Well, we took a licking today during the Prop 8 hearings. While most folks in the courts believe Prop 8 is wrong, some find it hard to violate the voice of the people. I can understand that, however these are crazy, misguided people who voted for this.
Okay, I'll get back on track. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Justice Joyce Kennard, said the challenge to the Prop. 8's legality brought by advocates of same-sex marriage involved "a completely different issue" from the court's ruling that the marriage laws violated gays' and lesbians' rights to be treated equally and wed the partner of their choice.
"Here we are dealing with the power of the people, the inalienable right, to amend the Constitution," Kennard said. Speaking to a lawyer representing same-sex couples, she said that if advocates of same-sex marriage want to overturn the voters' decision, "you have the right to go to the people and present an initiative."
There were some indications of divisions among the justices on the validity of Prop. 8 during the hearing, which lasted more than three hours at the court's San Francisco headquarters. But on a separate issue, all seven appeared to agree that the 18,000 same-sex couples who married in California before Prop. 8 passed would remain legally wed.
"When the highest court of the state declares that same-sex couples have the right to marry ... how can one deny the validity of those marriages?" asked Justice Marvin Baxter, who dissented from the May ruling throwing out the opposite-sex-only marriage law.
Relying on that ruling, thousands of gays and lesbians "upended their lives, changed their property responsibilities with their spouses," said Justice Ming Chin, another dissenter from that decision. "Is it really fair to throw that out?"
If the justices' questions were any indication, the court will allow Prop. 8 to ban same-sex marriages as of Nov. 5, the day after it passed with 52 percent of the vote. A ruling is due within 90 days.
Okay...we have 90 days. But anything is possible, I have to remain positive and hopeful.
3 comments:
If this can happen in California, what hope is there? It is amazing how backwards civil rights for gays is going when we have just elected a progressive president. We need to organize and show this country that a massive, peacefull protest can be effective. This is our lives and we need to get to work.
Didn't the team arguing against say that the people have a right to determine what are rights?
I'm hopeful that we come on top of this. At the very least I hope that the couples that got married before are able to maintain the licenses, and that seems to be the direction things are going.
I feel as if the entire queer community is engaging in collective bargaining, with DADT on the line, as well as this in CA, and other measures that are in the works. I wonder what if any we could accept not getting and still consider it an overall win.
I get annoyed when I hear anyone, including the California Supreme Court, saying they don't want to go against the "will of the people."
The "people" were lied to, though commercials paid for by Mormon and Catholic churches. Gays would destroy the family, destroy the schoold pervert the children.
How can the "will of the people" be upheld, if they are influenced by lies.
And, failing that argument, how can the Supreme Court not see that the "will of the people" is to write discrimination into law?
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