California and Mob Rule

[Q Classic]

Where the men arrested, sentenced? This was not the case for black men in Jim Crow's america. Clearly crimes against gay people are treated the same way as crimes against any other person.

Were they? I'd never know, because you and your kind often try to block presentations of the Laramie Project.

[Drake Tungsten]

The statute of limitations is up on Matthew Shepard references. You need to find a new gay lynching that happened in the last decade.

[Q Classic]

The statute of limitations is up on Matthew Shepard references. You need to find a new gay lynching that happened in the last decade.

I wasn't aware that lynchings had statute of limitations.

Then again, I suppose you're right, nobody wants to hear about how rough black people have it. They too need a new lynching for us to care.

[Drake Tungsten]

I wasn't aware that lynchings had statute of limitations.

Now you know.

[Ming]

Also, being the, erm, devil's advocate, how would you feel, if an institution dear to you, which has for few millenia meant something, were molded to something else? Let's take bar mitzwah, add some "modern" values to it, and invite hindu's to practice it, too. With holy cows and all.

The difference in your example is that one is celebrated by a single religion and in a very specific way, and the other, marriage, has been celebrated in different ways by many religious and non religious people since long before the time of Christ

The Chrisitians are kind of the johnny come lately to marriage... It was going on a long time before Christians even knew they had a religion.

[Ben Kenobi]

The difference is that black people don't argue that they are treated as second-class citizens.

[Ben Kenobi]

The Chrisitians are kind of the johnny come lately to marriage... It was going on a long time before Christians even knew they had a religion.

We were Jews before then.

[Jon Miller]

The correct decision.

I hope that the CA voters vote differently in the future.

JM

[DinoDoc]

Drake and DD, you're completely entitled to your negative opinion toward freedom and civil rights.

You might try to actually make a legal arguement but shrieking like a harridan when a Court in CA actually makes a reasonable decision based on the law and apparently according to Imran bends over backwards to give your side legal guidance only serves to piss people off.

[MrFun]

I've cooled off a bit now after my emotional reaction to the news.

The California Supreme Court did a reasonable job in their ruling while still implicating the justice in recognizing equal rights for gays and lesbians by recognizing the 18,000 who have already been married.

Gay activists need to do what happened in Iowa - bring forth an argument that prohibitions against gays marrying is violation of equal rights protection.

[MrFun]

The statute of limitations is up on Matthew Shepard references. You need to find a new gay lynching that happened in the last decade.

Why are you so callous?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Gay activists need to do what happened in Iowa - bring forth an argument that prohibitions against gays marrying is violation of equal rights protection.

IIRC, in the Iowa case it was based on Iowa's Equal Protection Clause. That's what the original ruling that legalized gay marriage California was based on (which was overturned by Proposition 8). AFAIK, no state has successfully used the United States Equal Protection Clause in gay marriage yet. Part of me wonders if that is to avoid stepping on the SCOTUS' turf (ie, let them decide on the interpretation of the US Constitution, as states decide the interpretation of their own state constitutions).

[Berzerker]

It may only be 14 words but it radically changed the meaning of the equal protection clause. That's why I say it was actually a major change.

gotta agree, the gays who married are still married but other gays cant? Hell, not only are they now discriminating against gays, they've created different "classes" of gays. And this does look to me like a major revision or change in the Constitution, equal protection has lost its meaning. But what else is new?
The tax code makes a mockery of equal protection with one law written for me and another written for you while the people who bribe politicians get a special law written for them.

[Drake Tungsten]

Why are you so callous?

I don't like appeals to emotion, especially when they're outdated and not representative of current realities.

[Berzerker]

It's such horse**** that it was a 6-1 decision where the majority seemed a bit upset it had to rule that way .

An excerpt:

“[O]ur analysis in determining whether a particular constitutional enactment is a revision or an amendment must be both quantitative and qualitative in nature. For example, an enactment which is so extensive in its provisions as to change directly the ‘substantial entirety’ of the Constitution by the deletion or alteration of numerous existing provisions may well constitute a revision thereof. However, even a relatively simple enactment may accomplish such far reaching changes in the nature of our basic governmental plan as to amount to a revision also. In illustration, the parties herein appear to agree that an enactment which purported to vest all judicial power in the Legislature would amount to a revision without regard either to the length or complexity of the measure or the number of existing articles or sections affected by such change.” ...

From a quantitative standpoint, it is obvious that Proposition 8 does not amount to a constitutional revision. The measure adds one 14-word section to article I -- a section that affects two other sections of article I by creating an exception to the privacy, due process, and equal protection clauses contained in those two sections as interpreted in the majority opinion in the Marriage Cases. Quantitatively, Proposition 8 unquestionably has much less of an effect on the preexisting state constitutional scheme than virtually any of the previous constitutional changes that our past decisions have found to constitute amendments rather than revisions....

[As to the qualitiative prong of the amendment/revision analysis,] the numerous past decisions of this court that have addressed this issue all have indicated that the type of measure that may constitute a revision of the California Constitution is one that makes “far reaching changes in the nature of our basic governmental plan,” or, stated in slightly different terms, that “substantially alter[s] the basic governmental framework set forth in our Constitution.” ... Proposition 8 works no such fundamental change in the basic governmental plan or framework established by the preexisting provisions of the California Constitution -- that is, “in [the government's] fundamental structure or the foundational powers of its branches.” ...

I realize people are pissy at Prop 8, but trying to say that it fundamentally changes California's government is quite a massive stretch.

It does fundamentally change the state Constitution, the reason the court doesn't see it as changing much about the govt is because the govt was already discriminating against gays - no change there. This is a case of the govt ignoring what the Constitution says and the court using that "precedent" (like how Social Security has become constitutional by longstanding practice) to justify changing the Constitution to fit with the govt's practices.