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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Prop 8 Battle Continues Today
by Ken Pierce, published on September 6, 2011 at 12:19 AM
Storyline: Equality Action Now
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civil rights
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equality action now
gay rights
marriage equality
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Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - Today, the California Supreme Court is hearing arguments on an important question of California law that presented itself in the ongoing federal challenge to Prop 8, same-sex marriage issue. Leaders of Equality Action NOW, a local grassroots, civil rights organization have been on the forefront of educating the public and providing the community with a voice since the general election November of 2008 when Proposition 8 passed and was made into law.
For many members of the organization it is a personal issue and today will mark a pivotal moment in their fight for marriage equality.
The Court in San Francisco will decide whether California law allows the sponsors of Prop 8 to force an appeal in Perry v. Brown – even though the California Attorney General actually agrees that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.
For thousands of same-sex couples, their supportive friends and family members, and straight allies, this battle for equality and civil rights has been long and trying.
A year ago, Dr. Nicola Simmersbach, a “pro-marriage” licensed marriage and family therapist and her partner, Diana Luiz were ready to be married when Judge Walker ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and were sitting at the County Clerk’s office all dressed in white and holding a bouquet of brightly colored sunflowers. Moments later a stay was issued and their mood instantly turned to sadness and disappointment.
“Diana and I are a committed, long-term same sex couple who is still being denied the right to marriage. No person has been harmed in the 18,000 legal same sex marriages that exist in California today”, said Dr. Simmersbach. “But Diana and I are harmed every day by the systems and people who keep marriage out of our reach. We are ready to marry immediately. We want our day to come soon.”
“I don’t really know if I believe in marriage”, thoughtfully exclaimed Benancio Garza, 20 year old Youth Spokesperson and Board Member for Equality Action NOW and American River College Student. “However for certain my main focus right now is to fight for my right to be considered equal in every way under the law and that includes my civil right to marry another male adult if that is what I want to do. Here in America being separated because of my sexual orientation for which I did not choose is hypocritical backwards thinking. We are all different, and we need to accept that fact.”
The question before the California Supreme Court today seems like a trivial technical issue but in reality whatever the Court decides will have far-reaching implications for the whole state. There are many laws that California passes through the initiative process that may not be in line with the California or the U.S. Constitution and the Courts has to determine the law’s constitutionality.
Currently, California’s Attorney General and Governor can decide not to appeal a court decision ruling that an initiative is unconstitutional. But, depending on how the California Supreme Court rules, future Governors may lose the ability to make such final decisions for the state – leaving disfavored groups in California even more vulnerable to unconstitutional initiatives that single them out for attack.
So if the California Supreme Court holds that California law gives sponsors the power to bring an appeal over the objections of the Attorney General and the Governor, the Ninth Circuit would still have to decide whether Prop 8’s supporters meet all the other criteria to appeal under federal law. If the Ninth Circuit allows them to appeal, the Ninth Circuit would then decide whether to uphold or reverse Judge Walker’s ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.
Oral argument will be televised today beginning at 10:00am on C-SPAN and the California Channel as well as video streamed on the internet. Equality Action NOW and Headhunters/Cornerstone Restaurant well be hosting a viewing party for the community at Headhunters beginning at 10:00am on the corner of 10th and K Streets. The public is invited to attend.
Make no mistake – today’s hearing, and the decision that results from the arguments will be of high interest to constitutional and judicial scholars across the United States. But more importantly, it will be heard and watched by hundreds of thousands of individuals, whose personal current and future lives depend on the outcome.
The California Supreme Court must issue its decision within 90 days of oral argument and is likely to rule even sooner.
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If voters decided to ban all Muslims from flying, I wonder if you wold argue the same way.
The whole point of the government is to prevent mob rule. Without the balance of power (judicial branch), mob rule would run rampant in this case.
As someone wrote when New York approved gay marriage, "A fundamental right was finally extended to all citizens equally, and it had absolutely no negative effect on anyone."
I'm neither gay nor Muslim, but that matters not. I'm human and therefore approve of all humans having the basic rights they should be guaranteed by our constitution. (Check the preamble and the 14th Amendment if you aren't familiar with that old thing).
As for the whole "voters approve" thing, the same could be said of many draconian laws of segregation in the past. Yet we seem to need to learn the same lessons time and again because people vote based on emotion rather than any form of logic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the proponents of Prop 8 should or will win, but to have elected officials refuse to defend a law that was approved by the voters is a good way to undermine the whole system.
Elected officials can't pick and choose which laws they will defend, they are sworn to uphold the Constitution. And even though many people believe that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, it actually isn't until a judge makes that determination and until that time, it should be defended by the state.
Very much like the arguments to lower the voting age to 18 instead of 21.
And it IS going through the proper channels, in this case, the judicial branch.
I would hope that if my elected representatives found a law morally reprehensible that they would not support it. What you're saying sounds like the same line of reasoning (albeit far less extreme) of a concentration camp guard saying he was only following orders and therefore isn't at all responsible for the Holocaust. After all, shouldn't the state defend its laws? Or should the state pick and choose?
Prop. 8 is hate-based legislation passed by playing to religious views (which should be separate from the state for this very reason, as the founding fathers intended) and marketed by fear (THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!), that was also unfounded, to sway a not-at-all-overwhelming majority of voters to make a law that, if applied to any other way we differentiate people (skin color, ethnic background, faith, music choice, etc.), would be shot down as unconstitutional right away.
People just aren't comfortable with it, so they pretend it's OK and try to rationalize it by saying we should think of the children.
What's next? Will we give women the right to vote!?
Which was done legislatively, not through judicial tyranny.
"And it IS going through the proper channels, in this case, the judicial branch."
Because reading into the law what never existed before is just oh so proper. :-P
You can demand that a cat be called a dog because it also has four legs and a tail, but it is still a cat. Calling something a "fundamental equal right" does not make it so.
As for the nonsense that any opposition to the dogmatic demand that such relationships = marriage is somehow "hate based":
Sorry, such a relationship, however wonderful and loving and committed it may be, is not the same as a marriage. That's the way it has been all the way back even to Ancient Greece, where homosexuality was common. Keep a permanent homo-sexual partner? Sure! And may they be happy. But "marry" them? Why?
Marriage exists as a state of social obligation of procreating couples. It exists for no other reason. There are all sorts of different wonderful human relationships that are not covered by marriage. Nor should they be. They carry no social obligation, nor moral imperative; and should fall outside of government meddling and incentives.
Nor is this only a Judeo-Christian objection. Marriage is everywhere in every culture. It's a natural consequence of the human condition, namely mortality and procreation. And that remains true even when married couples are barren and childless. It's binary because of the binary sexes. It's necessary because of the way the next generation comes about. And it tends to be monogamous because having rootless single men, as is common in polygamous societies, causes instability and chaos. We don't have marriage just so that women or men can wear a dress or tuxedo one day in their life so that they can feel pretty.
Of course, the radicals will falsely claim that this is "bigotry". Anyone who believes marriage should be a special institution for promoting stronger families in procreating couples is a bigot by definition according to the leftists, because that marriage does not include relationship type monogamous homosexual.
And I say, well, if that one, then why not relationship type polygamous, with all the problems that leads to? Or relationship type platonic friendship? Or relationship type swinger? Or consensual incest between a consenting adult brother and a sister? Or just two straight dudes or chicks who want to band together for business reasons and nothing else?
Marriage exists as a state of social obligation of procreating couples. It exists for no other reason. There are all sorts of different wonderful human relationships that are not covered by marriage. Nor should they be. They carry no social obligation, nor moral imperative; and should fall outside of government meddling and incentives."
I actually used to agree with you, but then I thought of the very basic tenets our country is founded upon. Gay marriage SHOULD HAVE become a fundamental right the INSTANT the state got involved (issuing marriage licenses, tax breaks, etc.).
If marriage is something done outside the realm of the state's purview, then it should not be regulated, and under our freedoms of religion, it would be up to whatever church to decide whether to perform ceremonies, and it would be meaningless in the eyes of the law.
HOWEVER, this is not the case. The state got involved in what I would argue is an entirely religious rite. At that point, the law must be applied evenly. (This is also the reason I think "hate crime" legislation is BS and unconstitutional, but people are afraid to fight it for fear of being labeled as a bigot).
Anyone objecting to gay marriage is only doing so because it is something they don't like or agree with. It's solely an emotional argument, and emotions have no place in law.
As for calling it judicial tyranny, that's a total fallacy. I will reiterate that the whole reason we have our government and the freedoms we are supposed to have under our Constitution is the prevention of mob rule. Essentially our Bill of Rights guarantees that the rights of the underrepresented are not oppressed.
Was it Franklin who said, "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote"?
Whether arms be literal weapons or the protection of the judicial branch is irrelevant.
And for me, the bottom line comes down to this: If gay marriage is allowed, it IN NO WAY harms or impinges on the rights of any other citizen.
Your slippery-slope argument about consenting siblings is different. Science shows us that birth defects are heightened from incest, and that would be a reason to disallow those relationships as being sanctioned by the state, as it's protecting the rights of the unborn child (yes, sometimes "think of the children" is a valid argument).
Why should the government, which is there to serve the people (in theory, though not really in practice) ban something that makes people happy without harming a single other person? Is it because you don't *like* the idea? Can you actually rationalize your argument and answer that question, with logic rather than emotion and some argument based in religion (many forms of which are far more offensive to the general public than, say, letting two people who love each other get married)?
As far as I'm concerned, marriage is an abstract concept. It means different things to different people. Why the hell should the majority get to tell the minority what it should think?
I do still get a chuckle that the same first time Latino and Black "hope & change" voters that put Obama in office were the swing votes that made prop8 the law of the land.
But that irony aside, the gay marriage "battle" is just a diversionary point of contention that extremes on both sides like to cling to in order to rally their base. We all should continually question why any government official or private entity would claim to need to know someones marital status.
cogmeyer: I couldn't agree more. Government should have no say in who lives with whom an under what definition. We wouldn't have this problem to begin with if the government would stay out of it. However, now that government is involved, the laws need to be applied equally. That's what I've been saying all along.
Maybe that's just my Libertarian views.
Fighting prop8 for years and years just to earn the privilege of paying at a higher married tax rate does not make sense!
Please do read the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Driving is not a basic right, nor is it a right at all. Should we decide who can drive based on race, religion, sexual orientation...just because the majority feels like it can bully people with a vote? That is your argument from a few posts up, yes?
And now you seem to be calling homosexuals criminals. As I said before, your logic mystifies me.