I've been looking over the
California Supreme Court's ruling on Proposition 8 (took me a while - it's over 125 pages long), approved by the majority of Cali voters last year, which added Section 7.5 to Article I of the California Constitution.
Okay, like many people, when I first heard about the decision, I was pissed off and started re-thinking the notion of California being a progressive state. But looking into the results a bit more got me thinking. Notes:
- At the time of the ruling, there were 18,000 same-sex marriages in California.
- This new article of the Cali constitution states that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
- The ruling also suggests that same-sex couples should be afforded all the same legal rights that male-female couples get to enjoy... but they can't call it "marriage."
- The ruling goes to great lengths to point out that Californians can change their constitution about as easily as most people change socks, noting how much more difficult it is to do so than it is to change the US Constitution.
- The ruling states that people in existing same-sex marriages that were legally performed (before Prop 8 was in force) get to stay married.
- That means 18,000 same-sex marriages in California are legal.
- Therefore, 6 invalidates 2.
- Therefore, this ruling says that - even though Prop 8 was legally pushed forward and Section 7.5 of article I of the California Constitution is legal and binding, it is meaningless and contradictory.
So my overall reading of the ruling is this:
The California Supremes are giving the Prop-Eighters exactly what they asked for... whether it’s what they wanted or not.
And that's a good thing for human rights.
Now if only they could get as up-to-date as Iowa ;-)
Chris
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