Proposition 8 upheld

[solarbird]

California's Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8, in its entirety, but also ruled that previously-conducted marriages are grandfathered in. The fundamentalists wanted the pre-8 marriage licenses revoked, but didn't get that, at least.

The ruling is essentially as expected; the argument that the changes were broad enough to the state constitution to constitute a revision were interesting, but to me inadequately persuasive, in part because the initiative targeted a small minority - the relationship to most of the state between the government and the citizens remained unchanged. Accordingly, I'm unsurprised. I haven't read the ruling yet, so I have no idea what the judges actually thought; this has been my own thinking on the matter, and I am unversed in California constitutional law.

However, with this initiative being upheld, minority groups of all sort - particularly small ones - should take away this: it's perfectly okay for the majority to fuck you up with one popular vote. If you think you're safe, if you think that can't happen to your little pocket of reality, wake the fuck up, because it can.

eta: link to story.

eta2: I was right; from the decision, in regards to the state's equal protection clause:

Nor does Proposition 8 fundamentally alter the meaning and substance of state constitutional equal protection principles as articulated in that opinion. Instead, the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights... Taking into consideration the actual limited effect of Proposition 8 upon the preexisting state constitutional right of privacy and due process and upon the guarantee of equal protection of the laws, we conclude Proposition 8 constitutes a constitutional amendment rather than a constitutional revision. ...

Neither the language of the relevant constitutional provisions, nor our past cases, support the proposition that any of these [constitutional] rights is totally exempt from modification by a constitutional amendment adopted by a majority of the voters through the initiative process.

That includes rights described as "inalienable" by the state constitution itself - quoting the decision again:

The state Constitution does not prohibit constitutional amendments qualifying or restricting rights that the state Constitution describes as "inalienable..."

So "narrow and limited exception[s]" to equal treatment under the law and other "inalienable" constitutional rights are purely a matter of popular vote in California. Have fun with that, guys.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Sure. That's always the way with rights which have not been long-enshrined in popular culture -- either they aren't rights because they're only there on suffrance of the majority, or they aren't even that, because they can't be wedged into a constitution that's too hard to change. It takes time. It takes way too damn much time, because the only way to secure rights is to engrain them so solidly into the mindset of not merely the majority but the overwhelming majority that even those people who don't like them wouldn't think to try to change them; it just wouldn't occur to them as possible.

Constitutions that move quickly can do no more than state the current viewpoint on who has what rights... and as you say, that can change at any moment. Constitutions that move slowly can provide some ballast for rights once they have been included, but guarantee they won't be included until long after the people would've accepted them. It's a question of which evil one prefers.

Ultimately, the only way gay marriage rights will be protected is through the slow change of enough minds that the ones which don't change will have no leverage, and then will die out. I don't like it. But I don't see any other way to make change secure.