Prop(aganda H)8*

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Can you imagine anything less threatening than a gay wedding?  Someone please explain to me what is so troubling to Americans about other people’s private lives.  I will never get that.  Are we in Saudi Arabia?  I understand being threatened by violence, hatred, and fundamentalism, but certainly not by love — or sex for that matter.  If you’re not the one having it, who cares?!

Anyway, that really doesn’t have very much to do with Tuesday’s ruling of the California Supreme Court, and while it is disappointing, it was actually a fair decision by the Justices.  The fault lay with the argument brought forth on behalf of the plaintiffs, and the Court had no choice but to side with Prop(aganda H)8.

Every state has their own constitution, which, like the big one, can be amended as time passes, communities integrate, states modernize, etc.  The Constitution of the State of California has been amended over 500 times and has a fairly clear set of instructions for the process:

ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL

SEC. 8. (a) The initiative is the power of the electors to propose
statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject
them…

ARTICLE 18 AMENDING AND REVISING THE CONSTITUTION

SEC. 3. The electors may amend the Constitution by initiative.

SEC. 4. A proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the
electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect
the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise…

It is under this pretense that opponents of Proposition 8 appealed to the State Supreme Court, arguing that the 52% vote for Proposition 8 was, in fact, not an amendment, but instead a revision to the Constitution, which cannot be written into law without further legislation (unlike an amendment).  The ever trusty New York Times describes the lawsuit fairly clearly:

Supporters of same-sex marriage, who filed several suits challenging the proposition after its adoption, argued that the change to the state’s Constitution was so fundamental that the initiative was not an amendment at all but instead a “revision,” a term for measures that rework core constitutional principles.

Under California law, revisions cannot be decided through a simple signature drive and a majority vote, as with Proposition 8. Instead, they can be placed on the ballot only with a two-thirds vote by the Legislature.

But the justices said the proposition was an amendment, not a revision. It has been historically rare for the state’s courts to overturn initiatives on the ground that they are actually revisions, and many legal scholars had deemed the challenge to Proposition 8 a long shot.

Whether or not the justices felt Proposition 8 was constitutional, they have to rule in favor of the majority under this law suit.  To ignore the majority vote would be to take the power out of the hands of the electors, and to do so would ultimately be considered tyranny.  In this particular case, the California Supreme Court, which voted in favor of gay marriage just one year ago, was right in their decision.

Next time, why don’t you try Article 1, Section 1, which is pretty much a universal constitutional right, but in California is worded as such:

All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights.
Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty,
acquiring, possessing, and protecting property,
and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

I mean, there’s your argument right there.  Pretty basic.

It should be noted that the vote was 6-1, with the sole dissenting voice coming from Justice Carlos R. Moreno (once considered a possible Supreme nominee), who determined that the amendment was an illegal revision based on its unconstitutionality.  He wrote that Proposition 8 requires “discrimination” and “strikes at the core of the promise of equality that underlies our California Constitution and… places at risk the state constitutional right of all disfavored minorities.”