[only?] Californians' Rights To Set Law By Ballot Measures Dismantled?

Well the title says it all. Yesterday's Decision, how I understand it, says that even though millions of Californians lined up to define legal marriage as limited to a man and a woman, were "overruled" by one gay "judge" who wanted to marry his boyfriend as he sat presiding over gay marriage. More on that complete botch of justice here >> http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...icial-legalizing-gay-marriage-needs-stop.html

Judge Walker said the law singled out gays for dis-inclusion. Polygamists can [and will very soon] say the same exact thing. Marriage between a man and a woman, excludes gays and polygamists. So the decision on marriage as to polygamy has also been removed from the ballot box.

This is a shift in power against the rules of legislation in California. It has effectively said: "no matter what you pass in California that the People want as law, one person can come along and change it at their whim." The evidence in judge Walker's ruling and his behavior during that trial SCREAMs kangaroo court. Next time it may be a judge sympathetic to coal & oil, wanting to shut down green energy there with unruly red tape and permitting. Or maybe it will be a mormon or muslim wanting to marry another wife? It doesn't matter. What is voted on the ballot there no longer really is law, is it? It's now properly a handcuffed "suggestion" to an elite minority on how the majority wants things. Subject to overrule for any or no arbitrary reason whatsover.

It gets more complex too. Was the Supreme Court saying that JUST in California, the populace had no right to determine the parameters of marriage? No, they were saying that to all the 50 states, since no one state can be singled out. So, properly, yesterday's decision was a mandate from the fed that all matters on gay marriage may only be decided by elite legislators. Check the rolls of your state legislature carefully. Notice if there are any "openly gay" ones suddenly or recently appointed to special positions giving them oversight on matters involving judiciary appointments and legislative special bodies that may be handling a gay marriage statutes near you.

At the very least, to save your State money, you can insist on combining gay marriage and polygamy litigation to save your state money. Canada is now having to grapple with legalizing polygamy on the heels of its semi-recent passage of gay marriage. Like they didn't see that coming?

I'm jumping around a bit, but this stuff is all legally-connected.

One more thing. On the Maddow Show last night, I heard her comment how lawyers for gays are travelling to Utah to force Utah to recognize gay marriage. One flaw with that forcing: We now have age limits in various states. That attempt would be the same as requiring 15 or 16 year olds to be allowed to marry in all 50 states because one or two had that age limit. So, each state could successively set standards for all 50 by the legislation they pass. Conversely, if Utah or anything-goes Nevada passes polygamy marriage, all 50 states would have to allow polygamy marriage within their borders. Which is Unconstitutional because of the state's rights issue on marriage.

Which brings me full circle back to how it is Constitutional that California could be singled out as the ONE STATE that isn't allowed to abide by its laws set by ballot votes, even when its constitution says these are law? I think right there is fodder for Pro-Prop 8 attorneys to march in front of SCOTUS on behalf of the People to demand their ballot-initiative rights be returned to them.

 

California never had a right to set a law by ballot measure that violated the Constitution of the United States.

 

But that's not what the Decision said. It didn't create or acknowledge gays as a class of people. And if the Court was relying on the 9th Amendment, saying no privelege shall be denied those extended to others, they were upholding polygamy. They will have that blunder hung over their heads. The Supreme Court in this Decision has completely dismantled traditional marriage. They sliced it down the middle and it's guts are spiling everywhere while the animal still walks around looking like its still intact.

And that's going to create problems.

 

First of all, the 9th circuit court of appeal's decision was not upheld. It was dismissed on the grounds that Hollingsworth lacked standing. The Federal District Court ruling was upheld. And that court said CA violated the Constitution of the United States. States cannot pass laws that violate the US constitution--whether those laws be ballot initiatives or not. Traditional marriage seems intact to me. How many heterosexual marriages were destroyed as a result of this decision? ZERO. You're just upset that other marriages that you don't like exist alongside traditional marriage.

 

With specific reference, how do you feel it violated the Constitution?

 

Where in the Constitution does it say that states do not have a right to set parameters for people who marry within their boundries? You mean Utah has no right to not allow polygamy?

As far as I can tell, the Court at once yesterday said, "It is up to the states to determine gay marriage as legal or not" AND "It's not up to the states to determine gay marriage as legal or not"! They SINGLED OUT California and said "only Californians may not determine if gay marriage is legal". Which is completely unconstitutional. No state shall be singled out. Grounds right there to appeal on behalf of the voters' rights in the State of California.

 

Because of the whole gay marriage thing, this has resulted in many states raising the minimum age of marriage to 18.

 

Read the Federal District Court's ruling. This site has it broken down quite well.

The court argued it violated the due process clause of the 14th amendment.

And it violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment as well:

 

No. The Supreme Court did not judge prop 8 on merits at all. It dismissed it. So it did not single out California at all. Never has the court allowed private parties to represent the government the way Hollingsworth was. The court was keeping with precedent.

 

That's because the judge who first heard the appeal, the gay judge Walker who wanted to marry his boyfriend as he sat on the case, actively squelched professional and lay witnesses supporting Prop 8! He scared off many potential witnesses for Prop 8 by threatening [promising] to air the trial on youtube in violation of court rules. Justice Kennedy had to step in and stop him. But it was too late as the damage had already been done and many witnesses withdrew for fear of retaliation from gay activist at their private homes and places of business.

That trial was a stunt and not an excercise of justice. And on this, the Supreme Court bases its Decision [that also inadvertenly allows polygamy on the same justification]?

 

The ruling actually says that the people bringing the suit lacked standing. They didn't look at the case, they said that the case could not go forward without a person with standing bringing the case. It has nothing to do with the actual proposition, and the SCOTUS actually upheld the rights of the states to have such laws on the books. Read the decisions, it's all there. Doma secion 2, which the court specifically did not strike down says that states don't even have to recognize a wedding from another state. So where do you get this nonsense?

 

Nonsense.

 

So how do the voters of the state of California find a representative that meets SCOTUS' definition of proper standing? The CA Attorney General would have to bring the case, right? And since the oligarchy in California is all sewn up, the solution would be for them to elect a new AG there? Or could a citizen sue that their vote was nullified illegally? Just one citizen? Two? Seventy? There was a miscarriage of justice in Walker's court in CA. Witnesses were suppressed. An entire testimony was thrown out after the fact in his decision because Walker just didn't like his testimony and found a techicality to disqualify it. Not kidding. Read his judgment http://www.scribd.com/doc/35374462/California-Prop-8-Ruling-August-2010

The reason for the fear/intimidation of Prop 8's witnesses was because the judge promised to air the case on youtube, in violation of court rules. So he reserved that from record so "the record didn't show it"??? He knew that was in violation of court rules. But the threat served its purpose. While Walker slathered praises to the high heavens on every witness FOR gay marriage, laypeople, from every walk of life and fold...he reserved a very different treatment for pro Pro-8 witnesses. Those who did dare to show were treated with ...well....just read this:

The "judge" then goes on to rationalize this kick in the teeth by saying "expert witnesses have to be expert" and then as a non-expert he disqualifies Blankenhorn's credentials, [even though he has them] essentially because he doesn't like what Blankenhorn said. And these were the witnesses that dared to show up; after Walker threatened to expose all of them and Kennedy had to step in [too late] to stop him. This same judge let in [and gave great weight to] oodles and oodles of testimony from laypeople on the pro-gay marriage side.

The judge said this in an interview not long after he handed down the kangaroo-decision:

Judge Walker, openly gay, with a boyfriend of some years he wanted to marry, did not recuse himself from this historical and landmark case that disenfranchised millions of California voters. The Supreme Court just said "hey, that's OK"...

 

Nope. California voters disenfranchised gays in California by prohibiting them from being treated equally under the law. Voters never had a right to go against the Constitution. Feel free to explain how the equal protection clause and due process do not apply.

 

That sentence should've read: "California voters disenfranchised gays and polygamists in California by enshrining in law that marriage is between a man and a woman".

Gays were not singled out. Why is "P" missing from LGBT, by the way? Is there something you guys don't like about polygamist loving each other and wanting to marry? Are they not also alternative sexual lifestyles currently being discriminated against? Is your silence also your hypocrisy?

 

Silhouette will never understand that.

For the courts, this was as if California voters had changed the California Constitution to say that Chinese could no longer vote or that all private gun ownership was banned or that Christianity was outlawed.

 

The 14th amendment

 

Since you don't live in California, perhaps you are just ignorant.

But none of us in California missed the campaign that specifically talked about the 'danger of gays' being allowed to get married. Yes- homosexuals were specifically singled out.

There is no "P" in LGBT, for the same reason there is no "C" for Chinese or "B" for 'blue eyes" or "F" for firemen.

Feel free to pursue polygamy if you want to.

But in California, my gay friends are once again going to enjoy the same right to be married as my wife and I enjoy.

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You keep saying this like its real, not something you made up.

Do you think if you keep repeating it, people will believe it?

 

Evidence he wanted to marry his boyfriend, and evidence he suppressed witnesses?

I grow tired of asking you to support this lie with evidence

 

I also found this troubling...The idea that the people, the folk who voted on a referendum have no standing before the court when the vote is being litigated is scary. It puts our servant, the State, ahead of the people who voted for the idea.

 

That was never litigated and the Supremes never spoke on it...all they ruled on was standing.

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I disagree with that. I believe they did not dismantle traditional marriage, they just ruled that every human relationship imaginable can now be called 'marriage' no matter how perverse.

 

So elect a new attorney general. Or if the attorney general is appointed, elect a new governor.

I don't know the case law of voter nullification, to my knowledge no one has ever made that argument before a federal court. It's plausible I guess, but I doubt you could win with just a single individual.

Which has very little to do with what the supreme court said. They aren't looking at the merits of the case, just the fact that the people bringing the case have no standing to do so. Get a new attorney general and try again. That's all that happened. The court said that you need to get a new plaintiff.

So get a plaintiff with standing. You have to follow procedures or you don't get to argue in court.

The court did not say that. They said the plaintiffs bringing the case lack the standing to do so. They didn't rule on prop 8 or the prop 8 court decision at all. They said that they could not take the case because the plaintiffs lack the standing to bring that case before the court. Read the actual decision. The court did not say that's OK, and in fact, given that they specifically did not strike down DOMA sect. 2 which allows the state to decide, they more or less upheld the right of the states to define marriage, which is what prop 8 did. So failing to win with the court thing would mean little if you put the ban on another ballot and it passed, it would be law.

 

While I appreciate your concerns over a possible future of run away chaos, I think the best saying for this occasion is: Let's not go looking for problems.

Even though past court rulings often set a precedent for the future they are no reason to always expect the same outcome for all marriage initiatives: polygamy, under-age, animal, or such. I choose to believe there are other questions that need to be answered first, before legalization would ever be considered, and there are more valid reasons for preventing such things and they go well beyond just of the moral view.

The Supreme Court's ruling is a topic in a bubble -- that is to say it doesn't set such a broad precedent as you're fearing -- which is only about the provisions of Prop 8 in California. The Prop 8 itself was also a topic in a bubble created a few years ago as a reaction to the legalize same-sex marriage movement -- From the moment California became a state to just a few years ago the marriage definition of Prop 8 was not previously in existence.

 

Yes it was. The Federal District Court of Northern California ruled that Prop 8 violated the US Constitution in Perry v Schwarzenegger. Due to the Supreme Court dismissing the case as well as vacating the 9th district court's ruling, that is the litigation that stands.

Nope, just like legalizing interracial marriage did not rule every human relationship imaginable could be called marriage.

 

Most of California's ballot initiatives since 1911 were seemingly innocuous but Proposition 8 was overt discrimination against gays living in the state and the Supreme Court was right to reverse it. California is supposed to be a liberal state but the voters in California overwhelmingly passed the California Alien Land Law of 1920 through a ballot initiative to deny land ownership of Asian immigrants. Ordinary voters are prone to support bigoted measures on the spur of the moment and state-level voter initiatives should be subject to close scrutiny by the Supreme Court.