The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law. The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists say they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote. Although the court split 6-1 on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the justices were unanimous in deciding to keep intact the marriages of as many as 18,000 gay couples who exchanged vows before the election.
Ah, America. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Domain of the straight, narrow-minded, and hateful. Odd; I've never thought of equality as being a term with relative meanings depending on the class of people under discussion. It would appear, though, that equality is not the absolute term I was taught to believe it was. No, while I'd always believed that equality had a rather egalitarian ring to it, there are clearly some folks whom the law defines as more equal than others. Some (like myself, f'rinstance) would call it the tyranny of the majority...or the triumph of hatred, ignorance, fear, and prejudice. The rule of law as an instrument of oppression. Land of the free, indeed....
Here in America, it seems that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is limited solely to heterosexuals. Those of y'all whose sexuality and lifestyle differs from the accepted norm? Well, y'all can go pound sand...'cuz here in America, we're all about maintaining the natural order of things, don'tchaknow??
The truly sad thing about Proposition 8 is that African-Americans, a community that knows from hatred and discrimination, were instrumental in passing this monument to hatred and discrimination. Apparently, the lessons of the Civil Rights era of the 1960s were lost on far too many African-Americans, who somehow never managed to pick up on the blatant hypocrisy inherent in their support of Prop 8. No, it's not racist to call out a community for their hypocrisy and ignorance...and it wouldn't hurt if it wasn't true.
And don't even get me started on the judicial hypocrisy inherent in upholding Prop 8 and yet simultaneously that the 18,000+ same-sex marriages that took place in California are still valid. Hey, let's throw EVERYONE a bone!!
Of course, no reasonable legal scholar expected anything but the result that the California Supreme Court announced. That leaves it to the voters to try to right this wrong. Then again, we all know what happened the last time voters in California got ahold of this issue....
