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Originally Posted by Bionca
The judges were very clear in making their ruling as limited and narrow as they could. They essentially (as CM said) ruled that prop 8 was implemented fairly and that no Constitutional procedures were broken.
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Bionca's nailed it and this is what everyone should remember before getting too upset, especially since THIS particular case was about legal semantics more than anything else. To echo Bionca's post, omebody doing an analysis on TV said it best and simplest: The Court was NOT deciding whether same sex marriage was constitutional. The Court was deciding was whether the WAY that Prop 8 was passed was constitutional.
And that's what they did. They ruled that the people who created Prop 8 and those that voted for it followed all the rules and -- regardless of what you think of the outcome -- California voters DO have the right to amend the state constitution. End of story.
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Originally Posted by Bionca
The court DID fairly allow the existing marriages to be grandfathered into state marriage laws - ruling that at that at that time, the contracts were legal and binding.
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Which is the interesting part since THAT will now open an all-new can of worms. Because now, with today's ruling, the California court really has created a separate class of citizens -- namely, same sex couples who are married where the state will honor their paperwork versus other same sex couples who CANNOT marry AT ALL and thus join the club. Or as someone phrased it on TV, it's as if California held a "limited time offer" sale and if you didn't take advantage of it, you're screwed. So, that's going to spur a whole new wave of discrimination lawsuits.
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Originally Posted by Bionca
The actual debate is if the majority really has the right to vote on the contractual rights of tax-paying adult citizens. We do after all live in a Democracy that understands "Tyranny of the Majority" - thus some things MUST be implemented without popular vote (one of the reasons that SSM should NOT be a "states' rights" issue.
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True -- unless you're on the opposing side. In which case taking this to a national level (and NOT letting it be settled on a case by case basis as a "states right" issue) means you feel that a Tyranny of the Minority is in effect. Which the Constitution ALSO protects against. Personally, I see this as one giant mess. I can see Bionca's argument for taking it national and saying "Look, we just have to make this fair and equal across all 50 states at once"...and yet, on the other hand, I do believe in a strict observance of our actual Constitution, drafted by our Founders, which recognized that we are not a true democracy -- we are actually a Republic, held together state by state, where elected representatives set the law so that the will of the people is enacted.
Frankly, when you stop and think about the freedoms that we have in America overall...but ALSO think about the way that our country is actually set up legislatively...and THEN factor in the sheer amount of people that live here now (all the different groups, each of whom have their own beliefs or wants)...it's sort of a miracle that in its history America has only had one civil war. I mean, seriously, it's amazing and a tribute to our Founding Fathers that the system has worked (and held together) for as long as it has.