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What were they THINKING!?
Dear California Supremes: WTH were you thinking today!?
Ending a six-month legal battle and instantly igniting the next political fight, the California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage...
Might I suggest that the next time you take on Constitutional issues, you actually take time to read the Constitution first? When you do, be sure to include the 14th Amendment, this section included (emphasis mine):
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
For now, we are left with this quotable via Twitter:
California: Where everyone is equal under the law, except for for those who aren't.
Truer words were never said...
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2 comments
They probably did read the Constitution...of the State of California.
The question before the court was not whether a prohibition against Gay Marriage was unconstitutional, but whether the ballot initiative, passed by a majority of voters, was against the State Constitution.
In effect the court stated that it wasn't their job to determine what the State Constitution was, but to interpret it. Therefore the voter initiative procedure was upheld as constitutional according to the California State Constitution.
That's an entirely different issue from the legal question as to whether or not a gay marriage ban flies in the face of the 14th amendment.
Nor did the California Supreme Court rule on "gay marriage" as news reports are saying. That's why they upheld the amendment, while keeping all of the previous marriages intact.
If a question was raised as to the Federal Constitutionality of the Amendment to the State Constitution, then the proper venue for that lawsuit would initially be the Federal Court system, starting with the appropriate District and appeals court (the 9th for California I believe?)
This could possibly be brought up to the Supreme Court, which could (potentially) rule that gay marriage bans fly in the face of the 14th amendment as you suggest.
Or, more-likely, they could rule that marriage is basically a function of the States and therefore its administration should be decided by each individual State.
Given that Marriage licenses are issued by each respective State and presided over by local Justice of the Peace this would be a more likely end result. Because of this it seems that Prop 8 supporters are going to try the legislative approach, again.
We may disagree with the policy, but the ruling appears to have been based on sound legal doctrine.
Maybe the problem wasn't the answer, but the question being asked?
Cory - you are correct in that the question the CA Supreme Court was asked to rule on pertained to a point in the CA Constitution, which apparently is very easy (some might say trivial) to amend. Based on that narrow focus, they may have made the "correct" (from a legalistic standpoint) ruling. As you said, the wrong question may have been asked - sort of like I suspect happened as folks were trying to figure out a way to "legalize" the use of torture "enhanced interrogation techniques" on certain suspects.
However, I wonder what would have been the result if Prop 8 had, for example, banned interracial marriage: would they have issued the same ruling? I suspect the answer would have been NO, and probably based on the 14th Amendment section I quoted above.
That's where I have a problem with this decision.
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