Prop 8 Goes the Way of the Dodo

It seems this went down a few years sooner than I expected.

This seems to be a case where one set of people are attempting to impose their religious view on another without a sound civil argument for doing so (I strongly doubt that children raised by gay parents are harmed or that gay marriage harms straight marriage).

That said this could actually be a win for religious liberty.

There are religious groups that accept gay people and allowing them to practice their religion freely doesn't hurt society or unnecessarily hinder them as prop 8 did.



The letters referred to by Chandos earlier are interesting historical bits but may be being abused by positiveatheism as one of the criticisms of priests is that they have messed up the "purest religion" ever preached at that point (thus a criticism of organized religion not living up to that religion's values).

Though the letter can be criticized itself as religious leaders both in the US and the rest of the world have been part of opposing unfair and/or oppressive treatment of people by dictators themselves individually or political/economic systems as a whole.

(Sorry Chandos, bringing up "positive atheism" can touch on topics in discussions about religion and atheism we've already been in).


This is about minority rights being abused/ignored (yes a few major religions are pushing the abuse/ignoring but they aren't the only religious groups party to the discussion). And it appears the undoing of prop 8 simply happened several years earlier than I expected. I don't know what the political effects will be but I will not miss nor morn for prop 8.

 

No doubt. Jefferson was very cryptic about his own religious beliefs. For one thing, he considered anyone's beliefs a very private matter and he took pains to keep his own beliefs private. Secondly, he sent mixed messages about his own beliefs, more than likely as tactic to keep his political enemies off-balance, who often used Jefferson's supposed "atheism" against him in instances when he ran for public office.

But there was one thing Jefferson was clear about and that was the separation of Church and State. Ragusa's point was that modern politics were less informed by organized religion than they were in times past, despite what the Sarah Palins of the world may say. And that is a very Jeffersonian [Enlightenment] PoV.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html

 

It's more how they call it 'privacy' (the interpretations of the right have rarely seemed to have anything to do with privacy to me) that confuses me.

I completely disagree with this, for the simple reason that people live together, have sex, and even have kids, all without being married. Marriage, as a State institution, is a legal contract with certain benefits and rights, and nothing more and nothing less. If you want to be allowed to visit your loved one in the hospital, as married couples can, that's a public matter (i.e. involving more than the two of you). If you want to file for taxes jointly, that's a public matter. If you want to be given medical power of attorney, or automatically inherit everything if there's no will, that's a public matter. If you want to live together for 50 years, have sex, have children (speaking marriage in general, not specifically homosexual marriage here), raise children, and grow old together... you don't have to be married.

So, as a hypothetical, just to explore the issue, what's your read on bestiality and privacy?

 

NOG, bestiality isn't illegal because it is immoral. It is illegal because it is animal abuse. There is no such thing as "consensual bestiality." We don't pass laws based on whether something is "moral." Lots of "immoral" things always have been, and always will be, and currently are legal.

As to the matter of the settled law regarding the right to privacy, whether you agree with it or understand it is largely irrelevant. It's still settled law.

 

More fun:

What a silly episode this is:
A Mormon funded anti-gay ballot initiative leads, in California of all places, to prop8. Inevitably that law gets challenged in court, by a bi-partisan legal team. The judge rules prop8 as unconstitutional and the proponents probably can't appeal. The Secretary of State and the Governor of California refuse to support an appeal of the decision.

Prop8 (and the US primary process), underline to me the worst about direct democracy - it leads to directly funded and PR powered special interest initiatives (and candidates). In the essence, marketing makes law, not reason. Direct democracy works in a state as small as Switzerland, or a town where people would fit in an amphitheater. But in a place like the US? The horror!

 

So, does that mean that whenever animals mate, it's animal abuse at the hands of other animals? What if a person mates with an animal that's in heat? I know, it's a ridiculous question, but it's bugging me now.

Yes, but the future applications of it (such as whether or not it applies to marriage) rely on how one understands it. I don't, so I'm trying to.


Ragusa, there's a lot more to Prop8 than that. Before Prop8, there was a law passed that banned gay marriage, with popular support. Then, a judge struck down that law as unconstitutional. Almost immediately after, the Prop8 people began collecting signatures to put it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment, which they thought would be immune to the reasoning the judge had used to strike down the law. It recieved substantial support. The people of California, surprisingly, oppose gay marriage, in two elections and numerous polls. The courts have ruled that they're not allowed to force their views on the minority, though.

 

NOG,
when animals mate, that's animals among animals, it remains in the species. The difference to gay sex, unless what you want to suggest that there is none, is that the latter isn't inter species. Now, the next thing you want to say isn't incidentally that that border is arbitrary? The beginning of the slippery slope - the beginning of the unstoppable slide into Babylonian wh*redom? Or that it is unnatural? Get to the point.

On an only slightly related note (that does not have anything to do with you NOG):

American Fundamentalist Protestants and their relentlessness, and their peculiar reading of the Bible, start to get on my nerves. A while ago I got my hands (we have a probably pentecostal English language congregation around here) on a tract that described in titillating detail the debauched, scandalous and largely imaginary excesses in Catholic nunneries, before explaining at length why I and all Catholics will burn in hell, and deserve it. I have also read another such tract on homosexuality, that also went into titillating detail about them gay's abominable practices.

My view on this is that this is the Fundamentalist Protestant equivalent to pornography. If life is that dull that one needs to excite the flock with such scandal, maybe it's about time to spice up Sunday church lemonade with some rum? With such nonsense from the 'Freikirchen' floating around, I start to like Lutherans (dour folk that they are).

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Shouldn't that have rung a bell? Maybe the content of the law - that gays must not marry - was constitutionally problematic? Which calls into question the wisdom of simply reiterating that rule in another law? Was that taken into account? Apparently not, as repeated defeats in court, mind you, at the hand of conservative judges, suggests. There are two explanations for such behaviour:

• ... stupidity, or a thinking that what must not be legal (gay marriage), can not be legal, and/or ...
• ... fishing for precedents, even defeats, in the hope to perhaps find a sympathetic judge, while being content with creating headlines and polarisation. And while doing all that, one can cynically play the tune "We are victims of liberal activist judges!" and practice divisive politics

You know, I am of the opinion, that if you held a poll on legislation in, for the sake of argument, Texas, with a lot of PR, you could probably persuade the necessary 51% of the population to reintroduce public hangings, shootings, whippings and perhaps quartering, or that Texan citizens could volunteer for firing squads. And depending on where one dares to go, one may even get majorities for stoning adulterers and killing gays under Biblical law.

While such legislative proposals may or may not receive substantial support, their content would probably be unconstitutional, irrespective of the vote. I suggest that that may be the case with the first California law, and prop8 as well. As long as there is a constitution, legality isn't just a question of the polls or popular support for a given measure.

 

I was questioning the logic of the Right to Privacy, not the morality of it. Don't worry, I wasn't going anywhere else with these questions. Homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of the Church* regardless of what the law says, and a constitutional right regardless of what the Church says. I was just exploring the limits of this 'right to privacy'.

Of course, this brings up the whole question of what defines 'animal cruelty'? But that's another topic.

I'm sorry, I may not have described it properly. The first law was found to be against the Californian Constitution (if I remember correctly). In response, they decided to amend the Constitution (which I think they somehow expected to survive a challenge based on the US Constitution, which it didn't).

In Texas? I'm quite sure you could, and I doubt you'd even have to advertise it much. The reason is because it enjoys public support. I was responding to your claim:

The point is that this wasn't some privately funded PR driven special interest initiative, it was a popularly supported by the people. The point of democracy you really have a problem with is the tyranny of the masses, which is why we have a constitution (or two, in fact, in any given state).

 

I emphatically agree about the latter and emphatically disagree about the former. To me the latter is precisely what makes the former problematic.

It was precisely that. It was filed by an activist group named 'ProtectMarriage.com' [PDF]. AFAIK they were the only official campaign in favour of Proposition 8. They are an umbrella group that was endorsed by

That's a lot of Christian Right groups i.e. 'special interest'. And you should read The Mormon Money Behind Proposition 8. Sullivan writes that apparently not just 40% but actually about 77% of the funding for prop8 came from Mormon donors.

That prop8 received a majority when it was eventually voted on - that can be interpreted as popular support - but it does not mean that the initiative itself emerged out of general Californian outrage over gay marriage. It took a PR campaign to generate the majority that voted prop8 into law.

The California constitution will likely hold the same values and principles that the United States constitution holds - in Germany with the individual states it is just the same way. The wording of Proposition 8 was precisely the same as that which had been found in Proposition 22, which, as an ordinary statute, had been invalidated by the California Supreme Court. After that it shouldn't come as a surprise that courts view prop8 and its predecessor as equally unconstitutional.

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You also really ought to view these ads for the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act:

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Hahahaahahahaha.

Wait. That's satire, right?

 

Only sort of. If you visit the website, you'll see that they really are trying to collect the necessary signatures to put this on the ballot. They have taken all the necessary preliminary steps and are providing all the necessary tools. It appears that this will go on the ballot If they collect enough signatures.

 

And how many people voted for it? How few groups give funding to anti-gun laws, and how many people vote for them? Or against anti-gun laws vs who votes for them? Propositions are often filed by one group, even when they enjoy popular support, just like bills are proposed by one individual.

The 'initiative' has been percolating around the entire US for decades. This was hardly something suggested by an outside group that the masses knew nothing about. You may be able to make that arguement on issues like Net Neutrality, but not anti-gay marriage laws.

State constitutions can't contradict the federal constitution, but they can go further than it does. So, for example, if the US Constitution said nothing on the issue at all, a state constitution could. I seem to recall the specific issue in the California Constitution wasn't in the US Constitution, or wasn't quite the same, or something.

Gah, I think I just lost some brain cells. What was the point of that, Ragusa?

I'm honestly not sure. The only site I could find that mentioned it was RescueMarriage.org, and that's the site 'sponsoring' it, so it could easily all be a joke these days. Maybe Ragusa will fill us in.

 

I don't loose sleep over you disagreeing with me on this.

Careful: Since state constitutions can't contradict the federal constitution, them going further means they can only do that by offering greater protection. They must not offer less, since that would contradict the US constitution.

I wanted to confuse you. It worked:

Certainly: It is satire and the guy devised it as a sarcastic counterpoint to prop8. John Marcotte commented:

He's right. Only banning gay marriage is a half measure indeed, especially if one compares divorce numbers to the number of gay marriages.

 

That's not really true. That's like saying you can amend the Constitution with an unconstitutional amendment, and presto! It's suddenly Constitutional. The standards for State Constitutions are higher than simply not contradicting the federal Constitution - they must be in compliance with all the parts of the federal Constitution.

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Actually, now that it looks like the case won't be appealed, it leaves me to wonder what ripple effects this ruling may have. Prop 8 was challenged on federal grounds. While Prop 8 amended California's Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, the court case did not challenge the law because it violated California's Constitution - they used the US Constitution in their defense.

I guess the question then is: Does this ruling set a prescedent? Does it logically follow that since Prop 8 is unconstitution, that other similar laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman are also unconstitutional? It would seem so, but I'd like to hear from some of our local lawyers.

 

As a federal court they were not allowed to judge over whether prop8 is constitutional under the California constitution. In my understanding, only a California state court can rule over that.

The immediate effect will obviously be that 'gay marriages' in California will resume.

In my understanding, since the Federal Court is just one of many Federal Courts and not the Supreme Court, Judge Walker's ruling is not binding on other Federal Courts. They may come to differing rulings, even though I doubt it since IMO the law appears pretty much settled and there doesn't appear to be much room for reasonable disagreement.

The ruling will IMO be a precedent to the extent that the arguments Judge Walker made will have to be considered by any other Federal Court that has to decide over a comparable rule of another state - the plaintiffs challenging comparable laws will make sure of that. His reasoning will probably also be considered if or when a challenge to such a law eventually makes it to the Supreme Court.

 

Isn't that the same thing?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean, but given the recent Ninth Circuit decision to uphold Prop 8 for now, isn't that door still open?

 

Maybe I worded it poorly. I'll try to explain it better.

NOG had suggested that a state Constitution could go further than the federal Constitution, and I was pointing out that it wasn't correct to say that. In going further, even if you did not directly contradict the federal Constitution, you may not be in compliance with it.

Prop 8 is a case in point. Placing an amendment to the CA Constitution stating that marriage is limited to a man and a woman does not contradict the US Constitution, because the US Constitution is silent on the topic of marriages. However, the amendment wasn't in compliance with the US Constitution because it violated the US Constitution's 14th Amendment.

If that is the case then I rescind my prior comment. My understanding was that neither Gov. Arnold Swartzenneger nor Attonrey General Mike Brown had any interest in appealing this case, and thus Judge Walker's ruling would stand. As of the end of last week, Walker said that marriages could resume on 19 Aug 2010. Is that no longer the case?

 

Prop 8 upheld for now