Yeah....except I have a bad feeling about 8, which will put a damper on things.....

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Bad feeling confirmed. Damper shared.

However... it can be overcome by the courts, which has happened before, and which I pray happens again.

I hate it when stupid wins, especially when it comes at the same time as the whole US electing the smart one. Sheesh.

Ah well... time to begin some activist work.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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....no, it can't be overcome by the courts. It's a part of our constitution now, there's no delaying it in court or trying to block it, it goes straight into the books, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I really think people don't realize how very very bad this is. We now have a law on our books that states, and I quote "removes the right" from gays and lesbians to marry. Removes the RIGHT!! That's very very bad.

With the numbers we saw a counter proposal at the next election would be very unlikely to pass. The Mormons and the other evangelicals in this state pretty much just fucked gays and lesbians for all time as far as state law is concerned.

The only silver lining is that Obama is now president. While he's unlikely to support legislation that supports gay marriage, technically the US constitution has the same equality protections as the California Constitution used to have. At some point this matter may have to be addressed by the Supreme Court and hopefully by then a couple of the conservative judges will have been replaced with liberal or moderate judges. The hope is that they'll find exactly as the California Courts did and make it a federal mandate.

Fortunately, the U.S. Constitution can't be modified by a ballot measure in which a simple majority would do. Any amendment to ban Gay Marriage after a hypothetical Supreme Court ruling would have to pass through the House, the Senate, and presidential veto, so it would never pass with the current administration.

Now the issue will have to go to the federal level, which will hopefully end favorably. At that point it'll be legal to Gay Marry in Utah, so if and once the ruling gets here, maybe a few thousand San Fran couples can go to downtown Salt Lake City and have their Marriage right there at City Hall within sight of the Mormon Tabernacle.

Wouldn't that be poetic?

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Yeah, I realize that now. I had missed that little "amendment" detail. From what I can tell it's only possible to get it removed via federal action of some sort or via a second initiative to repeal or countermand it. It would be a lot of work and would be hard to pass given the current climate; perhaps in a couple of years (and, say, Barack Obama's campaign manager) it could be done.

I can hope anyway, despite the difficulties.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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Now what is California going to do to untwist the damage done by Prop 8? I was confident that would be rejected, yet it appears to have passed.

The biggest relief I feel over Obama's election is that he will have a chance to undo the terrible damage done to the court system by the Bush administration in its quest to overturn Roe v. Wade. Justice Stevens is nearing retirement, and I was extremely concerned that McCain would be appointing a successor.

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I was not so confident; the propaganda around here was remarkably powerful, full though it was of outright lies and even more specifically misleading ads than usual for such idiotic measures.

I have great hope for Obama on a lot of levels. I have some hope that the courts in California will overturn Prop 8 as they have other similar measure that passed. As for the rest of the country I can only stretch my hope a little further and help where I can.

In spite of the particular setback of Prop 8 I am looking forward to the future more than I have in at least 8 years.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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Well, I was harking back to the infamous Briggs Proposition, the one to ban all gays from serving as teachers in the public schools. That one was defeated readily enough, and I took that as a sign of good sense in the majority of Calif. voters. Of course, it's been a few years, and some people's brains do seem to rot as they age...

It was my understanding that Prop 8 takes the form of an amendment to the state constitution. Not being a Californian, I'm not familiar with the way things work there. Is that what it does? If so, does a majority vote automatically ratify the amendment? That could make it very hard for California courts to do anything about it unless some technical flaw can be found in the process or wording. Instead, it could only be appealed to the US Supreme Court as contrary to the US Constitution's "equal treatment under the law" clauses. That might or might not work with the present make-up of the court, and would certainly take a lot more money.

Some have told me that it invalidates all same sex marriages performed in California. I'm pretty sure that cannot be done in the US, as it would constitute an ex post facto law and those are forbidden by the US Constitution. It can, however, stop any further such marriages from being legally validated.

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I'm afraid I am insufficiently versed in the laws regarding how Prop 8 will be instituted and what might be necessary to remove it. Your post made sense to me based on what little knowledge I have but I don't have any response or answers for you. If I'm going to get uppity about Prop 8 passing I'll need to educate myself further.

Unfortunately I think the real difference between the Briggs Proposition and Prop 8 is that the former was about a relatively mundane thing: a job. People are nowhere near as rabidly connected to jobs as they are to the concept of marriage, and thus the latter is much easier to get people in a tizzy about. Combine that with the truly horrid tactics used by Prop 8's proponents and the outcome is unfortunately unsurprising. Still stupid, but not surprising.

Perhaps it would be a good thing if they tried to enforce Prop 8 ex post facto; it might be much easier to whip up a fury to get it ousted, since as you say that would be a violation of federal law.

I'd better get back to work. Thanks for the info and thoughts; I always appreciate your presence.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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Briggs actually was associated by its opponents with the notion that all gays are "child molesters" and worse, would "indoctrinate" children into the "gay agenda," teaching them to "accept" the gay "lifestyle" as "normal." I imagine the negative campaigning back then was just as ugly as anything brought out for Prop 8. I remember hearing that they used television ads featuring extreme images from gay bars and gay pride parades while an announcer read threats about how the "gay agenda" was going to be "taught in your schools, to your children." Most of us were astonished when Briggs went down to defeat, as nowhere near the amount of money was spent to counteract it as we saw spent this time around.

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Interesting. The campaign for 8 here was much more insidious and subtle. It didn't really play directly on fear of gays (as you describe the ads for Briggs) very much from what I saw. Instead it focused on things like protecting the traditional ideal of marriage and family, and brought out such lies as "rejecting this prop means that your children will be taught the wrong thing about marriage in school".

Oh, and a quick check of the law shows that Prop 8 is indeed a constitutional amendment and (as you said) therefore cannot directly be struck down by the California Supreme Court. And from one lawyer's site that discusses whether it can be enforced retroactively, "...as both positions have legal validity, it will be up to the California Supreme Court - the same court whose ruling allowed same-sex marriage - to interpret whether Proposition 8 was intended to be retroactive or prospective." (See full article here.

The article goes on to say that to remove it, opponents will have to draft language that repeals it or adds a new amendment, get about 700,000 signatures, then have it voted on in the same way Prop 8 was. A lot of work, and work that I may have to help happen once it starts - and I have little doubt it will.

That's all I have for now. Peace be with you, and snuggles as soon as possible.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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I've been feeling pretty good about the election otherwise, but discussing this does call for snuggles and I don't even live in Calif. So thanks for that. :)

I looked up the history on Briggs because I was feeling a bit hazy about it. No wonder, it was 30 years ago, in 1978. According to Wikipedia, just a couple of weeks before the election the polls said it was going to pass with an overwhelming 61% margin. Then, of all the odd things (and I didn't remember this at all) none other than Ronald Reagan came out publicly against it. Against! That apparently reversed the tide. He was ex-gov at the time and just starting his run for the US presidency. That might have been a risky stand to take back then. I believe he had a gay son, though no one knew about it at the time... or at least, the general public didn't know. Like many conservative politicians, he was divorced and remarried too. That one really gets to me. So many of the campaigners against gay marriage couldn't hold a straight marriage together, so it's like the pot calling the kettle black, or so it seems to me.

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Yeah, I'm constantly amazed by the people on their 2nd, 3rd, or even later marriage babbling on about defending the holy sanctity of the very idea of the concept of the ancient and significant and unassailable purity of marriage.

In all too many cases there's so little to threaten that even if gay marriage did threaten "traditional" marriage it wouldn't make a significant difference anyway.

Could everone everywhere - including me - please get the hell over themselves right now? Thanks.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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Oh, and the latest attempt to get the courts to rule on 8 is to have them decide that it's a "revision" rather than an "amendment" and therefore can't be ratified by a simple popular vote. Instead it would require a 2/3 approval by the legislature, which seems less likely to succeed. But getting the courts to rule on it at this point could be difficult.

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I'll take whatever I can get.

It's a revision, dammit!

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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I'm happy for all of you. PROPOSOITION 8 will have to be fought and defeated.

YES WE CAN!!!

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I have strong hope that the courts will do as they have done before with similar measures and overturn Prop 8.

May it be soon. And yes, we can.

I'm still tearing up when I think about Obama's victory. As important as I thought it was I vastly underestimated how much it affected me. Hope is reborn. May it live on.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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More than hope. We all need to take that message and translate it into action. As I listened to the sour grapes commentators moaning about Obama on Tuesday night, I realised that they hadn't a clue what has really happened. The sleeping beast of World citizens, stupefied by the hypocrisy of the Bush - Chaney gang have been woken up by participating in this campaign and victory. I don't believe you'll soon be put back in your cages. YES WE CAN!

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That's exactly it: the sleeping beast has awakened, and that beast is fueled by unity of purpose and the possibility of faith. Obama seems to want to have the US rejoin the world as a partner instead of the petulant wife-beater it has been the past 8 years.

Political activism doesn't end when what you hope happened, happens - one must continue to strive if one wants to create a world where all can walk free of tyranny, fear, and hate.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

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EXACTLY!!!!!!!!
Task # 2 - Defeat Proposition 8

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