The hearing tomorrow, March 5th, on Prop. 8 in California is scheduled from 9 am PST to 12 PM at the chambers of the California State Supreme Court that is located at at 350 McAllister St. in San Francisco.
There will be a live Webcast that can be seen by clicking this link.
So far, much of what I've read by the legal pundits discussing this issue is not optimistic, save for the possible keeping intact the marriages of same-sex couples in California who have become already married. Indeed, it is possible that many of the Justices may vote "conservatively" on this issue for fear of being voted out of office.
As summarized by one article:
...if history is any indication, those seeking to overturn the ballot measure are swimming upstream.
Because Prop. 8 amended the state Constitution, opponents can no longer rely on that document's guarantees of equal treatment and personal liberty to grant gays and lesbians the right to marry.
Instead, advocates of same-sex marriage argue that Prop. 8, by withdrawing fundamental rights the court had sought to protect, assaulted the state Constitution itself. [See here.]
I'm still optimistic that the California State Supreme Court will vote to overturn the clearly discriminatory vote on Prop. 8 for the following reasons:
1. None of the justices, save the most reactionary, wish to go down in history as favoring discrimination against a minority group.
2. The justices are not likely to want their previous ruling affirming the constitutionality of same-sex marriages in California to be overridden by a tyranny of the majority.
3. The fact that we are a Democratic Republic where the Judiciary has the final say on Constitutional matters must hold prominence.
4. To allow the vote of the majority to stand regarding the civil rights and civil liberties of any one group would be tantamount to obviating the need for a Supreme Court in California to adjudicate Constitutional matters.
5. Majority vote on matters that have to do with civil rights issues are fundamentally different than such votes on tax increases and the like.
6. The ruling last May of this Supreme Court that the prevention of same-sex marriages in California was, and always was, unconstitutional must vitiate any attempt to amend or revise that Constitution in a blatant attempt to exert the will or whim of any majority at any given time as final authority in adjudicating the constitutionality of such marriages.
7. To allow the "will of the majority" to be the final authority on the civil rights of any one minority group opens up a can of worms whereby every other minority group, such as African Americans, unions, Latinos, etc., can have one or more of their civil rights removed by majority vote. Such a ruling would provide a chilling effect in both California as well as in our whole society that is unlikely to be lost on the justices when they come to a decision on this matter.
I'm not an attorney or any kind of Constitutional scholar! However, it seems blatantly clear to me that any majority vote must not and should not trump the Judiciary's interpretation of the Constitution; that interpretation in regard to the constitutionality of same-sex marriages in California was made last May.
Please remember: There will be a live Webcast of the discussions of Prop. 8 beginning at 9 am PST on Thursday, March 5th, that can be seen by clicking this link.
No comments:
Post a Comment