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California judge rules ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Piotr Rasputin, Aug 4, 2010.

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  1. Human_Paraquat

    Human_Paraquat Well-Known Member

    Judge Walker commented on that in his decision: ‎"That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as 'fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.' "

    I am not gay, have only one friend who is, and I grew up in a conservative Christian household. But this has always been my argument: the morals or values of one person do not trump the inherent rights of another.
     
  2. trifectarich

    trifectarich Well-Known Member

    Federal judges and courts get it wrong all the time, so this is hardly out of the norm.
     
  3. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    Ya think?
     
  4. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    This guy says that judges have no authority to overturn Prop 8, that only the voters can do that.
    I don't get wingnut logic.

    http://greggjackson.com/blog/
     
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure he got it wrong. At least until the Prop 8 proponents get better lawyers. From everything I've read, it was a stunningly poor performance on their part (and it's telling that the state of California didn't even attempt to defend Prop 8, but left it to laymen). I'm sure someone who knows more about this stuff would find this an oversimplification, but from the way I understand it, the Prop 8 proponents had to articulate a legitimate government purpose for treating gay couples differently, and they didn't do that. For example, they argued that marriage is meant to foster procreation. But why do we let old people get married? They argued that children in opposite-sex, married households are statistically better off than otherwise. But they compared that to single-parent households, which is irrelevant here, not same-sex households, where the plaintiffs actually showed the stability is pretty much equal. They argued that gay marriage would redefine heterosexual marriage, but never gave a satisfactory explanation of why that would be.

    It seems that the winning argument would be that equal rights were not intended to protect gay people when the 14th Amendment was passed, correct? Isn't that how judges like Scalia evaluate Constitutional questions, supposedly? I'm not exactly sure how gay people are treated, equal rights-wise, compared to minorities and women right now.

    My guess is that by the next round, the Prop 8 opponents are going to armed with some better lawyers. Or are they stuck with the same arguments they used this time around on appeal because it's the same case?
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Interesting bio on the judge who decided the case. He's gay, but he's a conservative who believes in a "law and economics" philosophy, and represented the USOC in a trademark infringement suit against the "Gay Olympics." Nancy Pelosi opposed his nomination by Bush I because of his insensitivitity to gay and poor people issues!
     
  7. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    If people would quit voting for blatantly unconstitutional referendums and state legislatures stopped passing laws on authority they don't have, then the judges wouldn't have to overturn them.
     
  8. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Dude's just a hater.
     
  9. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    And St. Reagan nominated him to the bench too.

    BTW, anybody discussing this topic better not use the phrase "sanctity of marriage." Anything you can do in a drive-through in Vegas can't be that sanctified.
     
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I think it's OK to use that phrase. I respect the hell out of marriage as an institution. But I think it's hollow unless you can articulate WHY gay marriage harms the sanctity of marriage. At least that's what I read into it, and what the judge was trying to push the Prop 8 supporters to do. You can't just say "tradition," because there was a time when it was "tradition" that mixed race marriages were also illegal, right?
     
  11. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    From one legal analysis I read this morning: Does anyone think Prop 8 supporters sandbagged this one because they're counting on the Supremes to give them their way and they don't want to show their game before they get to D.C.?
    This analyst thinks they did, and chided them well for it. He felt the judge's substantial, detailed opinion makes it that much more difficult to overturn, and that it's a stupid move as long as Anthony Kennedy, a Californian, is the swing vote.
     
  12. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    http://www.slate.com/id/2262766/

    Had the proponents of Prop 8 made even a minimal effort to put on a case, to track down real experts, to do more than try to assert their way to legal victory, this would have been a closer case. But faced with one team that mounted a serious effort and another team that did little more than fire up their big, gay boogeyman screensaver for two straight weeks, it wasn't much of a fight. Judge Walker scolds them at the outset for promising in their trial brief to prove that same-sex marriage would "effect some twenty-three harmful consequences" and then putting on almost no case.
     
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