ceremony, and that is one reason why they are against gay marriage.
Sam
It shouldn’t have been such a huge deal. I love the fact that people are starting to be seen as people and treated as equals, regardless of their sexuality. I hope Australia will someday follow too. Not that I have anyone that I would like to spend the rest of my life with, but not having the option to get married when I do is extremely unfair.
Hope everything is going good in NZ Dave.
Dr. Phil
Dave, if 7 million people in California don’t want gay people to get married, that’s less than a quarter of the population of the state, which is somewhere around 36 million. That 52% just means that more than half of the people who voted didn’t want gay people to get married. Part of the reason why was that many of them were mislead by Prop 8 campaigners, who said that if they didn’t vote “yes” on the proposition, that their own ability to get married would be taken away, etc. Patent lies, of course, but people are easily duped, unfortunately.
If this goes to the U.S. Supreme Court (which it will), it’s likely now that the overturning will be upheld (since Sonya Sotomayor was just confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, and she’s very pro-LGBTQ), and that could have profound implications for the whole U.S. in terms of the availability of gay people to get married. So, while the fight isn’t over, and there has been an official “stay” on further gay marriages in the meantime, nonetheless, I think that’s just a slight delay, in the end.
Nigel
Let’s suppose they had voted to force Jews to wear a yellow star. Would that fact that it was a majority vote make it any less wrong? How is it different with gay marriage? The same ppl who oppose gay marriage now also opposed interracial marriage, women’s rights, integration, trade unions, Jews, etc, etc. Troglodytes from the Christian-Fascist Right.
sonomatop
Dave, Brian here in California. Many people believe that in a democracy when people vote on an issue the vote of the majority should prevail as a matter of course, but in the United States this is true only IF in response to legal challenges a Federal court affirms that the vote doesn’t create a law (or in the case of Prop 8, direct an amendment to the Constitution of the State of California and that’s a DIFFERENT Constitution) which law contravenes any part of the United States Constitution. This is how our system is designed to function and it prevents what is called a “tyranny of the majority”. Without the courts’ intervention in the past, no one would be able to marry someone of another race, women could not marry without their father’s permission, blacks would not be able to drink from any “Whites Only” drinking fountains or eat at most restaurants in our Southern states, schools in those states would still be segregated, and two (or more) men would not be able to do whatever they like to each others’ throats and butts behind closed doors in the State of Texas (2003 U.S Supreme Court decision, which effectively negated all laws against sodomy between adult humans in the United States). And it’s not only Judge Walker who gets to rule on the merits of Proposition 8 – he just got the ball rolling by issuing a Judgment in his court. Now a whole gang of other judges sitting on the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals will have to decide they agree with him (and they will, the Ninth being one of our most liberal Appellate Courts). Then, the religious fanatics who brayed and screamed and genuflected and hoodwinked 52% of the voters into voting for Prop 8 using lies, misrepresentation and a propaganda campaign Himmler would have applauded, including appeals to the most base fears of parents of young children and ethnic minorities, will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court where the matter will be finally decided. Because the Court’s ideological balance is unchanged since 2003, the same Justice who decided the sodomy-in-Texas case (Justice Kennedy, the swing vote in a close decision) will likely decide this case too, all things being more or less equal. Indeed, the local legal mavens agree that the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law as set forth in the Judgment vacating Prop 8 were crafted by Judge Walker with Justice Kennedy’s views specifically in mind, to help ease him over the hump, so to say.
Suppose lots of people disapproved of hot hunky men wearing Speedos here in California and the majority voted to outlaw the wearing of or possession of Speedos and even enshrined in the California Constitution an edict preventing Speedo-wearing. Indeed, and sadly I think, Speedos are unpopular in California and are generally only seen at diving competitions. However, suppose the law contained a provision allowing people in diving competitions to wear Speedos, or for anyone planning travel to Australia to buy and possess s Speedo for their trip. This would violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and the courts (beginning with one trial Judge, like Judge Walker) would toss the law out, because you can’t say some people can wear Speedos but others can’t (although at the beach I think we all sometimes wish that were true). It would be like voters “deciding” that some people can get married to the person they love while others cannot.
raulito
Please take into consideration that in America the majority rules but the minority still has rights. It is not cool for the majority to take away rights from any group of people…whether they find it objectionable or not…you are talking about very basic human rights and the fact that our Constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness is crucial here.
hope that clarifies it for you.
saludos,
raulito
Dave Evans
Guys,
Thanks for your comments!!! Fantastic discussion and I agree with all of you.
I personally believe that gay marriage is an eventuality and the sooner the better.
Dave