In their outreach to blacks, Latino, Asians and other minority voters, the conservative operatives behind Proposition 8 neglected to mention a key aspect of the initiative that could contribute to rolling back minority rights for years to come.
Prop 8 stripped gays of the right to marry with 52 percent support — less than is required to approve bond measures.
Prop 8 not only rendered quaint the California Constitution’s equal protection clause — a foundational precept that instructs the state to protect the rights of all citizens equally — it also rescinded the right to marry for California gays. This sets it apart from other states’ anti-gay marriage amendments because it establishes a precedent for conservative efforts to curb minority rights using ballot initiatives and by other means:
California’s gay marriage ban could open the door to legal discrimination against unpopular groups if the state Supreme Court allows the voter-approved measure to stand, blacks, Latinos, Asians and other minorities said…
Legal scholars say the measure, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, breaks new ground by limiting the courts’ ability to protect minorities.
“They could take away any right from any group,” said University of Southern California Law Professor David Cruz, who filed a brief in favor of gay marriage in an earlier case.
The ban … amended the constitution with 52 percent support — less than is required to approve some state bond measures.
“The entire purpose behind the constitutional principle of equal protection would be subverted if the constitutional protection of unpopular minorities were subject to simple majority rule,” read a brief by black, Asian and Hispanic groups challenging the ban. “This case is not simply about gay and lesbian equality.”
Despite the peril it presents to American social justice, legal experts say that the California Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn the amendment because it was passed within the parameters of existing law.
- Topic: News & Comment
- Topics: Congress
Okay? That’s the point that everyone failed to drive home during this election! Folks who weren’t cuaght up with labeling the idiot fearmongering right, were a little too caugt up in celebrating the strides made toward affirming gay marriage in California to reach out to voters, gay and straight, with the gospel of expanding of the definition of family beyond the current limit, and the admonition of how voting to uphold Prop 8 now could come back to bite other groups in the butt later. After all, if the ruling majority can vote to limit the rights and liberties of one smaller targeted to group now, what’s to stop that mob from ruling against them all to conserve their base of social control later?
Women’s rights are easily the next target. Consider the law Bush signed recently that health care workers did not have to perform any duty that threatened their religious beliefs? The domino theory is alive and well.
What? Prop 8 said nothing about voiding equal protection just that California can’t give marriage licenses to anybody but a man and a woman.
It didn’t say California had to give marriage licenses to man/woman couples just that if it did that was the only people who they could give them to.
The California State Supreme Court has ruled that allowing marriage only for opposite-sex couples violates equal protection.
Not allowing marriage at all IS equal protection. So the only constitutional thing for California to do is abolish all marriage.
No one said Prop 8 instructs California to void equal protection. Its existence as an amendment to the constitution voids equal protection because it sets aside marriage as an exclusive right for heterosexuals, which voids the protection of that right for gays.
The justices apparently see this as okay, however.