Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Iowa, Vermont gay marriages spark debate in Calif.
04.09.2009 8:43am EDT
(San Francisco, California) Both sides of the gay marriage ban approved by California voters are debating how Iowa and Vermont’s recent moves to allow same-sex unions will affect their state’s running legal battle.
Gay marriage supporters are particularly interested in the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling, which they hope will sway the California Supreme Court to overturn the ballot measure voters passed with 52 percent of the vote in November.But opponents say the Iowa decision should have no bearing on the essential issue before the high court: Whether voters have the right to amend California’s constitution at the polls.
California’s Proposition 8, similar to laws in 29 other states that ban gay marriage, was the most expensive ballot measure in the nation, with $83 million poured into campaigns on either side.
The measure was introduced largely as a reaction to the California Supreme Court’s decision in May to legalize same-sex unions. That ruling was extensively cited by Iowa justices in their decision released Friday.
California’s highly anticipated ruling on Proposition 8 could come any time before June 3. Some 18,000 gay and lesbian couples were wed in the 4 1/2 months it was legal to do so in California.
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who led the challenge to Proposition 8 in oral arguments before the California court last month, was jubilant Tuesday after Vermont joined Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa as the fourth state to allow gay marriage.
While the other states went through lengthy legal battles, Vermont’s approval came when the Legislature overrode their governor’s veto.
But Minter said it was Iowa’s ruling that was important to California in two ways.
First, the Iowa court stresses “that equal protection is such an essential structural foundation of our system of government” that it can’t be left to the ballot initiative process, he said.
Second, he said, Iowa justices adopted the California Supreme Court’s analysis of why providing a separate status for same sex couples is inherently unequal.
“It would be very ironic,” he said, “if just at the time that other state courts are following the California Supreme Court in holding that only marriage can provide true equality, that California were to backpedal away from that holding.”
But the question before the California Supreme Court is not whether it supports gay marriage, said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage.
“I think that the California court might view the Iowa Supreme court decision as reasonable,” she said, “but it’s not the question before them. It’s whether the people of California have the constitutional right to pass Proposition. 8.”
William Eskridge, a professor at Yale Law School and scholar on the gay marriage issue, said “the Iowa decision actually relies on the California decision … I think that both their legal analysis and their unanimity was surely influenced by the California decision, which they lavishly quote.”
But, he added, “I don’t believe that will influence the Chief Justice and the majority of the court.”
During oral arguments before the California Supreme Court on March 6, the seven-member body indicated a wariness to override what Associate Justice Joyce Kennard called the people’s “very, very broad, well-established” authority to amend the state’s governing framework at the ballot box.
“What I am picking up from the oral arguments is that this court should willy-nilly disregard the will of the people,” said Kennard, who was part of the majority in the 4-3 decision that legalized gay marriage in California.
If the court overturns Proposition 8, “it would be devastating to the democratic process and any future initiative or referendum,” said Bryan Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage. He noted that when the California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty, the voters amended the state constitution in 1978 to uphold it.
Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a pro-gay marriage group, said the Iowa ruling has given him new hope in California.
“The fact that this decision is so clear and unanimous from the heartland,” he said, “is a reminder to the California Supreme Court that the equality in marriage is a civil right whose time has come and whose place is everywhere.”
Whatever the court decides, it will likely spark protests and celebration: The oral arguments drew thousands of supporters and opponents to an outdoor plaza in San Francisco, where the Supreme Court’s hearing was shown on a big-screen TV.
Yes, because the death penalty and gay marriage are so similar.
One is for ending life. The other is about the rights of people to live their lives.
The death penalty would apply equally to everyone in California, whereas Prop. 8 only limits the right of same-sex couples, not opposite sex couples, to marry. No comparison.
Prop 8 is very obviously a revision of the state constitution that creates inequality. The death penality, while reprehensible, is equally applicable to all citizens of California.
A revision is something that changes the core structure of the state constitution — such as invalidating its core requirement of equality before the law. Such a drastic change as that would first require approval of the state legistlature.
Prop 8 did not use that procedure. The State Supreme Court should find it invalid on those grounds — if they have any sense of fairness at all.
~ Bud Evans
Prop 8 is a revision that has changed the core structure of the California State Constitution, essentially compromising it as an instrument of protection for the state’s most vulnerable citizens. On this there can be no doubt, and I am certain some of the justices will hear and metabolize that.
But, ultimately, I’m afraid the majority of justices will be swayed by the argument that the judicial process must not undermine the will of the people — even when that collective will amounts to a “tyrrany of the majority” that in mob fashion yanks rights away from a vulnerable minority.
As painful as I know this is, I’m afraid California gays will have to continue telling their personal stories of the pain caused by being barred from marriage. The dreams deferred or squashed. The difficult choices. The children involved. California gays will have to keep communicating this pain to your heterosexual counterparts, and let them fully get to know you. Work with them on causes you mutually believe in, like alleviating poverty, improving health care or increasing educational opportunities.
In as little as two years, public opinion may have shifted enough to pass a ballot initiative voiding Prop 8. And once that happens, California will have set a more powerful precedent for the same-sex marriage movement in the long run — the democratic process will have INSTALLED same-sex marriage at that point, rather than yanked it away.
“Wariness” to invalidate Prop 8 really means they don’t wanna face a recall vote. The noises from the California court suggest that they don’t want to be bothered with upholding the rights of a minority if that proves inconvenient to continued presence on the bench. It seems to fly right by these judges that the anti-8 factions are also capable of pushing for recall.
Maybe the California court will do the right thing and throw out 8. Maybe–if that happens–somebody in California will begin pushing for some kind of legislation stating that civil rights aren’t up for vote.
Well time is definitely on our side. People under 50, especially under 40 overwhelmingly support Marriage Equality. So, to be crude, our opponents are dying off daily! Good riddance.
Missy Brian Brown: This is not about the will of the ignorant and bigoted barely a majority. It is about minority rights. So a 2% majority means a large group of Ca citizens are permanently second class?
If the justices cave to the will of the bigots, then who is next? Perhaps we should vote away non citizen immigrant rights and social services? That would be so wrong but it would save the State of California millions of dollars.
Tom in Long Beach
I’d like to know what a divorcee like Maggie Gallagher sets herself up as the defender of traditional marriage? Or why anyone takes anything she says on the subject seriously?
I think everytime that she is quoted in the media about marriage she ought to be identified as someone who could not succeed in her own marriage.
One simple action which could help us in our fight for MARRIAGE EQUALITY is to stop calling it gay marriage.
When you call abortion, abortion most people, even those who support choice cringe. This is why they call their movement the pro-choice movement as opposed to pro-abortion movement. This has made it easier for the choice movement to find allies in unlikely corners. Blacks didn’t call their movement the Black rights movement, because they’d have alienated many of their white supporters, they instead used civil rights instead. The MARRIAGE EQUALITY movement, where it has been successfull, has shed the use of gay marriage and instead uses the term MARRIAGE EQUALITY. First, we’re not fighting to gay marriage as opposed to straight marriage, as is often claimed by our opponents. We’re fighting for equal access to the civil institution of marriage. Secondly, there are those who are denied marriage who aren’t gay, such as transgendered persons who for one illogical reason or another aren’t allowed to marry whom they wish. So marriage for them isn’t about being gay. Thirdly, when we’re trying to convince the public, the courts, the politicians and the President of the validity of our cause, the overuse of gay marriage instead of marriage equality makes it far far far far harder to convince them.
SO for the love of God,, stop f*cking using the term “gay marriage”. If we want to win both the argument and advance the movement we need to say MARRIAGE EQUALITY, because language and how we use it, effects the perception of our cause.
If the basic, foundational civil rites of any group of people can be put up to a popular vote by the majority and have those rites stripped away by a simple majority – then we are ALL at risk.
Rodney Moore Said: April 9th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Very well said Rodney. We must push forward for MARRIAGE EQUALITY for EVERYONE, not gay marriage.
Will: even moer importantly, what has been quoted before, is that the death penalty can be applied equally to all citizens under similar circumstances, but gay marriage would create a seperate but equal suspect classification for citizens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5HQ2fOUYws&feature=player_embedded
Check out this remix of the religious right’s anti-gay marriage add.
all the “Christians” that donated money to the amounts of MILLIONS of dollars totals of “84 million” from each side. WOW. I got news for all of you, you are going to HELL! All the people in this world starving, being hurt and abused….
The sad things that happen to your fellow humans on a daily basis and this is how you do “the lord’s work”
how sad and pitiful you bunch or whackos are! SHAME.
Religion ROTS the brain and the heart. Escape while you can. and NO, MORGAN this is not about you and your lil Maryland church with Homos that feed the poor! This is about the people who have used “God” and the Bible and things of good to perpetuate hate and evil.
TAX THE CHURCH(es)!!!
But can an Amendment be declared UnConstutitional (i.e. the US Constitution)? I mean to opponents really want a USSCOTUS Ruling on this matter??
Boycott California’s goods, products and services! Bet the breeder majority in Cali will be a hummin’ a mighty different tune when there precious “7th” largest economy status in the world shrinks to oh, about 34!