Marin Maven

Dark Forces Try to Block Constitutional Rights

May 30, 2008

I was reading SFGATE this morning and read where conservative groups are working to stop the state from what is currently constitutional by allowing gay and lesbian to marry on June 17th. They want these couples to wait until the voters can vote for their initiative in November that would not only amend the constitution to disallow same sex marriage, but revise the constitution which is unlawful without a full constitutional convention. I urge everyone to hop over to protectmarriage.com and let them know that our marriages don’t need protecting, but our constitution does.
You can contact them with your ideas or:
Their phone number: (916) 446-5031
Their email: info@protectmarriage.com

Then go over and join Equality California like I did and work to defeat the unlawful and unconstitutional Marriage Amendment.

Posted in LGBT Rights, Marriage Equity, california politics

3 Responses to “Dark Forces Try to Block Constitutional Rights”

1. rrichard63 said:
   

   May 30th, 2008 at 9:36 am

   Can you point readers to a source for the statement that the November initiative would “revise” the constitution rather than “amend” it? This is the first time I’ve heard this argument and would like to become informed about it. Thanks!

2. marinmaven said:
   

   May 30th, 2008 at 9:55 am

   Ooops, sorry. Actually I blogged about it on May 28th “Yay for Lawyers Edition”. The article I link to is from two sources including the Log Cabin Republicans via Calitics.
   I think the reason we haven’t heard the argument before is the recent California Supreme Court ruling was huge in establishing same sex marriage as a basic right that requires strict scrutiny, which right pretty fundamental. The strong language of the ruling places all attempts to ban same sex marriage as antithetical to our constitution. A ban would require Californians to totally redo our constitution stands for.

   So “marriage protectors” are not really against same sex marriage, they are attacking our constitution.

3. rrichard63 said:
   

   May 30th, 2008 at 11:19 am

   Thanks. I confess to not having read all of your May 28 post. It starts out with a good laugh about gas prices and I thought the whole thing would be in that vein. Note: the link behind the word “unlawful” in this post is broken.

   On the article by Kevin Norte arguing that the initiative proposes a “revision” rather than an “amendment”. If making sure that all citizens have the right to marry were the only thing at stake here, I would want to find this convincing. But I don’t. I am absolutely not an attorney, but I suspect that the language about “far reaching changes in the plan of government”, etc., as interpreted by most judges, would refer to institutional arrangements (having the governor be chosen by the legislature, parliamentary style, might be one example) but not to expansion or contraction of how rights are defined. The operative words are “plan of government” and similar phrases found in Norte’s other quotes.

   Sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for. Suppose someday the California Supreme Court rules that equal protection requires that all citizens pay the same dollar amount of tax, without regard to their incomes. In response, people who feel like I do (and, I suspect, you do too) about taxation submit an initiative constitutional amendment stating that the tax system can be progressive. Would we want the flat tax folks arguing that this is a “far reaching change in the plan of government” and therefore it can’t be done by initiative?

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