The San Jose Mercury News, which was refusing to make a call as of two hours ago, has called Prop 8 as passing.
@CharlesS: Vance thinks he's king, but doesn't realize that he isn't even venomous?
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like a green finch, a linnet bird, a nightingale, a black bird, a ringdove, or a robinet. Not a lark:…
Freedom of Birds are dead? Well, let's hope we still have some birds who can sing while imprisoned, like a…
That would make sense! I honestly didn't give it any thought at all; I just scrolled through pictures of snakes…
Does Vance have king snake coloration? I would have expected him to be venomous.
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After an Obama victory this is truly bitter sweet. The whole idea that it was necessary to vote for equality and then see that same equality rejected is ridiculous. It is myn hope that somehow a court challenge can be raised and equality can yet again come to the state of California.
I’m sure it will someday. But it’s abhorrent that the rights have been taken away, even impermanently.
This is just horrifying. As Renee said, so bittersweet. :(
Quite a few people I know were spontaneously deciding to get married when the poll numbers started getting scary, so there’s quite a few folks with marriages begun during the last six months.
When does the amendment go into effect? Today or early next year? And if it’s early next year, who wants to put money in that the “winners” try to prevent more weddings? I remember they tried the injunction deal last year when the court decision came down.
It’s sad and it’s totally embarrassing to be a Californian.
Since almost anything now is self-declared, such as race vis a vis the census, why not have gender be as well. One of the couple could declare him/herself whatever works to let the marriage proceed. I won’t tell.
Radfem,
No one can prevent a wedding, but the amendment does pretty clearly say that only opposite-sex marriages are recognized as marriage by the state of California. Same-sex couples henceforward are not married. The only legal question remaining is whether those who thought they were getting married will now have those marriages automatically converted to domestic partnerships or if they have no status at all.
All of the talk from Prop. 8’s supporters about how this is a victory for the democratic majority’s preferences as of today, even if our grandchildren shake their heads at how stupid the majority was, reminds me of something William F. Buckley said in defense of segregation and white supremacy even where whites are the racial minority:
If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.
However, I doubt that Buckley’s followers would consider it appropriate for these concerns about what is undemocratic yet “enlightened” and “civilized” to be applied to same-sex marriage.
VJBinCT,
I had your idea in reference to a Russian mail order “groom,” but I believe that sex is marked on most U.S. identification documents (birth certificates, driver’s licenses, passports, etc.), whereas race is not, though race is ticked on other government records, such as speeding tickets. Therefore putting down the “wrong” sex would constitute fraud. I got married in New York recently and we had to bring some of those ID documents with us to get a license, so just asserting that I was a sex different from that on my IDs wouldn’t fly.
Stupid question but what happens to the people who are already married? Do they get “unmarried” by the new law? Do they get grandfathered in?
It’s not stupid, and I’ve seen people who I’d consider to be knowledgeable suggest both possibilities today. I’d like to know, too.
Eugene Volokh has a good post on that question, outlining the possibilities. He thinks that the most likely outcome is that their marriages will be legally converted to domestic partnerships.
Edited to add: While I’m add it, Volokh — who voted against proposition 8 — has written another post, suggesting that the attempt to claim that prop 8 is unconstitutional, because it revises rather than merely amending the California constitution, probably won’t succeed.
Volokh’s answer re: conversion of CA marriages to DPs seems to me the obvious one, but he neglects a point of interest to New Yorkers: Gov. Paterson says NY, though it does not have same-sex marriage itself, will recognize out-of-state SSMs as marriages. If someone got married in CA in the last 6 months and moves to NY next year, has that marriage been wholly revoked by the state such that NY also does not recognize it as a marriage, or is it only the intra-CA recognition of it as a marriage that has been revoked?