Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Incoherent Decision

Understanding Californians is difficult sometimes, impossible at other times, even if you live here. Understanding California court decisions, well...

The California Supreme Court upheld our right to amend our state constitution. Cool, I get that. It said we can do so with a mere 50% (+1) of the popular vote. That seems a little bit like a stupid law to me but okay, it's the law, I get that too. So Prop 8 passed and gays cannot marry in the most progressive state in our nation. That sucks, but it's how people voted.

The California Supreme Court also said that gays who got married before Prop 8 passed were still okay; that their marriages were still valid. I applaud that, but it would only make sense if Prop 8 were written to the effect that gays cannot get married. Prop 8, however, is written to say that gays cannot be married; that the state of marriage cannot exist for them.

Prop 8, which the people of California stupidly passed, reads "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

So the California Supreme Court ruling is utterly incoherent.

Not only are the 18,000 marriages preceding passage of Prop 8 invalid on the basis of that wording, but any gay couple getting married in a truly progressive state such as, say, Iowa and moving to California would be specifically not recognized as married here. How chaotic is that?

1 comment:

  1. What the Cal Supreme Court upheld was the ability of the populace to amend the state constitution. They wer careful to specifically say that they were not judging the social issues behind that, so this was a narrow ruling. I read it and it seems (to me) to be appropriate re: the amending part.

    I can understand the issue of the existing gay marriages being valid - they were performed during the period they were legal. There was nothing in Prop 8 about retoractively denying them (although I'm sure the proponents would have preferred that). If they held that gay cannot BE married, like Jayhawk said, then yes, they could have been ruled null and void.

    I tend to agree with Jayhawk that this is an inconsistent (incoherent?) ruling, serving to only confuse the issue. What exactly does that do to a couple married in Iowa and moving to California? Are they legal or not?

    We have not seen the end of this. I have always thought that it would take a US Supreme Court and/or a national legislative action to bring cohesiveness to this issue on a national level, ie: applied to all states. It may yet come to pass. Stay tuned..

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