{"id":10815,"date":"2010-08-05T12:57:55","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T19:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10815"},"modified":"2010-08-05T12:57:55","modified_gmt":"2010-08-05T19:57:55","slug":"federal-judge-in-california-rules-proposition-eight-unconsitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10815","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge In California Rules Proposition Eight Unconsitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Crossposted on Alas <\/a>and on TADA<\/a>. Arguments in against recognizing SSM legally should be taken to TADA, not posted on Alas.)<\/em><\/p>\n

1) First reaction: HELL fuzzy yes!<\/p>\n

2) As nice as this feels now, like Scott Lemieux<\/a>, I’m not optimistic about where this case is going. In the end, the Supreme Court will decide, and the Court historically tends to be a follower rather than a leader on civil rights. (For example, interracial marriages were already legal in most of the US when the Court ruled on Loving vs Virginia<\/em>).<\/p>\n

3) Speaking of the Court, Dahlia Lithwick argues persuasively<\/a> that Judge Walker wrote his opinion primarily for an audience of one person, Anthony Kennedy. The rest of us are all just sort of reading over Kennedy’s shoulder. “I count\u2014in [Walker’s] opinion today\u2014seven citations to Justice Kennedy’s 1996 opinion in Romer v. Evans (striking down an anti-gay Colorado ballot initiative) and eight citations to his 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas (striking down Texas’ gay-sodomy law).”<\/p>\n

4) Speaking of Judge Walker, right-wingers are saying<\/a> that Walker only ruled against prop 8 because he’s gay. (Walker, who was nominated to the bench by Ronald Reagan and then by George Bush sr., was at the time opposed by Democrats who believed Walker was anti-gay.)<\/p>\n

5) The award for least reality-based reaction goes, not for the first time, to Maggie Gallagher<\/a>, who predicts this result: “Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents’ views and values.”<\/p>\n

6) Speaking of stupidheads ((I’m using the term “stupidhead” in honor of my niece and nephew. Also, I don’t want to use either “douche” or “dick,” and I can’t really think of a satisfying substitute term.)) without coherent positions, President Obama is still acting like a stupidhead without a coherent position<\/a>. (Not exactly a shock, I know.)<\/p>\n

7) The cliff notes versions: A Quick And Easy Summary of Perry v. Schwarzenegger<\/a>. Or, for a more detailed nutshelling of the ruling, try Prop 8: The facts vs. the fears<\/a>. And in either case, I’d recommend reading the take on it at Hunter of Justice<\/a>, as well.<\/p>\n

8) I entirely agree with the legal basis of this ruling. The opponents of SSM marriage have failed, once again, to establish a rational basis for barring same-sex couples from equal treatment by their government.<\/p>\n

In the end, it always comes down to one question: “How will straight, married couples be harmed if same-sex couples can also marry?” And in the end, opponents of equality are unable to come up with any reasonable, fact-based answer to that question. Because they are so unable to make a reasoned argument, in the long run equality will win.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that may still be a decade or two away. And a loss in the Supreme Court at this point could push that eventually victory further down the road. I desperately <\/em>hope I’m wrong, but I think that a few years from now we’ll be wishing that this particular lawsuit hadn’t been brought.<\/p>\n

On the bright side — as Scott said, I think — even if the Supreme Court strikes this decision down, all that really means is that we’ll be doing this fight state by state, instead of in Federal courts. And that’s where we are right now, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Crossposted on Alas and on TADA. Arguments in against recognizing SSM legally should be taken to TADA, not posted on Alas.) 1) First reaction: HELL fuzzy yes! 2) As nice as this feels now, like Scott Lemieux, I’m not optimistic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,39,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-in-the-news","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}