In another blow for same-sex marriage advocates, the oral arguments before the California Supreme Court yesterday indicated that the majority will uphold controversial Proposition 8 and its ban on same-sex marriage.
Two justices who previously voted in favor of same-sex marriage under the state constitution indicated that they would reluctantly vote to uphold the new law. Chief Justice Ronald George and Justice Joyce Kennard, who were part of the 4-3 majority that vote for same-sex marriage in 2008, stated that they would have to yield to the will of the people. Kennard stated “Our task is quite limited. The people are those who have created the Constitution and what you are overlooking is the people’s broad power to amend the Constitution.”
The decision is likely to spur similar legislation in other states and may reduce the calls for a U.S. constitutional amendment. In the meantime, it is not clear what will happen to all of the couples who were married during the period between the two rulings. This could make for some interesting fights and a U.S. Supreme Court challenge. Those couples have already been married and have a claim to that prior status that would raise viable federal questions — even if it did not raise the core equal protection issue of same-sex marriage generally.
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lottakatz,
I’ve read “The Difference Engine”. It’s in my library right now as I am a huge Gibson fan. I’ll have to look into the others as time permits.
Mike
Thanks for the warm welcome
I try to read all the posts to the topics that stimulate my imagination or alternatively cause me to feel outrage and while I can’t possibly respond to most of them and don’t have the attention span to get involved in who-is-who and the personality stuff, maybe that’s what folks here might enjoy. For me, I enjoy the exchange of ideas and love to hear from people who stimulate me to look at things in ways I had not previously considered.
Naturally I am worried that once all the survivors are gone that the deniers will move in to take their place. How paranoid do you have to be? and btw, ever notice how when we bring this up we are accused of something called “playing the Holocaust card?”
Just as easily and as importantly we have other cards in our deck, the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge card, the Darfur card and many others that speak to the darkness in the human heart and maybe that’s why, in my travels, I’ve sought out rather than avoided the places where atrocities have occurred so that I might report back stuff like I’ve seen the actual waterboard used by Pol Pot and saw the working guillotine outside the window of the cell block (a generous term at best) where Senator McCain and other American POW’s were held and tortured.
There is a corollary to the baptism of shoah victims and that is the notion among evangelicals that Jews are incomplete, requiring spiritual perfection ( see: Ann Coulter) through the recognition of Jesus as the Jewish messiah. All of this is colossally insulting and while LDS policies really do not affect us, the notion that they have the largest growing organization of any religious organization and are the best funded, my concern is not for my spiritual well-being but for the notion that by funding special elections in CA that law can be overturned by any well-funded majority that has the $$ to produce commercials that claim gay marriage will cause erosion of free expression of religion. as if by allowing gays and lesbians to marry churches by the hundreds, maybe thousands will have to shut their door permanently. While laughable to those of us who know better and to those of us who can find the gods of our choice in any setting this is fear-based campaigning with others sure to follow
This notion gave the Framers pause and resulted in their rather narrow definition of citizenship. White, Christian, men, landowners, the economic elite had the vote and there was no popular vote for the Senate until the 20th century if memory serves. My fear has always been that a well funded majority could take control of the civil rights of the minority who are supposed to enjoy equal protection under law and this is exactly what has happened in CA.
As a CA resident, voter and some-time political activist, I can say that CA is in truth a pretty conservative state. Pockets of liberals in LA and the Bay Area do exist and they do vote but none of us thought that the organized battle against gay marriage would end in this Prop 8 shtuss.
BIL,
By all means get back to “Diamond Age”, you’ll like it I’m sure, and while steampunk has fallen into some disfavor a book I (for some unknown reason) always associate with Diamond Age is “The Difference Engine” by Gibson. Not the same books, not even close but still I associate them. The Difference Engine is an excellent book. Another couple of books I associate in this small weird group are “Snowcrash” and “Ano Dracula”. Maybe because they deal with alternate realities (Ano Dracula and Difference Engine) and future reality (Diamond Age and Snowcrash) but I must confess, Ano Dracula is there as a guilty pleasure. Alternate reality and vampires- what’s not to love?
GWLSM,
By the way welcome to the ongoing discussion. Your posts are always thoughtful and promote, rather than inhibit the exchange of ideas. Regarding the Mormon’s and their conversion practice, I agree that in the end it is mostly a meaningless exercise. Then too as a Jew I’m sure you understand the underlying disrespect for Shoah victims it shows. That, however, while angering me personally is also something that is really of small consequence, since despite what their canon may approve, no one can believe that baptizing someone after their death has any effect in God’s eyes, no matter how one defines the Creator.
What does cause me distress, is the plethora of stories this week on President Obama’s Mother being baptized when he got the nomination and the corollary stories that the involuntary post-mortem conversions of Shoah victims continues, albeit surreptitiously. While on one hand these are meaningless acts to those who do not follow the LDS, on the other they represent an LDS strategy that looks years forward. The LDS is an intelligently run operation with many propaganda skills. In a hundred years or so these conversions will be used as proof that all manner of people joined LDS because they recognized the “truth” of it. In 100 the LDS will advertise itself as holocaust victims and use it to show that they are the inheritors of Jewish history.
Is it paranoid of me to think so, no. How much denial of the Shoah exists in today’s world, when I’m sure that like me you personally know survivors. We will be gone in 100 years, as will the survivors and our children. We know from history that much is hidden through time, the Armenian Genocide for instance and this is where I see the LDS policy heading and so I decry it.
Mike,, Buddha, Gang
If civil unions are the remedy than all licenses to unite couples should be issued fairly as civil unions and let the religious among us take their vows in the houses of worship that they choose and who will support their requests.
I agree with Mike, as Jew, I find the policy of LDS conversion of Jews in absentia a disgusting practice which many Jewish leaders have asked them not to do. They refuse. Or they agree, temporarily. On the other hand what they do within their temple walls is their business and since I don’t believe that their conversions have any effect over me, my family or any other Jew then great. Let them knock themselves out. This is on par with the whack-job evangelicals who are buying property in Jerusalem to be close to the Mt of Olives when jesus returns. So far as long as they don’t bother Israelis with their missionary mishegoss (when they do, they are deported) and weigh the mental health system down with cross-toting psychotics, again let them live and be well.
LIving and being well, minding one’s own business should be what we focus on. Seriously. The Lesbian couple down the street from me, does not affect me, how I raise my kids, my marriage, my ability to breathe freely or in any other way. Should their marriage which was recognized and now may not be recognized in CA due to the circus act which is Prop 8 has zero affect on anything going on in my life. I wish them well. I can get behind any couple who chooses to seek comfort and affection, chooses to rear children thoughtfully and who goes to work and tidies up their lawns well and invite them to live wherever they choose.
Gay marriage will ultimately be a civil rights issue, a commerce clause issue and an issue that humanity must address for the sake of what means for us to live in a plural society.
Do I wish the religionists would stoop ringing my doorbell? Sure. Are they effective in any real way? I don’t think so. At worst they are an annoyance, at best a bunch of people getting out in the fresh air and working off their lunch. Most folks know and believe what they know and believe and while the gospels may have been the best way of disseminating news in their time, most of us, probably all of us, have perfectly good religions of our own and I believe this is true for all of the world.
My problem lies with mega churches who issue voting guides and who campaign from the pulpit. They use God and two sentences from scripture to promote a social agenda that does not affect them in any real way. If every gay couple who wanted to marry did so later this afternoon, no one aside from that couple would notice any changes in their lives just like it is with straight couples.
Mike Spindell, thank you for the 60 Minutes suggestion about Cotton and Thompson-Cannino. Very interesting piece, really amazing.
Thanks, Mike.
Buddha,
Start with Cryptonomicom and then move on to the Trilogy of the Baroque Cycle, or vice versam. His latest book is Anathem and I also like it alot and it is pure SF. The other two I like best and in fact I’m currently re-reading the Baroque Cycle (No
mean feat about 2,700 pages) but given the economy problems I want to read again, to see how our financial system began. Some are not impressed with him, but I believe he’s one of the greats.
Mike,
I’ll have to confess I’ve been remiss on Stephenson. I picked up I think it was “Diamond Age” once upon a time, but alas life interfered and I never got to it. I’m almost done with my current projects, so maybe I’ll move him to the front of the fun list. Do you have a suggested starting point or is he the kind of author you can jump in anywhere along the line?