Americablog: In the long run, we may have just scored a victory in California

[jefferson_dem]

In the long run, we may have just scored a victory in California
by John Aravosis (DC) on 5/26/2009 01:58:00 PM

Today the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, a ballot initiative that made it illegal to marry gay couples. But the court did something else. They let stand the marriages of 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before Prop 8 became law. I believe that those marriages may, in the long run, make gay marriage inevitable in California.

Sexual orientation already enjoys equal status with gender and race in California discrimination law, and, as the LA Times notes, today's court decision doesn't change that:

Even with the court upholding Proposition 8, a key portion of the court's May 15, 2008, decision remains intact. Sexual orientation will continue to receive the strongest constitutional protection possible when California courts consider cases of alleged discrimination. The California Supreme Court is the only state high court in the nation to have elevated sexual orientation to the status of race and gender in weighing discrimination claims.

The fact that 18,000 gay marriages will remain on the books means that, eventually, another case will go to the California Supreme Court, questioning the constitutionality of laws banning gay marriage, and the court will have to consider why those 18,000 marriages how not destroyed traditional marriage as we know it. In other words, the ongoing existence of these marriages, with no demonstrable harm being caused by their existence, will call into question, if not outright destroy, the bigots' argument for why the state has an interest in banning gays from getting married. In more colloquial terms, no harm no foul.

Yes, the decision is disappointing, but it wasn't unexpected. What is now clear is that those 18,000 gay marriages will remain the law of the land in California. And those 18,000 gay couples should now be able to get California state benefits that straight married couples get. All of that will eventually, I believe, lead California courts to rule that the sky has not fallen - there is no valid reason for not protecting gay couples equally under the law.

And those 18,000 couples will help prove, in states across the land, that the existence of gay marriages do not somehow cause bigots like Tony Perkins and Jim Inhofe to suddenly want to get divorced and shack up with a guy.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/in-long-run-we-may-have-just-scored.html

[Bonn1997]

1. Hopefully there won't be any coincidental negative outcome, like

divorces among heterosexual couples increasing. To me, obviously that would have nothing to do with gay couples being married by I could see conservatives exploiting it.

[shimmergal]

2. It also forces the question

of whether other rights, after being recognized, can just be taken away by majority vote.

[Cha]

3. Well, thank goodness the

18,000 marriages already on the books, legally.. are allowed to stand which will make the ongoing battle that much easier.

Meanwhile, won't California be losing money they could be receiving for Marriage Licenses?

[Ganja Ninja]

4. How can you give 36,000 people a particular right yet deny it to anyone else?

This seems to me to be totally unconstitutional.

[onenote]

5. changes in the law often are only given prospective effect

FOr example, the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution, as ratified, required that senators be selected by popular vote (not by state legislature, which had been the case under the Constitution's original text. The amendment specified that it was not to be construed to affect the election or term of any SEnator chosen before it became a valid part of the Constitution.

BTW, I think the Cal Supreme COurt got it wrong in their decision that Prop 8 was an "amendment" rather than a "revision" of the state constitution.

[Ganja Ninja]

7. That's kind of a weak anology.

We're talking about someone's basic civil rights not just election procedures. I understand what you're saying though.

[damonm]

6. Doesn't just "seem" - it IS.

Prop 8. utterly invalidates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. It simply CANNOT be allowed to stand.

[rocktivity]

8. I agree--not nullifying the "retroactive" gay marriages is just as ridiculous

as the notion that civil rights should be a majority rules issue. It's just too absurd--as well as unconsitutional--to stand.

:headbang:
rocktivity