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Loading ...Neff: Stop putting gay rights to a vote
My first years as a reporter I covered elections in New Hampshire, and I got a hands-on tutorial in direct democracy.
Sure, voters in New Hampshire go to the polls and cast ballots for candidates of choice in the ordinary manner.But many voters also gather in halls or local gymnasiums in the early spring for town hall meetings — lengthy affairs in which citizens approve a budget and vote up or down, usually with much discussion, questions on a range of issues — from white-washing town hall to opposing war, creating affordable housing, guaranteeing healthcare, expanding access to education and banning nukes.
The debates were inspirational. The level of citizen involvement was amazing. I remember asking why more issues were not decided by direct democracy, by a vote of the people.
I wrote a column then about New England town meeting politics and referenda. I know the forums and initiatives are not new, but they were new to me. I had grown up in the Chicago area in the era of machine politics. My editor put a headline on my column referring to me as a “rube,” not really flattering, but accurate in hindsight.
I became fascinated with the concept of voting on issues, town meeting referendums, ballot initiatives and questions.
Got a cause, hold a vote.
“Rube” was right, a naïve, inexperienced person.
But I became a jaded journalist in a few short years, and I got a personal tutorial in direct democracy damage. I had known machine politics. I came to know the electoral activism of New England politics. Then, with a change of locale and a change of job, I got to know all about the big-money anti-this, anti-that initiative.
Initiatives had once been the tool of progressives seeking to counter the money-influence in legislative chambers — the idea was to defeat the special interest groups by the power of the people.
Initiatives increasingly seem the tool of conservatives seeking to roll-back, deny or withhold rights.
This week, as I think about the questions voters will face not at town hall forums but at the polls Nov. 4, I am reminded of a statement by William Jennings Bryan from 1920:
“We have the initiative and referendum. Do not disturb them. If defects are discovered, correct them and perfect the machinery. Make it possible for the people to have what they want. We are the world’s teacher in democracy. The world looks to us for an example. We cannot ask others to trust the people unless we ourselves are willing to trust them.”
I think of this as I consider the 152 ballot questions facing voters in 36 states on election day. Many of the questions seek to address social issues and 60 of them were placed on the ballot by citizen initiative.
Do you, voters are being asked in California, Arizona and Florida, want to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage?
Do you, voters are being asked in Arkansas, want to ban people cohabitating outside marriage from adopting children?
Do you, voters are being asked in Colorado and South Dakota, want to ban abortion?
Do you, voters are being asked in Colorado and Nebraska, want to eliminate affirmative action?
Do you, voters are being asked in Colorado, want to diminish labor unions by prohibiting the deduction of union dues from public employee paychecks?
Do you, voters are being asked in Arizona, want to prohibit universal healthcare programs? Protect payday loan businesses?
Do you, voters are being asked in Missouri, want to pass a constitutional amendment requiring English be spoken at all government meetings?
A search for progressive issues on ballots finds too few across the country — and the interests seem more with protecting domestic animals than people. There is a real possibility that in California, the vote will be to ban gays and lesbians from marrying and another vote will require a more humane treatment of pregnant pigs, calves and hens by mandating a minimum living space.
Please, don’t get me wrong — I support the animal rights matter, known as Proposition 2. I just wish I could count on more support for humane treatment of people.
Over the years, a number of anti-gay measures have been put to a vote — 29 out of 30 propositions to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman have passed.
“We cannot ask others to trust the people unless we ourselves are willing to trust them,” Jennings said.
I am afraid, today, I don’t trust the people, and I miss the innocence of being a rube, when I felt so passionate about got a cause, hold a vote.
sure there is no reason the majority should decide on the lives of the minority .democracy is a joke when strait people decide if gays should have the right to exist.
I meant to say a ‘ban’ on inter-racial marriage would probably still be with us…
Civil rights should NEVER be put a vote of the people. You’ve heard it before but it’s true. Slavery would have gone on much longer had the issue been put to a vote of the people. Inter-racial marriage would probably still be with us if it had been put to the vote of the people. Such could also be said about women’s rights, from voting to abortion, if these human rights are put to the people.
I don’t know why it is that so many people believe they have a right to decide for all the other people what is ethical and moral for each of us as individuals, but they do. And they tend to be fervent about it, too.
This is why we have a judicial system and a Constitution. Our forefathers saw the need to protect the individual from the will of the people and built in safeguards to do just that; and while they may not have imagined the social issues of our day and age they certainly saw the problems created by their own system which they sought to change. Kings, and certain presidents, do not like habeus corpus! The next time you hear someone cry “activist judge” remember it is those men and women of the court who stand between us and the will of the people. Equality would be in an even worse state without them.
I too also have been in and around Chicago Politics for about 13 years now (I am 60). Chicago elections are far from perfect but I believe they have been the most honest in the last 13 years (except for an incident or two).
There are certain issues like gay rights or gay marriage that seem to bring out the nutcakes. The nutcakes are the ones I think we are all afraid of. From following us home or making obscene phone calls or at worst painting hate items on walls we are all afraid of that (at least I am). Discussing items like gay rights or gay marriage or whatever is no longer a safe thing to do because of the nutcakes. Its one thing to discuss those items in a gay friendly audience it is a whole other “item” to discuss them in a community forum of one sort or another. Yes we have hate crime laws but it is traumatic to go through them and of course it doesn’t help that the police are largely unsympathetic or even hostile to gays. Yes we have a gay group in the Chicago Police department but the trouble is there is still a large segment of the gay population that are afraid to report crimes to the police because of the “gay” angle whether it be burglary or a hate crime police are less the sympathetic and to the point of homophobic so a lot of crime goes unreported. This has a strong bearing on willingness to discuss items in open forums so that makes for a vocal few to bring items up unless everyone is comfortable in doing so.
Being an outsider like most gay people is part and parcel of the gay issue and until police and others take hate crime seriously we will always be considered outsiders.
At last! Lisa asks the question that’s been bugging me for months! Imagine the UTTER CHAOS that would have inevitably resulted from putting Black civil rights up to a vote on a state by state basis! It would have been a crazy quilt, as some states were much less disposed to integrate than others. By today’s standards, JIm Crow would be alive and kicking in more than a few of them. All they had to do was amend their constitutions. Does anyone know if anybody tried this, and if they did, what stopped it?
Let’s remind people of the obvious parallels to racial integration and question the absurdity of the mess that the states rights nut jobs are creating!
As I’ve mentioned before on this site, many people here don’t seem to distinguish between the federal constitution and state constitutions. It’s creating a lot of misunderstanding.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution understood human nature and trusted the people only in a limited way. That’s why they created representative, rather than direct, democracy. As further protections, they did not allow judges to be voted out of office, and they required that 3/4 of the states had to ratify any proposed constitutional amendment. Thus, if a moderate or liberal U. S. Supreme Court ever determines that gays can marry, it would be extremely difficult for even a majority of bigots to overturn the decision. On the federal level, constitutional rights can prevail, because the Constitution was designed to discourage tyranny by the majority.
Unfortunately, California’s constitution was influenced by the naive progressives of an earlier era that Neff mentions. One result is that California allows the constitution to be amended by simple voter majority. As we’ve seen repeatedly in California politics, that feature invites bad constitutional amendments (that’s why, for example, a budget impasse occurs every year) and tyranny by the majority, of which Prop 8 is only the latest example.
In addition, if you think that the California Supreme Court can protect gay marriage in the event Prop 8 passes, don’t be too sure. The justices themselves are vulnerable, because California’s constitution allows judges to be removed from office by popular vote. Already, the radical right is threatening to remove from office the judges who sided with gay marriage, and there’s a very good chance that the right could succeed.
It’s happened before. On November 4, 1986, as a result of a successful campaign by the the radical right, Chief Justice Rose Bird was voted off the court because she was against the death penalty.
How about putting the “Wealth Redistribution Act” on a public initiative ballot?
If people can be denied basic rights by popular vote, I don’t see why all wealth cannot be collected and redistributed to all people in this country.
Money is just money. If Conservatives and Republicans like to put people’s basic rights on the ballot, why shouldn’t the victims retaliate by putting the wealth of Republicans and Conservatives on the ballot?
Manhattan Island alone is worth more than one trillion in real estate value and the stock market more than twenty trillion.
If you divide an estimated value of all real wealth in this country at three quadrillion and divide it by the three hundred million people in this country that would come out to ten million dollars for every man woman and child in this country.
I am sure such acts would pass a popular vote in just about every state.
This ballot initiative would be no more unconstitutional than denying people their basic rights due to popular vote.
It is a mistaken notion to think that democracy means majority rule by vote. Majority rule is a method of our republican form of government but democracy is our type of government. The essence of democracy is the protection of individual rights from adversarial forces including the government and even the will of the majority. Though it might seem incongruous to some, government by initiative and referendum is not conducive to democracy because it is subject to demogoguery which is the greatest threat to our democracy. We need to stop pushing for marriage equality directly. Instead we need to debate the issue as to whether marriage is a privilege or a right. If it is a right then we need to start legal arguments against the idea that people’s rights cannot be put to a vote.
The bigot’s will go right on putting our equality and lives to a vote as long as the have the support of bigots like “god’s in the mix” Obama, McCain, Biden and Paleo.
I’ve been thinking this for a while, that you can’t ask people to vote whether or not Gay people can marry because it’s like asking people back in the day can blacks and whites marry…at that time many would say no. So they weren’t voting, it was decided for them. Sometimes, change is so hard, people need guidance to make it. I know that the conservatives would say the same to me. The thing is, it’s so hard on them that the word “marry” is being used. I feel bad for them. That they value themselves so cheaply that they think their own marriages and families are not as valueable if Gay people marry. I’m sorry for them and their tender at times angry hearts.
Ben Willow
While the heterosexual community debates on our right to marry, and how they want to protect the (how do you spell it) the vows taken between a man and a woman. For gods sakes, the divorce rate is almost exceeding the marraige rate. They could learn alot from us. I think that may be what they are afraid of… They should be held to “till death do them part” part of the vows. And whats up with all the pre numps. Do forgive my spelling.
What do we do about it?
First, we demand accountability from our gay “leaders” – starting with the incompetents who have run No On 8.
Wishing and being afraid won’t help. Your premise is great – but some of us have been posing this question for years, while our so-called gay “leadership” – people who are paid lots of good money to fight this stuff – just sit back and say, “Gee, guess we got kinda complacent, why are people so meeeeean?” Whiny rhetoric does not win hearts and as we have seen, does not win elections. If Prop 8 passes, the community has its own ineffective, overpaid, smug, spineless “leadership” to blame.
Barb:you are so right. Supreme court must respcect the Republic and it’s Constitution against a democratic vote which would subvert and destroy the constitutional guarantees for everyone. Republic gurantees that a democratic popular vote is wrong. Egual people can not vote other equal people rights away from them. This is why we have a Republic. This is theREASON THE judiciary should throw out all of these democratic falsities. THEY ARE unconstituional,. IT IS WRONG TO VOTE ON PEOPLES RIGHTS WHICH ARE GUARANTEED IN THE CONSTITUTION.
People always tout the “values”, and “goodness” of democracy – the same values that democratically elected Adolf Hitler – that fundamentally built slavery in to the founding document of our country, and the cornerstone of modern democracy.
Even with the Civil Rights advances we’ve had, ninety percent of them have come through the courts: Brown vs Board of Education, Plessy v. Ferguson, and NOT from the citizenry.
If it were left to the democracy, it would still be illegal to interracial marry, and separate but equal would be the new gold standard.
I couldn’t be more with you on this.
It’s the main reason we keep hearing from the conservatives that this issue “should be decided by the people not the courts”, or “this issue should be decided on a state level” – just like slavery was.