The California Supreme Court voted 6 to 1 on Wednesday to review legal challenges to Proposition 8, the voter initiative that restored a ban on same-sex marriage, but refused to permit gay weddings to resume pending a final decision.
The court may hold a hearing on the lawsuits as early as March, a timetable that scholars said was swift considering the complexity and importance of the legal issues.
The court’s action, taken during a closed conference, suggested that the court wants to resolve all of the legal issues surrounding Proposition 8, including the fate of existing gay marriages, in a single ruling.
An absolutely pathetic article. There is barely any discussion of the legal issues in the case (and those only come in after the jump to the second page). Instead, it is all about sentiment, and feelings. My guess is that the reporters don’t understand, and don’t care, about the issues of separation of powers, the proper scope of judicial authority, and the proper procedures for amending the constitution in California. The implicit assumption is that the courts are the legislature of last resort.
What bothers me is that I’m afraid that most of the public has the same view.
I’ll take bets (less than a dollar each) at 6 to 1 that the California Supreme Court finds some way to reverse the decision of the voters of that state.
Whatever you think about marriage equality, this is good news for an indpendent judiciary. Let the Court do its work and then we’ll see where we go from there.
Forgive my ignorance, but how can a constitutional amendment be… unconstitutional?
Beg pardon, but Susan Russell’s comment caused me to burst out laughing. The Cal. Supreme’s an independent judiciary? Of all the things they are not, this is their not-est. To be sure, it is proper that the issue be reviewed because a powerful minority has, in America, the power at all times to drive the majority where it wants it to go. The squeaky wheel, and all that. Very well, but if the Supremes overturn the ban, then it will certainly go before the US Supremes, and the homophile culture may regret this move. On the other hand, if it goes before the US Supremes and they decide in favor of the HOmophile agenda, then the bulk of the states, which by law refuse homosexual marriage, will go up in smoke, and it may be that as a result of this furor, completely predictable, that activist courts, which have made it their business to create legislation and control culture, will get their comeuppance. This, I think most of will agree, cannot happen too soon.
But an interesting question: If the Cal Supremes strike down the ban, will this intimidate those who voted for it, as all the protesters having been trying to do, or will it make them furious that their will has twice been over-ridden? If furious enough to act, what can they do? Apparently remove the Supremes from office, is that not correct? Am I wrong in supposing that there has been a substantial and growing demographic change in Cal that is going to alter itw cultural mind set? Larry
#4, samh – when it conflicts with higher law. In this case, whatever the judges prefer. See [url=http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1039.ZO.html]Romer v. Evans[/url] (1996) wherein the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a state constitutional amendment adopted by a referendum of the people of Colorado. There, the Colorado Amendment effectively prevented local jurisdictions from treating sexual orientation (or preference) the same as race, religion or color. The Supremes held this amendment was itself discriminatory and could not stand. I predict the Cal Supremes will follow the same line of reasoning and strike down Prop. 8.
Ms. Russell, above, sees this as a good example of an “independent judiciary” – I see a tyrannical judiciary. Imagine instead if the California Legislature voted to amend the state marriage laws and allow persons of the same sex to marry one another. Then, following a challenge to that action, the state supreme court struck down the law as being inconsistent with the time-honored definition of marriage. As always, if the court rules the way you like, you favor an “independent judiciary.”
For some discussion of the Romer case – some of it pretty heated (and not all I agree with, but still important) – see the First Things symposium here:
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3945
Russels comment made me laugh too. It’s independent if the entity creating the law gets to rule on the validity of the revision overturning the law? This absolutely is not independent review by a disinterested party. The Court is reviewing its own reversal. This is nothing more than a cynical manipulation of the system.
Government, in the long run, requires the consent of the governed. If that consent cannot be won by reason or respect, a number of things are possible. One is that the governed will refuse to be governed, at least in the area concerned (we saw this in bootlegging during Prohibition). If those who govern are not perceived to be governing with wisdom and fairness, then anarchy is a possibility.
It would be more likely, however, that consent, rather than being won by persuasion, would be forced. Chairman Mao famously said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” More scripturally, Paul said that the powers that be do not bear the sword in vain. Criminal activity cannot be eliminated, but it is held in check by our police. But if the will of a great percentage of the population is thwarted by the governing authorities, those authorities may need to enforce their will by a variety of oppressive means.
Persuasion, anarchy, or oppression – which will it be?
#4… great question. I see WPS in #6 gave you his thoughts on it. His very good example, as I understood it, is where a new amendment to the state constitution is held by the US Supreme Court to violate principles inherent in the US Constitution.
But it could also happen that a state Supreme Court could also make a similar decision. In other words you wouldn’t need to go outside the document itself (the state constitution) or outside the state judiciary to make this kind of decision.
Another person asked your very legitimate question on a similar T19 thread and here is what I said:
Something somewhat analogous also happens in contract law where one provision of a contract is held to be void but the rest of the contract is upheld.
Jon, but the California did not create the “right” by looking outside the California constitution. If it does find the right of same sex marriage in federal law or the federal constitution then that is reviewable in the federal courts.
If it simply strikes down Prop 8 because it has the raw power to do so then that is something else entirely.
#10… I am not in any way commenting on the SPECIFIC arguments that the California courts used in their May 2008 decision to legalize gay marriage. These may have well been bad arguments. The May 2008 decision may have been a bad legal decision.
Further, if the California judiciary in 2009 overturns the recent referendum passed, the specific reasoning they use may also turn out to be flawed. Such a future decision if it occurs, may also be a bad legal decision.
But as I say, I was not commenting on whether the specific arguments so far used were bad arguments.
The question SamH asked (#4), which is a very reasonable one, was a GENERAL question. He was puzzled as to how it could ever make sense, just on general terms, to declare an approved amendment to a constitution “unconstitutional.” How could that be, he was asking? The amendment is already part of the constitution… by definition it CAN’T be unconstiutional! That’s what he was asking.
And that was what I was the question I was trying to answer.
True. And SamH did as a reasonable question to which you responded.
Correct me if I am wrong, but does not the Supreme Court of any state derive its existence, its authority and the limitation of its authority from the Constitution of that same state? If this is so, and unless that very same state constitution confers upon the state’s judiciary in general and its supreme court in particular the right to reject constitutional amendments as incompatible with that same constitution, by what authority can a state supreme court arrogate to itself the authority to do any such thing? Note, particularly, that in the Colorado example adduced above in #6 it was the US Supreme Court, and not the Colorado Supreme Court, that overrode the Colorado constitutional amendment as being incompatible with rights guaranteed by the US Constitution, not as being incompatible with the Colorado State Constitution.
This whole matter seems to display starkly the mental imbecility promoted by what passes for education in the United States today, and especially by the “culture of feeling” (Oprah-ization?) purveyed by the Media. Think of it: the US Supreme Court in 1871 rejects the 13th amendment (and maybe the 14th and 15th, too) based on the fact that it deprived citizens of those states in which slavery had been legal of their “right” to own and traffic in negro slavery. Is this not an absurd supposition — and, if we do suppose the absurdity, would not the Supreme Court justices who had made such a decision be immediately impeached and removed; and perhaps stigmatized as traitors for having attempted to usurp the power of “We, the people …” to govern ourselves? Suppose again, in the sadly unlikely event that an amendment to the US Constitution were to annul Roe v Wade (whether by returning authority in this matter to the several states, or by affirming the personhood of the unborn child) that the US Supreme Court were to presume to annul the amendment based on is infringing the basic “right to privacy” that their eagle-eyed predecessors first discerned in it back in the 60s, should not a similar course of events (impeachment, removal and, perhaps, hanging from the lampposts) ensue? I am not sure that I would wager on this happening (even if we remove the “hanging from the lampposts”), given the dumbing-down effects of (mis)education and the media postulated above — but if it were not to happen, then our “living constitution” would have effected our metamorphosis from a democratic republic to a judicial oligarchy, or even despotism, in which we would find ourselves ruled (or overruled) on all matters of importance or contention by a “made in the USA” ersatz version of Plato’s “guardians” or “philosopher kings?”
In the event that the California “supremes” do presume to rubbish the amendment, they ought to be removed and impeached as subveters of the law that they were sworn to defend and uphold — but I won’t hold my breath for it, and rather reflect on how people get the government and governors that they deserve “by the just judgments of God.”
Well, Dr. Tighe, the US Supreme Court did that very thing in Marbury v. Madison. It has no express power in the US Constitution to declare laws unconstitutional. Marshall just did it and got away with it.
Likewise, in California. If the Court gets away with it then it is legal. And note that the person charged with defending Prop 8 is the very Attorney General who tried to defeat it. I would say that the fix is in and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. The raw political strength simply is not there.
I think this all is over the heads of the non-legally trained. What is clear enough is that a question exists about the legitimacy of the court involved in this case to act in accord with relevant law and not its own raw will.
Moreover, there is a general feeling among the citizens that our courts are political in the worst sense. What we see, based on internal dynamics of states, is courts that consistently trend in one direction or another. In itself this calls their legitimacy into question.
Lots of baseless pessimism and cynicism here.
A constitutional amendment is constitutional only if adopted by constitutional means and subject to constitutional limits. The California Constitution distinguishes between constitutional “revisions” (substantial changes in the entire constitution) and “amendments” (less extensive changes). Voters can initiate amendments but not revisions.
Opponents of Proposition 8 seek to characterize it as a “revision.” But California Supreme Court precedent is against them on that point: it takes a fairly narrow view of what constitutes a revision. (So count me in on that bet, Fr. Rightmyer [#2].)
Opponents also argue that Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution. Under the circumstances, that is another attempt to row uphill.
BTW, the California Supreme Court has the last word on whether Prop 8 complies with the California Constitution. The amendment-versus-revision distinction presents no question of federal law on which the U.S. Supreme Court could rule.
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There’s nothing unseemly about a supreme court reviewing the validity of a constitutional amendment. That’s how we authoritatively ascertain whether the amendment received the requisite approval and complies with any applicable limitations on its content.
Here’s a simple example. Under the U.S. Constitution, “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” If Congress proposed and the states ratified an amendment allowing the smallest states only one senator, those states could challenge the amendment in court—and have it held unconstitutional.
What usually happens with these court rulings (pick any state, any issue) is that these courts find that the Legislature didn’t know anything about the issue when voting to put the issue before the voters and the voters are too stupid to understand what they voted on.
FlaAnglican [#17]: Please give us a few examples.
The outcome of the Presidential election is what it is, but I appreciated during the final debate Sen. McCain noting that he voted for Supreme Court justices appointed during the Clinton administration because they were qualified, though he disagreed with them on political issues; I am concerned that the Senate (including Pres-elect Obama) have over the years decided it is their duty or right (or something) to vote for or against justices based on their politics, rather than their legal qualifications. That, it seems to me, is what drives the partisan judiciary (both liberal and, in a few instances, conservative) which we all suffer and which the issue in this article highlights.
#18: “[url=http://www.districtadministration.com/newssummary.aspx?postid=50733]Florida State Supreme Court Axes Three Key Amendments[/url]”.
Of course, in these instances, they were removed from the ballot BEFORE the electorate had a chance to vote on them. But the effect is the same, they ruled that the Legislature put forth bad amendments and that the voters would be too confused.
Here’s one from Washington State, making my point exactly: [url=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/108131_eyman11.shtml]Initiative 776 overturned[/url]
“A judge yesterday declared car-tax-cutting Initiative 776 unconstitutional and unenforceable — finding, in effect, that sponsor Tim Eyman still hasn’t learned how to write an anti-tax initiative without overreaching.”
[5] [i]Larry Morse[/i] and [7] [i]Br. Michael[/i],
Upon reading Ms. Russel’s comment at [3], I believe that, were I still a resident of California, I would be inclined to go along with the second part of her suggestion, namely [blockquote] (l)et the Court do its work and then we’ll see where we go from there. [/blockquote] Now, if both of you gentlemen are correct in your assessment of the court’s intended actions, I would also suggest where we should then go. One of us could go to a purveyor of building supplies to obtain the bitumens and a means of safely warming it to a liquid state, another to wherever one goes to obtain down from fowl, and the third to an ironmonger to locate a short length of disused railway track. We should subsequently convene in Sacramento, along with those of our friends and acquaintances who are moved to participate, and treat the good justices to a “bath” and a ride just beyond the precincts of the capital city of California.
Even as a former resident of California, I might well be tempted to paricipate in such a satisfying diversion. 😉
Blessings and regards,
Martial Artist
FlaAnglican [#20]: The article you cite does not make clear the legal context in which the Florida Supreme Court acted, so I did some quick research of my own on a couple of the amendments.
The school voucher amendments were proposed not by the legislature but by the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission. The commission has authority to propose constitutional amendments dealing with the tax and budgetary process. The Florida Supreme Court held that this authority “does not extend to a subject solely because the State will expend funds on that subject or because it could affect the State’s expenditures.” Ford v. Browning, 2008 Fla. Lexis 1619. The court’s decision seems straightforward.
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The court rejected another amendment proposed by the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission failed because the commission’s summary of it (the description that would appear on the ballot) misrepresented its substance: it “incorrectly gave the impression that every year that school districts did not levy an ad valorem tax they would receive equivalent revenues from the State, when in fact that had only been established for one fiscal year.” Florida Department of State v. Slough, 2008 Fla. Lexis 1625.
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Here’s one other “confusing the voters” point:
Like many state constitutions, the Florida Constitution specifies that constitutional amendments may deal only with a “single subject.” If you want to make changes dealing with two subjects, you need two amendments. Consider the case of a proposed constitutional amendment that would (1) cut taxes and (2) limit parking outside house churches. These are separate issues and voters should be able to vote on them separately, without having the tax cuts used as bait to hobble house churches.
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Radical PC folk argue that the whole notion of a “rule of law” is illusory—that everything is political. If we cynically assert that these constitutional amendment decisions are purely political, when they are not, then we inadvertently play into the PC radicals’ hands.
FlaAnglican [#21]: Sounds like your Washington case involved a straightforward violation of the requirement that each initiative proposal deal with a “single subject”:
[blockquote] [The trial court judge] said the initiative “seeks to achieve two unrelated purposes” — to set license fees at $30 and to encourage a public revote on Sound Transit’s light rail program. By tying the proposals together,” [the initiative] “forced voters into a Hobson’s choice of having to vote for both or against both. [/blockquote]
This seems straightforward. The state constitution prohibits stuffing multiple subjects into the same proposal (see #23). The court enforced that prohibition. And the prohibition makes sense.
A few things to keep in mind.
1. The May court decision inventing the constitutional “right” to same-sex marriage was by a 4-3 vote. That means that going into this review, 3 judges do not believe that any constitutional right is at stake, hence I would find it very difficult to imagine that they could find Proposition 8 to be a revision.
2. The LA Times is right, I think, in guessing that Moreno, by calling for a stay on Proposition 8, has likely tipped his hand and that he is likely to vote against Proposition 8. This isn’t certain though, as Moreno could simply be wanting to allow as many same-sex marriages as possible to happen before they are officially stopped.
3. The LA Times understates, I think, the significance of Kennard’s vote AGAINST hearing these challenges. Although she may be a “generally reliable supporter of gay rights”, the fact of the matter is that a vote against hearing the challenges represents Kennard’s view AT THIS TIME, that she does not believe that the challenges have merit. If she thought they DID have merit, she would have voted to hear the challenges. Note that Kennard was one of the 4 liberal activist judges in the majority in May.
4. So, as I see it, you’ve got 3 judges who would already be inclined to support Proposition 8, and one additional judge from the previous majority, who seems to be inclined at this time to uphold Proposition 8. Which means that the challengers would need to sway one of these 4 over to their side. Given the strong precedent which supports upholding Proposition 8, this should be a tall order.
5. It would be extremely risky for the court to make such a wide-reaching decision as to declare Proposition 8 to be a consitutional revision, because they had already been asked this same question BEFORE the election and had declined to invalidate Proposition 8 as a ballot measure. Now after $75 million was spent, they will make this declaration?!?!?!? Pardon me, but if this is the case, the big donors to Propositon 8 should launch a class action suit against the California Supreme Court.
6. Overturning Proposition 8 would represent a drastic break with previous precedent, and would put into serious question any future constitutional amendments. Basically, it would usher in a new era in which the courts would have to “pre-approve” any potential constitutional amendments before they were put on the ballot. This, in itself, would be a serious “revision” to the California constitution as it would significantly alter the balance/separation of powers. Note that in the Romer case from Colorado, the initiative that passed removed certain specified human rights protections from a specifically defined group (I believe it prevented Colorado governments from prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation”). The Proposition 8 battle is a very different game, in that it deals with the fundamental definition of marriage. Part of the problem in the Proposition 8 fight (as with most of the same-sex marriage litigation) is the conflation of the two questions (a) what is the fundamental definition of marriage? and (b) given the definition in (a), is it discriminatory to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying? The courts have typically not seriously engaged question a, and instead assumed a certain contractual definition of marriage (as being essentially a long-term adult sexual contract), and so have deemed it discriminatory not to allow any adult who wishes to enter into long-term sexual contracts with each other. Proposition 8, however, is voiding that REDEFINITION of marriage, and pulling it back to being not only an adult sexual contract, but also a social institution key to the propagation of society (which REQUIRES as a biological necessity, opposite sex mates, and thus is NOT discriminatory).
7. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what the law says, or what case precedent says. It matters what the judges want, and what the judges think they can get away with (for those of you not involved in the law profession, this is the dirty secret of the “rule of law”). We know that 4 of the 3 judges wanted gay marriage, so they invented that right in May. The question now is how badly do they want gay marriage, and do they think they can get away with poking the California public in the eye twice AND making two extremely far-reaching judicial decisions all in the space of one year? To do so would irreparably harm their credibility with a significant number Californians and could spark a serious recall campaign.
A friend of mine brought up an interesting possibility. If you read the original decision by which the California Supreme Court overturned Prop 22 — you can find it here — it says, on page 119 when considering the remedy:
In other words, the court saw that there were two remedies available to them: to extend the right to marry, rather than get civil unions, to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples… or to make everyone, same-sex and opposite-sex alike, get civil unions rather than marriages. They chose the first, because it seemed more reasonable.
But the language of Prop 8 is not incompatible with the second remedy under consideration — if the CA Supremes were to decide that nobody gets married, everyone gets civil-unionized, then clearly it makes no difference how the constitution defines marriage. And since they already ruled that there were two available remedies, and one of them has now been blocked by Prop 8, it seems logical that they would go to the other remedy.
It’s possible that the Prop 8 supporters have shot themselves in the foot with this one.
Ross: First of all, the remedy mentioned assumes the constitutional requirement for same-sex marriage. That is now in doubt. The remedy you quote is common – if a benefit is being offered and the court believes it is being offered in a constitutionally discriminatory fashion, they have two choices – to kill the benefit or require it to be offered widely. But there is a third choice, and that is to change the constitution.
Second of all, if the court did adopt your suggestion, I think that it would not be Proposition 8 supporters who were “shot in the foot” but rather the California Supreme Court and liberals all over the country. Think about it.
If 8 is overturned by the Supremes, and you were one of those who voted for it, and you knew you were in the majority, what would you do? Would you simply accept the ruling or would you get bitterly angry., not only because you were having forced down your throat that which you will not swallow, but also because the vote of the majority has become meaningless? Generally, you and I simply accept a vote; we admit defeat and say that there will come another day. Democracies cannot run without this level of self -restraint.
But there has been no self restraint shown by the left here; the very reverse. What therefore would you do? Would you undertake to recall the Supremes (if that can be done)? Would you go after the attorney general? Or would you take to the streets in serious protest and attempt to escalate it into a serious social challenge?
LM
No matter how you slice it, we have a nation about evenly divided about what constitutes normal.
I used to live in California (1969-1990) and I recall periodic elections, every 7 years or so, where the Supreme Court justices were either confirmed to or removed from office. Rose Bird and 2 or 3 others were removed after a considerable flap regarding the death penalty. Is this still the procedure?
AngloIrish [#30]: After a judge is appointed to the California Supreme Court, voters decide at the next general election whether to “retain” the judge in office. A judge who lose this vote is out. The same question comes before the voters every 12 years thereafter.
In 1986, 4 of 7 judges were up for retention. Voters defeated 3 of them.
#24, I’m sure you can nitpick any case I present to you but my general assertion remains. If Prop 8 is overturned, the reason given by the court is likely to be somewhere along the lines that the Legislature improperly put it before the voters because it violates some such clause somewhere and they should have known better. And these voters, why they’re neanderthals. They should know better in this enlightened 21st century world. All written up in legal-speak.
Just something random that i found on the Internet. And again just reminded me of this discussion.
writes Kathleen Parker:
the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
33, fine we will go elsewhwere or not vote.
Comment deleted – please be careful that comments do not become ad hominem – Elf
FlaAnglican [#32]: In each of your examples the court enforces reasonable rules in a straightforward way. In none of them does the court treat the voters as neanderthals.
I trust you’d agree that there’s something wrong with asking voters to cast a single up or down vote on a ballot proposition that would both cut taxes and limit parking outside house churches. That’s why the law limits each proposition to a single subject.
deaconmark: Great point, because you know that something as extreme as an initiative reversing the May court decision mandating same-sex marriage in one of our nation’s most liberal states would never, NEVER pass.
[i] I’ll take bets (less than a dollar each) at 6 to 1 that the California Supreme Court finds some way to reverse the decision of the voters of that state [/i] —#2
I’m in for the full 99¢. Please make your $5.94 check payable to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund.
Irenaeus, let them do that, and they’ll be shoved off the bench when they come up for reelection.
One of the big problems here is the California Constitution itself, which makes this absurd distinction between ‘revision’ (something which affects the whole constitution) and ‘amendment’ (something which changes only a part.) A change is a change is a a change – whether it is ‘major’ is totally in the eye of the beholder. There is no way to define major vs minor rigorously. I had chicken for dinner last night, which in my view wasn’t a major change in my diet, but I suspect the hen house thinks otherwise.
If the Court rules this is a (major) revision, then what was it’s decision last spring – major or minor? Should that have required more than a 4-3 court majority?
By the way, I encourage conservatives not to be discouraged if the Court does overturn 8. I hope it does so. The truth is that a ton of Democrats voted for 8, and they deserve to feel the effects of judicial activism that doesn’t go their way. Then they might ‘get it’ the next time a Republican starts talking about legislation from the bench.
The Court will overturn 8, I am certain of it. All the ‘wrong’ people are for it, and all the ‘right’ people against, the script has already been written about how this would be no usurpation of democracy, but saving it from those horrible Christianist bigots who really shouldn’t have a public voice anyway. Elite opinion in CA is all against 8, and the court is going to demonstrate that elite opinion has the say, not any majority of citizens. I hope I am wrong, but my gut tells me that the court is going to nullify the decision. It’s the spirit of the times.
I doubt there will be any immediate fallout – though I don’t doubt the attacks against Christians and Mormons will continue – but this will be an important further step in the unraveling of society. I believe that more and more of the citizenry are beginning to lose faith in the institutions of society, and that a few years down the road – especially as more activism continues to remake society into something even more alien to Judeo-Christian culture (and more abominable to) – significant fractions of the citizenry will start withdrawing their allegiance to society and its institutions. And in response, the soft despotism that is hatching will become harder and more obvious.
Save you a seat in catacombs?
#29: No, normal is what is always has been and still is. It is statistical, and nothing has changed. The bell curve will remain what it always has been and homosexuality will remain a radical abnormality, not because I say so but because statistical distribution makes it a simple fact. LM
And #42, I think they will not, regardless of their agendas. They will think about the significance, both in California and the rest of the US, if they killed the voice of the people twice in a row. There is an enormity in this that will give even them pause. they will surely think this, that if the people speak yet AGAIN on this subject, the results will land entirely in the Supremes lap, for the next voice may be so much louder than the first two. This is not an issue in which people are likely to say, “Ah well, we tried and we lost.” When you cut this issue, it bleeds real blood. So there’s my vote Irenaeus.
Incidentally, deaconmark, in my small way, i hear in Maine what the Republican intelligensia – if I may use that word – are saying, and what they are saying is not that the party is being controlled by fascists – the armbands, in that lovely quote – but tht this election will do Republicans an enormous favor be forcing to rethink old positions, find new ideas. They aren’t in a stew over the fascist right – though we have one, to be sure. Larry
Larry
Aclarification for flaanglican. Prop 8 was generated by petition, not by the legislature.
Irenaeus’ excellent summary in #16 is confirmed by Prof. Liu in the article I previously posted.
#43 Reality is voted on these days. Politics creates its own reality. We are not now at 47 posts because we are dealing with something unreal.
This Nation is evenly divided about what is normal and will vote it out. Statistics and bell curves have no impact on political will and its cultural fallout. Truly, we live in a Nation that has radical disagreements about what is culturally foundational.
What a joke. There are not “two sides” to this issue. There is just a right and a wrong. We have been brainwashed into thinking that there are two sides, and it just depends on which side you are on…
Rubbish! John says we are either Children of God, or Children of the devil. This whole debate about marriage is stupid. Only a man and a woman can marry. Any other concept is just wrong.
bl
Albany, if the people vote it – normality? – out, then it will no longer be normal because the bell curve will continue to represent what constitutes a majority. Is it normal to favor ssm? If we gather sufficient information, the distribution will tell us what normal is in this matter. So much for social issues; they shift, but the definition of normal doesn’t. About more permanent distributions, national opinion will not alter normal either. We may not pay attention to this curve at this moment, but eventually we must because the data base and its distribution will remain constant. Try to imagine social attitudes altering the law of averages. We may try and by coercion of one sort or another, cause some local change, but we will not change human behavior until we change humans themselves. (But then, see the biotech entry above) LM
Larry,
My point is that it is abstract to speak of statistical normal when what is at stake is cultural normal. Of course, number are what they are. But thats not what the fight is about.
#48 You are misunderstanding me. Perhaps I need to be clearer. I have tried to be above.
#50. Cultural normal and statistical normal are the same thing, because they are decided the same way. People will always fall into the bell curve. If cultural norms are changing, so will the curve. To be sure, no one looks at the curve and then alters his beliefs to match it,
What is today’s view of ssm? It will yield a bell curve. Should it be predictive? Not in cultural matters probably, but, like polls, it may well be used that way, and it may be of some use in that matter, after all. LM