Ballot Initiatives

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Just like in any election, there were state-specific initiatives on the ballots this year. This year, these initiatives ranged from whether to legalize prostititution (failed), legalize medical marijuana (passed, and in Massachusettes it is no longer a crime to be in possession of less than an ounce of pot), allow for a state lottery (passed), legalize slot sachines (passed), and even physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill (passed).

Here's a link to some of the more prominent ballot initiatives.

The two that I was most interested in were the proposed gay marriage bans, and several initiatives that would have greatly restricted access to abortions. All of the gay marriage bans passed, and all of the initiatives to restrict abortion failed. That in itself wasn't particularly surprising, but WHERE the initiatives passed and failed was very surprising. Liberal California banned gay marriage, even though they have been legal for the last 5 months or so, and now place the legal status of 19,000 gay married couples in jeopardy. Conversely, conservative South Dakota rejected an initiative that would have significantly reduced a woman's access to an abortion.

I thought both of these measures would be heavily supported by Evangelical Christians, and not supported by much of anybody who wasn't. Given that the number of Evangelical Christians as a percentage of the total population is way higher in South Dakota than it is in California, my prognostications were spectacularly wrong. Obviously, there are many people beyond Evangelical Christians that don't like the idea of gay marriage, and there are a whole lot of people, including some who are Evangelical Christians, who don't like the idea of restricting access to abortion. I have usually heard arguments against abortion and gay marraige based on religious grounds, and so I had the (misguided?) perception that was where most of the opposition came from.

So what's the deal here? If this is a secular as opposed to a religious decision (and that certainly appears to be the case) what is the basis for it? Thoughts?

 

I was really bothered by how heavily the Mormon church interfered with Prop 8 in California. Evidently so are many members of the church. But they didn't do anything illegal, just unethical. Beyond that, there weren't many ballot measures on the national level that I followed very closely.

 

How did they interfere? By expressing their position that gay marriage is not a good thing? (I'm guessing that's what Proposition 8 was about from the first post) Or did they do something more? I was so caught up in the whole Presidential issue that I really didn't pay attention to the other issues.

 

I'm not that familiar with the actual content of the initiatives, so I can't really comment on them specifically. I will say that the people's votes should stand. I know some groups have filed lawsuits, that the results are uncontitutional, but it seems to me that the issue was decided in a constitutional manner for Cali and thusly, the people have spoken. It's not so clear what should happen to those who are already married, and that was decided in a legal manner, so it would seem that those marriages should stand as they are.

 

LKD,

The church dumped over $30 Million into the "yes on 8" campaign, which ran some ads deliberately confusing people that basically said "if you want to protect marriage equality, vote yes on 8," which obviously is the opposite of what gay marriage proponents would want. Mormons in California make up a very small part of California's population (though the church does have a lot of history there, especially in the San Bernardino area). If all they did was express their opinion, I wouldn't have a problem. I am disappointed in the church's "ends justify the means" tactics on this issue.

 

I can see how people could see that as being misleading -- however, I'd have to see the ads to make a full opinion. I guess it depends on what you mean by "equality" -- the definition of people opposed to gay marriage is likely different than that of those on the other side of the fence.

edit:

Though anything that even smacks of dishonesty should have been shunned by the church, no argument from me on that one.

 

Perhaps my point was misconstrued. While Mormons may have advertised in California, and while California certainly has some Evangelical Christians, I don't think either group is significantly large enough to have an major impact on the vote. That's why I said the decision in California appeared to be done along secular lines. I certainly stand to be corrected, but that's what it looks like.

 

I think we have to place the blame for 8 where it belongs with Obama supporters.

 

All I can say is that I wish we had more propositions and the like in our elections here in Canada. THAT's how democracy should work.

As for the gay marriage proposition, I would hazard a guess that even non-religious people might feel that what the gays are up to is past the point of being "standing up for their rights." -- they already have the rights they want and are simply seeking to bully society into re-shaping itself. IMHO, many people (Rep, Dem and other) are getting tired of minority groups wasting time and resources on petty issues that are not linked to discrimination or rights at all.

 

LKD, prop 8 lost by a fairly slim margin. That's a hell of a lot of people voting FOR the wasting of time and resources on a petty issue. Obviously, there are a great many people in this country who don't consider it petty to allow all Americans the freedom to marry the person they choose. Those people are in the minority right now, and I can accept that. But enough with this "oh, the tiny minority is bullying us" nonsense; people supporting gay marriage are going about it the right way: proposing laws and asking people to vote for them. Sometimes they win, often they lose. But that's Democracy, and that's how we progress.

 

I agree, insofar as Obama won CA by 20 points, so naturally, Obama supporters had a major impact on ALL the ballot initiatives in CA. It just seems like that's painting with a bit of a broad brush. It is true that latinos and blacks voted for the ban, and these groups did break for Obama. However, in the article you linked to, it also said that the elderly tended to vote for the ban as well, and the over-65 group was one demographic than McCain won.

Also, by that rationale, since McCain won South Dakota by 10 points, and South Dakotans voted against a measure that would place restrictions on abortions, we have to place the blame for that ballot initiative failure where it belongs too - with McCain supporters. (See how it can get a little silly?)

 

Not being from California I wasn't able to vote on it, but we have had a similar situation here in Massachusetts. What happened was a court used anti-discrimination laws to decide that "gay marriage" should be legal. Now, I am personally against "gay marriage", but I'm even more against having the Judiciary branch of our government create laws out of interpretations. Things like this are the responsibility of the legislature not the courts. Proposition 8 was an attempt by the voters to correct something the courts should have never been allowed to do.

 

But the ban on gay marriage was originally overturned by the courts on the basis that the ban violated the state constitution. So they didn't create a law, they clarified it. Isn't that what a court is supposed to do? (I admit could be wrong here, as I'm not overly familiar with the role of courts in the US.)

 

Ok, the legal action going on now seems completely irresponsable and blatantly petty to me. This is now twice that the people have decided they wanted to ban gay marriage (by a small margin, I know, but they did). The first time the legislation was overturned by the court as unconstitutional, which is legitimate, whether it was appropriate or not (I'm not that familiar with California's state constitution). Now, however, it seems the gay-marriage front are suing to have the constitutional amendment invalidated because, apparently, they don't feel ballot initiatives should be allowed to make such 'drastic changes' to their 'inherant rights' under the constitution.

Now, as I said, I'm not terribly familiar with California's constitution, but I'm guessing it's actually pretty silent on the issue, and the court ruling that the legal ban was unconstitutional was reading some things into it at least a bit, kind of akin to Roe v. Wade and the 'right to privacy'. Again, I can accept that the court's actions may have been legitimate, but the matter was then changed to a constitutional one, which totally bypasses the courts in application, and the gay-marriage people are now claiming it's too drastic of a change to be allowed to pass simply because the people want it?

I'm sorry, but does this make sense to anyone?

And as for the idea that it was revoking a right they already had, remember that it was a right that they never had before, were officially banned from having by the people, and a select court of (I'm assuming) a very few officials (probably not elected) then decided to overturn it and give them the right, being fully aware that it was about to be run past the public again as a constitutional amendment.

As for gay marriage and abortion in general, Aldeth, I think you'll find a lot more than just us evangelical christians against it.

 

There was only ambiguity because a special interest went looking for it. Whenever the initial "marriage law" was written there wasn't even the possibility that gay people could be subject to it. I'm also very confident then when California passed its "discrimination laws" there is probably no mention of marriage in them either. I'm guessing what happened is a "gay couple" filed a lawsuit. Now the laws in question were probably silent as to the issue so the judges felt compelled to make a ruling and therefore a law was created. If the marriage laws make no mention of gay couples and the discrimination laws don't mention marriage, what else is it? I believe the court should have thrown the lawsuit out and told the plaintiffs they needed to go to the legislature.

Currently the discrimination laws are silent as to discrimination against fat people. That means you are allowed to discriminate against the obese as long as they don't fall into any other protected status. If a plaintiff is able to convince a judge that being obese is a disability, then voila the courts have now created a new protected status and a law has been created by the judiciary. Clearly there wasn't the intent to include the obese in the original law, but too bad. I know this isn't a perfect analogy, but it is the closest I could come up with quickly. No offense intended to those who are mass challenged.

 

Blackthorne, I meant it being silent on gay marriage and total equality/freedom.

 

Actually, gay marriage was a right they always had under the state's constitution, it just was never acknowledged. (At least according to California's Supreme Court, which overturned the ban.)