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Originally Posted by ila
According to the news reports that I have heard and read the legality of the marriages of a lot of gays are now in question. Would this be the messy court battles that you are alluding to?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocinteeni
That shouldn't be the issue because in the United States we prohibit ex-post facto laws. Meaning that any gay marriages that happened before this prop passed will still be honored.
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Well, Ila, that's part of what I was referring to, and then ocinteeni posted a great answer which is correct. The courts are expected to rule that anyone who got married
before Prop 8 passed should still have their marriages honored since the rule in law is that you can't legally grant a "right" to someone and then turn right around and take it away from them. But basically, here's where things stand...
Some of the people who backed Prop 8 -- the more moderate faction -- are willing to say: "Okay, we won and it's law now. But to be fair over a very emotional issue, we're willing to let the marriages that already took place stand. We just want it understood that
from now on there will be no more marriages. So, those of you who got it done, congrats. The rest of you, forget it."
Meanwhile, others that backed Prop 8 -- the real hard liners -- are arguing that the whole POINT of Prop 8 is that the California Supreme Court was wrong from the very beginning. That the Court over-reached when it legislated from the bench and it ruled that same-sex marriages should now be legal. So, these hard liners have an even more aggressive view: IF Prop 8 is now the law...and IF it's now the will of the people by vote...and IF the court was wrong to begin with...then why
shouldn't all of the marriages be revoked? Why should the state recognize any of them since those wedding licenses were issued on debatable legal ground to begin with?
And finally, there's the Gay community itself which is out staging large and emotional protests. Right now, they've targeted Mormon Temples as rallying points and are protesting outside them (since the Mormon Church was one of the biggest financial supporters of Prop 8). But now the more vocal activists want to expand those protests and target Catholic and Protestant churches too. They also want to target businesses and even the homes of private citizens who made donations. Their opinion is IF you backed Prop 8, then you deserve to be exposed or publicly humiliated and you deserve to have protesters outside your home or business -- all of which could turn this even angrier and uglier.
And last but not least, some -- such as Melissa Etheridge, who made the news just yesterday over this -- are out advocating that the Gay community should refuse to pay any taxes. After all, why give the government any of your money if it's going to treat you like a second class citizen? And since the economy is on such shaky grounds and since California in particular is SO broke that its actually bankrupt, they want to make their point where it will hurt the most -- in State's pocketbook. Although frankly, that's a no-win stance since Higher Courts already have a long, long, LONG track record of setting down legal rulings that as an American citizen you have every right to protest, but you still HAVE to pay your taxes no matter what.