Quote:
Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok
Because I believe the California Constitution protects sexual orientation as a class. Thus, a more specific amendment had to be created to deny a "right" or privilege, rather, to homosexuals.
Which is what I've been arguing this whole time. I'm not adamantly against same-sex marriage, but I've been trying to make the point that this ruling was the only correct one not because of how I personally feel, but rather because of the Constitution.
|
Finally, someone with a valid argument to point to.
I actually spent time researching this; both Prop 8 and Prop 22, as well as the full CA Constitution. I now understand the primary complaint (except for those that were clouded by the media, anyway), and I see what the issue is. It's fear. On both sides of the table. Let's see if I'm getting this now.
The California Constitution
does not allow same sex marriages. That's an inference, it is not explicit nor is it even alluded to. The verbiage essentially says that California will recognize marriages of couples, even those from other states, which is a standard clause in every state in the United States; it's nothing new.
Somewhere along the line, a Mayor did the unbelievable: he interpreted that to mean that same sex marriages were allowed. He inferred this because the existing law did not expressly prohibit same sex marriages; this was mistake #1. This outraged the religious groups who naturally felt the Mayor was overstepping his authority, extending the government into a religious practice. This was mistake #2.
Down the road, in response to all of this, some moron drafted up Prop 22, which was clearly a scramble effort to cut this off at the pass before it steamrolled: a single sentence that says what should have been in the original law in the first place. It explicitly states that marriage is between a man and a woman. Too little, too late, because creating this Prop was mistake #3.
So then, we get people yelling and screaming about constitutionality issues, which of course don't exist, because it was never explicitly allowed or disallowed in either the state or the Federal Constitution. Mistake #4. Prop 22 gets overturned as "unconstitutional" (which of course it isn't, because the Constitution never explicitly allowed or disallowed same sex marriage), and the minority are dancing in the streets, running off to get married right away because of course, they knew the thing would be overturned again. Mistake #5.
So then, since we can't overturn an overturned proposition, we just introduce a different proposition, a different approach: Prop 8, which just bans same sex marriages altogether. So instead of trying to correct what the state meant and provide clarification, it decides to ban outright. Of course, you can't ban what you didn't explicitly allow in the first place. Mistake #6.
So let's go down the chart:
Mistake #1: Whoever wrote the original law made a critical mistake, unfortunately the same mistake applies to just about every law that we have in the US: we write laws that don't properly accommodate every possible scenario. So are the lawmakers ignorant? No. They do that on purpose because they don't want to alienate anyone; thus they leave laws wide open to speculation, inference and interpretation by the masses. Since our legal system effectively puts the onus on the voters, it means they don't have to accept accountability for this critical error. The original law should have simply read, "The state of California will acknowledge any marriage consummated in another state. Marriages consummated within California are subject to California law and other considerations, including but not limited to religious restrictions regarding same sex marriage". In other words, if the church won't do it, it won't happen.
Mistake #2: The Mayor who took it upon himself to interpret the law without due diligence should be fired. He effectively tipped the first domino, now we're in a pit that will never fill.
Mistake #3: By passing a proposition that defined "marriage" a specific way, the state effectively created a discrimination situation, buckling under public pressure to give the majority the ability to vote same sex marriages out of the equation. It went further by effectively saying that if a same sex marriage happened in another state, California refused to acknowledge it as valid on its face. This is definitely a problem.
Mistake #4: You can't say something is "unconstitutional" when the Constitution never allowed or disallowed it in the first place. "unconstitutional" presumes that you're doing, saying, writing, etc. something that goes against something written in the Constitution. Again, neither Constitution expressly allowed same sex marriages in the first place. This was sensationalist nonsense that just further exacerbated the problem.
Mistake #5: Because the homosexual population went dancing in the streets when they heard this news, it just made the religious groups even more angry. Not at anyone in particular, but at the process and the fact that their long standing belief has been slapped in the face by not only the government, but a group of people who were able to influence said government to walk into forbidden territory.
Mistake #6: As I said, you can't ban something you never explicitly allowed. In order to ban something you would need to admit that you allowed it. Which of course if you did that, means that enacting Prop 22 was indeed "unconstitutional". CA doesn't want to do that, so it created a firestorm for itself.
SO we've got the religious groups, who are afraid that the state government is trying to encroach on their turf. You've got the homosexual population, who is afraid that what they thought was a basic right is going to be deleted due to incompetence of the CA government. You've got the heterosexual population, who is afraid of losing the basic principles that have been in place around marriage for decades. Then you've got the Feds, who are afraid to take sides and are doing the smart thing by staying neutral. Everyone's afraid. And you know what's said?
Everyone's wrong.
The way I read it...the CA Constitution
never allowed same sex marriage. You can't say "It doesn't say you can't do it!!" and think it's the same thing. It's not. The argument about "it's a revision not an amendment!" is moot; you can't revise what wasn't there in the first place. It was an amendment. The law was so ambiguous that it basically was an open door for same sex marriage by not prohibiting it. That's not the same as allowing it. The government screwed up by placating the masses. But the fact remains - it was never allowed in the first place, the religious parties have maintained the man/woman requirement, and that should have been the end of it.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
