not everyone gets a new puppy

[solarbird]

Congratulations to Barack Obama and his supporters for the strongest liberal/progressive turnout since 1964; congratulations for the historic election to the White House of someone whose ethnicity would've once enslaved him. You've quite the task in front of you, but this election is being called "transformative," and thanks to Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama will be taking office with sweeping and unchecked-by-law powers unknown to presidents before Mr. Bush's tenure, at least some of which Mr. Obama actively and publicly endorsed. I wish this election had been about that in any way, but, well, it wasn't. Still, you might want to remember to thank Bob Barr supporters for your win in Indiana, and, should you get it, your win in North Carolina, even though it turned out you didn't really need either of them.

Most progressive causes did very well; Democrats increased their majorities in both houses of Congress, and I'm rather amused that Joe "Mentum" Lieberman can now be told to go fuck himself. Massachusetts (Obama) decriminalised marijuana, South Dakota (McCain) rejected a draconian abortion ban, Colorado (Obama) overwhelmingly rejected a crazy fundamentalist initiative to define a zygote as a person and rejected an anti-union measure; Washington State (Obama) approved its Death-with-Dignaty/Assisted Suicide measure; Missouri (still too close to call) approved a renewable energy initiative; California (Obama) rejected a "parental notification" initiative.

It would have been nice if the new coalition had decided to include the queers, but, well, for those of us affected by anti-queer initiatives, we got the usual bipartisan boot to the face. Florida (Obama) passed their anti-marriage Florida Marriage Amendment 61.2%-37.9%; Arizona (McCain), which had been the only state to reject a popular initiative against marriage (2006, Proposition 107), passed this year's anti-marriage Proposition 102 - Arizona Marriage Amendment handily, 56.5%-43.5%; Arkansas (McCain) passed their "fuck you, queers" Initiative 1 ban on adoption by a wide margin (56.9%-43.1%), and California (Obama) appears to have administered the coup de grace by ending existing marriage rights for same-sex couples, 52.1%-47.9% with 95.4% returns. And, of course, Mr. Obama has made it very clear every time the question is raised that he opposes full legal equality for lesbian and gay couples.

I'm glad that the country had the sense not to elect a Christianist authoritarian as vice-president; that's important, but I've been telling anyone who would listen that this race was over since September; the markets and economy dictated that result, and indeed, that's the result achieved, so I have relatively little sense of relief on that front. The national issues I cared about most (torture, lawless executive, unchecked power) weren't really part of the election, and the state issues that hit most home (equality under the law) were the usual punches to the face. So as most of you reading this celebrate, please excuse me from it; some of us are just happy that, for another year or so at least, it's over.

Comments

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I still genuinely believe in my comments here (http://adularia.livejournal.com/439746.html) and here (http://libraryraven.livejournal.com/1171030.html), that what we're seeing in these initiatives is a conservative panic reaction to a change that's already in progress.

Why make a law against something that's *already illegal*, unless you're afraid it's going to happen? Why all the sudden squawking when they were silent before?

This mirrors the civil rights movement. It sucks that it's going to have to happen like this-- shoved down their throats as one commenter here said-- but it's going to happen.

As gement said, the avalanche has started, and the pebbles are trying desperately to vote it back. Also as gement said, the same state supreme court that ruled the marriages allowable in the first place is going to be ruling on *this*.

I know that's hardly any comfort right now; I'm not saying "so yay, forget it all, you have no reason to be disappointed!" Because obviously anyone with a soul should be disappointed in those idiots, and it means harder work fighting them. I'm just saying, don't fall into believing that the idiots actually hold sway over the future.

[solarbird]

The only route I see is to challenge it as actually being a Constitutional revision rather than a Constitution amendment, which would make the process invalid. If it's ruled to be a constitutional amendment, you can't rule constitutional amendments unconstitutional as they're part of the constitution.

However, California constitutional law is extremely strange, because the California Constitution itself is extremely strange, so perhaps someone could explain.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

That's what some Californians have explained to me, more or less what you just said: that if an amendment is a large enough change to be a "revision", then it's not allowed to be made by voter initiatives.

And something denying a large segment of a population some civil and legal rights sounds like an awfully big change to me.

I could be totally wrong, as I'm just relying on what other people (not lawyers) have told me.

[solarbird]

Sure.

My reading indicates that the initiative was already challenged on that basis as an attempt to block it from the ballot, but such challenges do change their character after passage, so there'll be another go. But this is a fundamentally different issue than the marriage ruling; the reasoning won't be the same. So the previous ruling is not a particularly good indicator in this case.

But I'm sure we'll see soon.