Marriage is thus something more than a civil contract subject to regulation by the state; it is a fundamental right of free men....The right to marry is as fundamental as the right to send one’s child to a particular school or the right to have offspring.a quote from the 1948 california supreme court case perez v. sharp, in which the court recognized that interracial bans on marriage violated the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution.
Indeed, “We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man..." Legislation infringing such rights must be based upon more than prejudice and must be free from oppressive discrimination to comply with the constitutional requirements of due process and equal protection of the laws.
much more on prop 8 protests and fallout here.
UPDATE 11/12/08 1:18 am – the l.a. times reports:Forty-three Democratic legislators, including leaders of the California Senate and Assembly, filed a brief Monday urging the California Supreme Court to void Proposition 8.more here.
The CA Supreme Court overturned the state ban on interracial marriage in 1948, but it took 19 years for the US Supreme Court to invalidate all such state statutes in Loving v. Virginia. (*sigh*)
ReplyDeleteProgressives have to figure out how to run more effective issue campaigns. One challenge in these fights is that there isn't a final arbiter (like a candidate). As a result, you get situations like Florida's. Competing factions of the equality movement couldn't get along, so they ran two separate "Vote No on Amendment 2" initiatives and managed to bungle a campaign they should've been able to win. (Guarding against the 60% necessary to pass the amendment was hardly insurmountable.) There's obviously not an easy answer -- as these fights have been fought all over the country for a decade and there's only been one successful one -- but there's an inherent problem in not having a more streamlined, accountable campaign model, and that needs to be figured out.
:)
i agree, laurin. and right now, it's bare-bones, raw emotion that's leading the way.
ReplyDeletei'm not sure the gay community has such a great track record at finding consensus. there's not much hope in finding common ground with the other side when we can't find it amongst ourselves.
andrew sullivan has been a leader on this issue for as long as i can remember. with a clear head, but a strong vision for what needs to be done.
and he's a strong advocate for discussion, and educating the other side. talking to friends, and relatives about these issues. working from the ground up.
right now, though, i think we're in the middle of something else. the protests don't seem to be slowing down, they seem to be growing in size and intensity. i'm not a big one for yelling and shouting, myself. unless you've tried everything else and no one is listening.
then i say, go for it.
I'm interested to see in the aftermath of even the failed Vote No campaigns is whether the grassroots organizing that took place for each those campaigns will lead to LGBT communities wielding more power locally. (Presumably there are lists from each of these campaigns around the country that could be tapped into and mobilized on community issues.)
ReplyDeleteSilver lining and whatnot.