According to CNN ...

[apocalypsos]

... they're upholding Prop 8, but allowing the marriages already done to stay legal.

Gag me.

Comments

[anoel.livejournal.com]

It's such bullshit :(

[tviokh.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not.

Prop 8 is, indeed, BS, but the voters of CA passed it with a 52% majority.
The CA state constitution allows for amending to said constitution via referendums (such as Prop 8).

The court did exactly what it was supposed to do: It interpreted the CA constitution vs. Prop 8 and found that Prop 8 was a constitutional law based on that.

It is not, has never been, and never should be the job of the courts to legislate; that's what the legislative branch of government is for.

As it stands, and as the state constitution of CA is written, Prop 8 is perfectly valid if approved by the voters.

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Uh the state constitution also allows for the protection of equal rights. Propositions are not supposed to be used to take away minority rights by the majority. That's why its bullshit, I'm not calling for it to legislate anything.

sounds sort of like

[catdancerz.livejournal.com]

'don't ask don't tell'....

sheesh...

time to go back to the ballot box for a new 'prop' here

[singeaddams.livejournal.com]

Aw, screw that.

[doortje.livejournal.com]

damn, its sucks that they're upholding it. it even made the news here.

[chocolaticida.livejournal.com]

>:(

It's not /all/ bad

[insidian.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly fair, the judges were not being asked to judge whether gay marriage is good or bad or legal or illegal. They were being asked whether Proposition 8 was in accordance with the California Constitution. Kind of like asking "Was obeying the stop sign legal, even though by stopping you caused a pile-up behind you, you utter jackass?"

Furthermore, they /could/ have ruled that Prop 8 negates recognition of all gay marriages, even those conducted in the grace period or out of state. That would have been adhering to the letter of the proposition. But they didn't. So now there are 18,000+ marriages to provide precedent for more marriages later. AND opens the door for same-sex married couples from elsewhere in the US to move to CA and demand their rights, too.

Passing Prop 8: A legal, but completely jackass thing to do.
Allowing marriages to stay legal: Proves the judges know what's what.

Would it have been totes better to overturn Prop 8? FUCK. YES. But this is not an utter fail, this is the opening chords of a win.

Re: It's not /all/ bad

[singeaddams.livejournal.com]

this is not an utter fail, this is the opening chords of a win.

I love how you put that. And you made me feel better!

Re: It's not /all/ bad

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. Reading the comments in the ontd_political post on this are all kinds of informative and optimistic/realistic fun, let me tell you. :)

(Well, except for the bigoted anti-abortion troll from NH. She can DIAF for all I care.)

Re: It's not /all/ bad

[tviokh.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly fair, the judges were not being asked to judge whether gay marriage is good or bad or legal or illegal. They were being asked whether Proposition 8 was in accordance with the California Constitution.

THANK you.
I was starting to think that nobody else around this LJ place understood that.

Re: It's not /all/ bad

[theliel.livejournal.com]

in short the problem is CA's broke as governing document and proccesses.

there's a lot of talk about this...

[theliel.livejournal.com]

good anlysis by real life lawyers (TM) over at balloon-juice.com

short of it, if the court had ruled the 18k illegal then there'd be a dead to rights, do not pass go, go directly to fucked contract's clause appeal.
they couldn't very well tell prop 8 supporters to go fuck themselves because the law was passed properly and not nearly as draconian as MI's amendmant which bans even domestic partnerships.
so they split the baby, and are waiting for either a) CA residents to get thier shit together and cleanup the fucking constitution
or
b) the supreme court to come by and fuck shit up at the CA constitution level.

Re: there's a lot of talk about this...

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's depressing as fuck, but hell, it's not like they had bunches of leeway to work with.

[lizzyrose89.livejournal.com]

Thought you might be interested in this: http://www.thepostgameshow.com/?p=658

One guy's rather funny response :-)