Hate Mongers Win
There was little doubt that the California Supreme Court would uphold Proposition 8 when it ruled earlier today. The same court that last May 15 held that gays had a constitutional right to marry this morning ruled that the constitutional amendment that passed last November (helped in part by Latino and African American church goers who turned out to back President Obama). Precedent and the justices own questioning seemed to indicate the way it would go: the constitutional amendment was not illegal, nor did it take away an inalienable right as Jerry argued. (I thought Jerry's argument was extremely creative and cogent, but it didn't stand much of a chance). Now it will go to the ballot box again, and hopefully equality will win out over bigotry this time.
However, a key provision of the law, one that is extremely far reaching, remains intact: sexual orientation is now treated like race and gender and afforded "the highest protection" in discrimination cases. This was part of the California Supreme Court's original ruling allowing gay marriage, and Prop 8 did nothing to overturn it. So some small blow for justice has indeed been struck.
posted by M.A. Cramer/Valgard at 10:35 AM
1 Comments:
My understanding is that the LDS church was one of the primary financial supporters of Prop 8. However, I think if the Gay Marriage proponents were less biased themselves, they would see the great benefit in joining forces with the LDS church and eliminating "marriage" in favor of exclusively "civil unions" between all couples/groups. With LDS funded support, California's constitution could be changed again as early as November 2009.
There is no inherent reason why the law cannot allow plural marriage via multiple "civil unions." Many of the evils of secret polygamy - such as the recent troubles in Texas and Arizona - could be avoided by allowing a polygamist to have "civil unions" with several different women at the same time, with the resultant legal obligation to financially support those women. California has already dealt with the legal issues involved re child support, child visitation, division of community property, etc. when polygamist families immigrate from other countries where polygamy is allowed and subsequently a divorce occurs.
Barak Obama's father was a polygamist. Although his bigamous marriage to Barak's mother Ann Dunham in Hawaii was probably not legal because he was still married to his African wife Kezia, his subsequent marriage to Ruth after he returned to Africa was completely legal. And the world didn't end because of it.
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