The California Supreme Court have just made a gift of the Presidency to John McCain

[fpb]

And quite possibly saved the Republican Party from defeat. As the nationwide results of their usurpation of legislative power become clear (for gay activists intend to use the details of California law to start a series of cases across the nation - a crazed strategy, but they cannot admit to themselves just how unpopular their case is) the anger of the values voters at Republican corruption and contempt for them will be overwhelmed by their concern at this development. If millions of values voters were quite likely convinced to vote Shrub four years ago by the example of Massachussets (which had no nationwide significance, because Mass. law did not allow outsiders to marry against their home state laws) and of Canada, what will happen if the whole presidential campaign is dotted by assaults on state law across the country? These people ought to have waited until Obama was elected and a Democratic majority safely returned to Congress. If this decision had been passed one year hence, they would probably have Obama in the White House to turn his handsome smile on it, and a filibuster-crushing majority in both Houses. Instead, they have given any Republican who wants to seize it (I cannot speak for the Specters of this world) an opportunity to fight like a junkyard dog. They just never seem to have any sense.

Comments

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I think this case won't be nearly as useful as Goodridge was in channeling backlash in 2004. For one thing, the legislature passed a bill allowing same-sex marriage twice, and it was vetoed by Schwarzenegger specifically on the ground that they should wait until the Supreme Court had ruled—upon which the legislation would either be redundant or impossible. (And Arnold says he won't support the proposition on the ballot this fall.) Moreover, all but one of the Supreme Court justices are Republican appointees, and California judges, unlike judges in Massachusetts, are elected.

The out-of-state impact is also likely to be muted, since it seems that the only state in which there might be a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage is California itself, again in stark contrast to 2004. (The latest show that Californians are evenly split over it.) And neither Obama (who opposes same-sex marriage) nor McCain (who opposed FMA) are really poised to exploit the issue. Hence the McCain campaign's essentially no-comment comment on the decision.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Sorry, wrong on both counts. The sentence strikes down a popular initiative that had got a vast majority of votes in California, and removes from the "representatives" the task of ignoring popular will (as Arnold was clearly intending to do if it went wrong) and force "gay marriage" down the throat of his own voters anyway. And as for forthcoming initiatives, the difference is that California law, unlike Massachussets', does not contain any prohibition on offering such things to citizens of states where they are illegal. The openly declared strategy of the gay marriage party is to bring in dozens of couples from other states, "marry" them in California, and then bring in cases in the other states to force them to recognize Californian "marriage". Which will then proceed to the local supreme courts and demand equalization with California and other states. This is an assault on the principle that law is made in Congress by elected representatives or by the sovereign people themselves through referenda: its intention is to literally reverse a clear decision of the Californian electorate through a doctrine that no framer of the Californian constitution would have recognized in a million years, and to then use the deficiencies of Californian laws to force the same judicial coup on other states. It is as brutal an assault on democracy as Wade vs.Roe ever was, worse, if anything, because it is a direct insult on the will of the people. Those "republican" judges (and Arnold, who seems to have forgotten who put him there and how, shows us what Hollywood republicans are made of) ought to be impeached for their assault upon the principle of majority rule.

As for its results, do you seriously believe in polls? How often have they been correct on this sort of issue? The only poll that means anything is the kind that takes place in the ballot box; and I will remind you that in 2004, of ELEVEN-count'-em-eleven initiatives against "gay marriage", not one failed - including one in the hippy state Oregon, that makes California seem a bastion of conservatism. That is exactly why, as the New York Times said at the time - and I kept the article and will show it to you if you want - the "gay marriage" campaigners lost all hope of ever convincing a majority, and decided to change their strategy. What they changed it to is now all too clear. Of course, I have no sympathy at all for these people and ardently hope that they suffer a final defeat; but even from an opposition viewpoint, their rush to get what will beyond any reasonable doubt be a vastly unpopular judgment during an election year seems to me so misguided as to be suicidal. Could they not have waited twelve months? If the Republicans cannot get advantage from this, they are dead, and, what is more, they deserve to be.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I disagree. First of all, California has two types of ballot initiatives: statutory and constitutional. Prop 22 (passed in 2000, by the way, when attitudes toward gay marriage in California were less positive) was statutory, meaning that it left the door open to being overturned by the democratic process, either through legislation or through another initiative. (The one that may be on the ballot this November is constitutional.) In short, it's not really parallel to the Massachusetts case.

As for out-of-state recognition, that question was already mostly litigated in other states after the 2004 case, and ended with just New Mexico, New York, and Rhode Island recognizing out-of-state marriages. Given the speed of the court system and DOMA, it probably won't be a big issue this November.

IIRC, in 2006 polls showed large margins against same-sex marriage in all the states where they initiatives passed, including Oregon. (According to polling by The Oregonian/KATU, the margin was a commanding 51-40% in September.) So there's no real evidence that these polls have been incorrect historically. The question with the ballot initiative is whether Obama will draw out more African-American voters or young voters (who support same-sex marriage by a pretty big margin.)

As for hopes that this could turn California red, don't believe a word of it. I just got back to the Bay Area from university, and Obama is more popular than Jesus here. (And I mean that in the most literal sense possible.) The man has a cult of personality. It's scary.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

California is not the Bay Area, but I never said it would be turned red. To do so, all the Latinos would have to be repatriated. What I said is that the idiots are repeating the same tactical mistake they made in 2004, when I said that if I were John Kerry, I would have gone to the Canadian judges and begged on my knees to hold back on gay marriage until I had been elected. And was I wrong then?

Incidentally, about the Obama cult of personality, which I have more than perceived; some Republican commentators mentioned the likelihood of Chicago 68-type riots if Obama is not by any chance nominated. I think that violence in places such as the Bay Area is even more likely if he loses the election. These people were already talking about secession in 2004. This time we might have US Army personnel and Republicans beaten to death in the streets.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I daresay nobody had control over the timing. The cases were first litigated back when Newsom started issuing marriage licenses in the city in 2004, and the Supreme Court granted cert (or "review," as it's called in California) in 2006. It was just bad luck for them that it happened to get on the docket during an election year.

I think the secession advocates were just crazy fringe types. The SF Chronicle likes publishing them for unfathomable reasons. What they really did after the 2004 elections was to start donating money to the Democrats in reams.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And "crazy fringe types" are unlike the average San Franciscan how?

Seriously, the kind of people who contribute to the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos scare me. They live in a parallel universe. Nothing about them would surprise me - it is the kind of talk that was around in Italy in 1974 when people started organizing terrorist groups.

From today's CNA (Catholic News Agency)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Ten states petition California to delay same-sex marriages

San Francisco, June 2 (CNA).-Attorneys general from ten states on Friday asked the California Supreme Court to delay until November its ruling implementing legal same-sex marriages.

The attorneys general, all Republicans, said if the ruling is implemented on schedule on June 17, the states would be subjected to lawsuits from homosexual couples married in California who seek to have their unions recognized in their home states, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

"An inevitable result of such 'marriage tourism' will be a steep increase in litigation" over whether the couple's home state must recognize their marriage, said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who authored the brief. Shurtleff said delaying the implementation of the ruling would save other states from "premature, unnecessary, unnecessarily difficult, and therefore unduly burdensome litigation in our courts."

The attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina and South Dakota joined the brief.

Each of the ten states has legally banned the recognition of same-sex marriages contracted elsewhere. Unlike Massachusetts, where homosexual marriages have also been legalized, California allows residents of other states to marry even if the marriage would not be legal in their home state.

California voters could overturn the state Supreme Court's decision in the November 3 election with a constitutional amendment that would declare only opposite-sex marriages to be valid. Sponsors of the amendment have submitted petitions bearing 1.1 million signatures, about 400,000 more signatures than required to qualify for the state ballot.

If the amendment passes, courts will then have to decide whether California same-sex marriages contracted before November 3 were valid.