The AP and LATimes Coverage of the California Marriage Amendment

Here is some coverage of yesterday's ruling on the California Marriage Amendment. First up is this piece by Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times.

Justice Carlos R. Moreno, in the lone dissent, warned that today's ruling "places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities."

Sure. Any minority that comes to the majority and demands a state license for something might hear "no" if that requires changing the basic requirements of issuing that license, and members of that minority already can obtain that license the same way everyone else does. Gee, how scary.

[Much more is below the fold if you care to read it.]

Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, a former civil rights lawyer who also joined last year's ruling in favor of [neutering marriage], wrote separately because she disagreed with the majority's definition of a constitutional revision.

"The drafters of our Constitution never imagined, nor would they have approved, a rule that gives the foundational principles of social organization in free societies, such as equal protection, less protection from hasty, unconsidered change than principles of government organization," she wrote.

As if the drafters ever imagined that anyone would be calling two guys a "marriage".

"Hasty, unconsidered"? Huh? All of human history around the world had marriage as uniting the sexes. Even cultures who have been mortally opposed on almost everything about life agreed on that. Then, along comes a activist movement that gets a court to overturn an eight-year-old codification of that reality, while the people are submitting a proposition to add that condification to the state constitution. It is debated (well, if you can call the marriage neutering side's appeals to emotion "debate") for months, and then it is voted on by the people. And that is "hasty" and "unconsidered"?

As far as principle of government organization – the government is supposed to be organized to protect individual rights, not to cater to activist groups seeking to impose their will on an opposed majority.

The court declined to determine whether same-sex marriages performed outside of California -- and not formally recognized by the state prior to the election -- would be legal in California.

I'm sure there will be court cases. I was wrong when I said that they had apparently exhausted their options in court. I should have known better.

But [neutered] marriage advocates captured a wide array of support in the case, with civil rights groups, legal scholars and even some churches urging the court to overturn the measure. Supporters of the measure included many churches and religious organizations.

Notice that? Only churches and religious organizations supported the California Marriage Amendment, while "civil rights groups" and "legal scholars" opposed it. At least, that is what they want you to think.

The California Supreme Court is the only state high court in the nation to have elevated sexual orientation to the status of race and gender in weighing discrimination claims.

Sexual orientation is one thing. Sexual behavior is another, and shouldn't be in the same category as race and gender.

Checking back on the link later, it looked as though the article was completely rewritten. So here are some additions...

In a separate, concurring opinion, Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar noted some rights married couples have that domestic partners do not,

Not at the state level. It is written right there in state law that domestic partners are to be treated as spouses.

and suggested that the state now has the duty "to eliminate the remaining important differences."

No, it doesn't The state has a duty to protect the actual rights of individuals, not try to eliminate the recognition of marriage as a unique institution uniting both basic components of society – men and women.

In deciding that [same-sex] couples who [obtained court-neutered marriage licenses] in California before the November election will remain [legally] married, the court said it would be unfair and might even invite chaos to nullify marriages those couples entered into lawfully.

Well whose fault is that? The justices knew full well the matter was heading for the ballot, but they refused to stay their decision.

"It leaves us to the kindness of strangers," said Jon W. Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization. "They could take away anything."

Perhaps anything that requires someone else to consent, yes. When you ask other people for something, they can always say "no". There’s a word (a phrase, actually) we use when two people force other nonconsenting people to do something for them on the basis of their sexual desires. But in California, you have not lost any legal entitlements, thanks to the strong domestic partnership law.

Jesse Choper, a professor of constitutional law at UC Berkeley, said the court's ruling means that voters may take away individual rights "in a limited fashion" and that the scope of the measure will determine whether it is permissible.

"The court wasn't happy about this. Proposition 8 changed their opinion" last year that gave gays and lesbians marriage rights, he said.

Wrong. Gays and lesbians have always had the exact same marriage rights as straight men and straight women. I can repeat it as often as they repeat their lie.

Justice Carlos R. Moreno dissented, calling the ruling "not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.

So, Justice, you would side with a couple of siblings would wanted a state-issued marriage license? They would be a minority. You did say "any minority group that seeks...equal protection",

Ted Olson and David Boies, two prominent lawyers who had been on opposite sides in the Bush vs. Gore case, said they are coming together to challenge Proposition 8 in federal court.

And here we were told all along that this could only be a state matter. Go figure. I shouldn't be surprised.

Here is Lisa Leff's Associated Press article. As usual, they use the erroneous "gay marriage ban" language right there in the headline.

As for the thousands of couples who tied the knot last year in the five months that [neutered] marriage was [court-imposed] in California, the court said it is well-established principle that an amendment is not retroactive unless it is clear that the voters intended it to be, and that was not the case with Proposition 8.

How could they have intended it to be retroactive when they didn't know that the court was going to neuter marriage licensing before the measure made it to the ballot?

The decision set off an outcry among a sea of demonstrators who had gathered in front of the San Francisco courthouse, holding signs and waving rainbow flags.

What? Signs and rainbow flags? And an outcry? Well, then, I guess that changes thousands of years of recorded human history and experience.

"Promising equal treatment to some is fundamentally different from promising equal treatment for all," Moreno said. "Promising treatment that is almost equal is fundamentally different from ensuring truly equal treatment."

Great. Where are my veteran's benefits? No, I'm not a veteran, but I demand equal treatment.