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Loading ...Thousands attend vigils ahead of Prop 8 hearing
03.05.2009 8:38am EST
(San Francisco, California) Tens of thousands of people took part in candlelight vigils Wednesday night to mark today’s California Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8, the measure that ended same-sex marriage in the state.
Vigils were held in more than 30 cities throughout the state with the biggest in San Francisco.Called “The Eve of Justice,” organizers said the turnout exceeded expectations.
In San Francisco, thousands of people marched from Harvey Milk Plaza up the Castro to the Civic Center, across from the State Building where the Supreme Court will hear the case.
Many of the marchers camped out overnight, hoping to get into the courtroom to hear the arguments.
This morning outside the court, another rally will be held with a huge LGBT presence expected.
The hearing will be broadcast on some outlets. The broadcast also can be seen at Los Angeles City Hall, and at the LGBT Center in San Francisco.
But so many people are expected to crowd onto the square near the courthouse, Marriage Equality USA has set up a Jumbotron screen on the plaza.
Prop 8 was passed by voters in November by a slim 52 percent.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights immediately filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the vote. They were joined by additional suits by the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles and a legal opinion by California Attorney General Jerry Brown.
Arguing for the litigants will be Shannon Minter, the NCLR attorney who earlier successfully argued the gay marriage case before the high court.
In legal papers submitted to the court, Minter and the other attorneys argued that the measure is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone, by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians.
The attorneys also argue that Proposition 8 improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. The suits say that under the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by a simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.
Brown’s office took a slightly different approach, arguing in its brief to the court that Proposition 8 should be invalidated on the grounds that certain fundamental rights, including the right to marry, are inalienable and cannot be put up for a popular vote.
The brief said said the measure should be overturned because it deprives people of the right to marry — an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution.
But the attorney representing Brown has a difficult challenge. The court ordered the lawyer for the Attorney General to spend half of his 30 minutes of argument defending the measure and half opposing it.
Representing the conservative groups behind Prop 8 will be Kenneth Starr who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica L. Lewinsky.
In his brief to the court Starr argued that the will of the people must be respected by the court and that the measure also invalidated those marriages performed prior to the vote.
“Proposition 8’s brevity is matched by its clarity,” he wrote. “There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions.”
After today’s hearing, the court will have 90 days to issue a written ruling.
GOOD LUCK TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CALIFORNIA–WE ARE 100% BEHIND YOU !!
The jackasses on CNN tried to say that there were only a couple of hundred people marching. And to support their lies, they showed video of people just starting to gather at the rallies and not later after the crowds grew.
They did a similar thing with their coverage of protests after Prop-H8 passed. This time, TV cameras showed up from CNN after the protests were over in New York and California and some snotty reporter said:” Well, Gay attivists claimed that there were thousands that showed up for the protest, but as you can see there is hardly anyone here.”
The swines did that on purpose. Sometimes, I feel that the GLBT community is totally unaware of just how many people in the so-called “mainstream” media either hate us outright or are afraid that they might be accused of being the “liberal media” if they actually had fair and frequently coverage of our community. They are afraid that they would have to give equal time to wild-eyed homophobic preachers if they did any story about us.
Funny how they don’t give equal time to the KKK when they do stories about Black people. But I suppose our kind requires a different set of rules.
PS – Anderson Cooper, you reek of mothballs. You have enough cash and fame, show some gonads like Rachel Maddox and come out and be yourself. Your avoidance of your own identity speaks volumns about how others get away with treating us like they do.
The jackasses on CNN tried to say that there were only a couple of hundred people marching. And to support their lies, they showed video of people just starting to gather at the rallies and not later after the crowds grew.
They did a similar thing with their coverage of protests after Prop-H8 passed. This time, TV cameras showed up from CNN after the protests were over in New York and California and some snotty reporter said:” Well, Gay activists claimed that there were thousands that showed up for the protest, but as you can see there is hardly anyone here.”
The swine did that on purpose. Sometimes, I feel that the GLBT community is totally unaware of just how many people in the so-called “mainstream” media either hate us outright or are afraid that they might be accused of being the “liberal media” if they actually had fair and frequently coverage of our community. They are afraid that they would have to give equal time to wild-eyed homophobic preachers if they did any story about us.
Funny how they don’t give equal time to the KKK when they do stories about Black people. But I suppose our kind requires a different set of rules.
PS – Anderson Cooper, you reek of mothballs. You have enough cash and fame, show some gonads like Rachel Maddox and come out and be yourself. Your avoidance of your own identity speaks volumes about how others get away with treating us like they do.
If gay/lesbians get married, I would like to have Polygamy re-legalized.
Main question here is,
Why do the gays not support other types of marriage? seems very selfish.
Polygamy should be allowed before gay’s are allowed to get married.
Is it Jack Johnson, or Jackass Johnson?
Hey Jack Johnson, first of all, I loathe your music, secondly. Polygamy? Really? What planet are you from?
But in your dream world of free for all living, can women have more than one wife? More than one husband? Or is that still only reserved for the clearly superior and wiser man?
How insecure are you that you need polygamy to make your need for penis legitimate?
Here’s hoping the California Supreme Court does the right thing and repeals this disgraceful Proposition 8. Unfortunately, many believe the Court is independent of the electorate and the truth is, sometimes. The Court did repeal the proposition allowing the death penalty, but Chief Justice Rose Bird was effectively recalled and the death penalty was made law, and that awful law continues to this very day. On the other hand, support for executions enjoyed greater support among Californians, the majority of whom are not well educated or informed about social and political issues. So again, let’s hope for the best, but don’t be surprised if bigotry wins the day, again. For now…
Kenneth Starr needs to be made to sit in a corner and be silenced with a rag stuffed into his mouth and with duct tape sealed over his lips so he can’t spew more toxic antigay legalisms from his fetid mouth. And with his hands cuffed together so he can’t write more toxic antigay legalistic words. He is very, very dangerous to the civil rights of 18,000 current couples and many more future CA couple who deserve the right to be married if they so choose.
He needs to be vigorously opposed.
sadly, yes Thomas i believe your right. I HOPE your wrong but who the F**K knows! Court judges are hard to pin down. Makes no sense to me though how they can all of a sudden just reverse their “equal rights for all” position they took last year. In spite of this “people’s” referendum BS would they dare to contradict themselves in such a fashion? THAT alone I think would be a dangerous precedent in and of itself! Either way, Win, lose or draw our Gay Brethren have our FULL support!! Let’s go California!!!
Jack Johnson: We are not trying to fight for “other type of marriages”. Although your thought may be that we are looking for some degradation of what marriage means, we are just looking to enter into union with one other person who happens to be of the same sex. I realize that in your mind (as your comments reeks of ignorance) we are looking for something out of the ordinary, but to us, it is a right. One that is given to every heterosexual person and that is not given to us. That is called discrimination – and that is what we are fighting. We are not being selfish, we just want to be an equal part of this country like every heterosexual person.
Jack Johnson is a jerk, but he’s also right. There is no acceptable argument for supporting same-sex marriage but not polygamy. Adults should be able to form the relationships they want, and the state should respect that.
Jack J & Randy…when did 365GAY become the hot hangout for Mormon men? Rights of polygamists are probably being fought for on some other website, but not here. Google will probably get you there though. Move along now….
JUST WATCHED THE PRECEEDINGS–WHERE ARE THE GAY JUDGES? I THOUGHT THEY TREATED KEN STARR LIKE A CELEBRITY.SOME JUDGES WERE DEFINITELY BIASED !!!!
“There is no acceptable argument for supporting same-sex marriage but not polygamy. Adults should be able to form the relationships they want, and the state should respect that.”
Sorry, Randy, but I disagree with both you and Jack J. The argument is, does every American have the right to marry the person of his or her mutual choosing?
Heterosexuals don’t have the right to marry a group of persons, so why would gay citizens try to win rights that heterosexuals don’t have? Marriage is involves COMMITMENT, as in “I choose you”, not “I choose a bunch of people”.
Meanwhile, the polyandrous are actually still free to “form the relationships they want” but currently have no right to expect the state to recognize them legally.
Quite frankly, polygamy is simply a separate discussion. If they want to make a case for state recognition, let them make their case. It isn’t what we are discussing.
Personally, as a legally married gay man, I don’t care if people live in polygamous relationships – it’s no skin off my nose. It doesn’t affect me, but I’m absolutely convinced they’re unequal relationships (which is why I’m not in one). But I cannot fathom a legal argument over which spouse gets the ‘inheritance’ – the first wife? The 2nd (who bore his first child), or the 3rd wife (who gave him the best sex) or the 4th wife (the youngest and prettiest), or …? (You get the picture.) Same difficulty coming up with a reasonable argument over which wife would get to visit him in the hospital. (Oops, sorry, heterosexuals already have that right, and no one seeks to take it away.) And why is it ALWAYS 1 man, several wives in polygamous situations? And which wife would the (presumably employed) man’s health coverage cover?
Etc.
Hope you can understand why we believe polygamy is simply not what is at issue here.
Please don’t bother with the incest comparisons to SSM. I can go to beliefnet.com for that sh!t.
So, where was Court TV?