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[The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji]

I guess it'll do in the meantime. I'm just using it since it encapsulates my feelings about all the madness in the news these days- WAIT WHAT THE FUCK

After a vote in which a minority of two or three percent were denied civil equality under the law and in which many thousands of couples had their legal marriages voided, Jonah Goldberg thinks the real victims are Mormons

It’s just that Mormons are the most vulnerable of the culturally conservative religious denominations and therefore the easiest targets for an organized campaign against religious freedom of conscience.

[Brentai]

Hey, Mormons love being victimized.  Let 'em have it.  Hell, we can even define what they can and can't do in their Temples if they want.  That sort of thing is totally okay to do now.

(I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we start with "must wear pants at all times.")

[Classic]

They're protestants to protestants, the most victimized kinds of Christians.

[Fredward]

I'm pretty sure the early Christians win the award for "Most Victimized Christians". I mean, we aren't feeding the Mormons to lions, at the behest of cheering crowds.

Although...

[Koah]

They're protestants to protestants, the most victimized kinds of Christians.

Actually, the Mormons are a church entirely separate from the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches, having been formed in the wake of the great religious awakening that took place in the US during the late 18th/early 19th century.  It was started out of a general belief that everyone else was doing it wrong and that a return to what the Mormons (as well as other like-minded groups, collectively called Restorationists) considered to be "original Christianity" was entirely necessary.

Although the fact that they're not in any of the three most well-known branches of Christianity does, I suppose, result in them being singled out (or feeling singled out), and they do tend to make themselves targets with a great deal of the things they do and say.  I'd go on, but it's all and and I'm not entirely comfortable with talking about religion around here when video games aren't involved.  This aside is barely relevant to the conversation at hand as it stands.

[Brentai]

They've also got their own prophet who, in always a bad sign, has actually claimed to be a prophet.  Among other things.

I'm pretty sure the early Christians win the award for "Most Victimized Christians". I mean, we aren't feeding the Mormons to lions, at the behest of cheering crowds.

Although...

They'll tell you a different story.  Early Mormons were subjected to verbal abuse, discrimination, unlawful shutdown of their presses, a few near-Waco police attacks, general oppression and more or less an atmosphere that precipitated their mass migration to Utah, which they literally chose because nobody else wanted to fucking live there.  How much of that was actually warranted (Mormons are very... aggressive in their undertakings, then and now) is a point of considerable debate, but the facts remain: they do live out in the buttcrack of the U.S.A., they were forced there for whatever reason, and they definitely have a cultural inferiority complex that lies somewhere between the Jews and the Koreans.

[Brentai]

Aside: watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  The undertones were never very subtle, but man-oh-man does the whole thing take on a new meaning this year.

[Romosome]

Jerry Brown asks California Supreme Court to void gay-marriage ban

The state attorney general, who had earlier vowed to defend Prop. 8, offers a novel legal theory for why it should be overturned. The action surprises some legal experts.

Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles -- California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to invalidate the voter-approved ban on gay marriage, declaring that "the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification."

The issue "is whether rights secured under the state Constitution's safeguard of liberty as an 'inalienable' right may intentionally be withdrawn from a class of persons by an initiative amendment."

In an interview, Brown said he had developed his theory after weeks of consultation with the top lawyers in his office. "This analysis was not evident on the morning after the election," he said.

In an interview, Andy Pugno, the lawyer for Protect Marriage, called Brown's argument "an astonishing theory." He added that he was "disappointed to see the attorney general fail to defend the will of the voters as the law instructs him to."

Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, an expert on the state high court, said Brown's argument "turns constitutional law on its head." Uelmen said he was unaware of any case law that supported Brown's theory.

I feel like I woke up in opposite world.  What the FUCK is this?
The idea that you can't set up laws that take rights away from a specific group just because there's a majority approval is novel?  Shocking?  There's no precendence for this?  Nobody expected this argument whatsoever?  Because I thought it was not only obvious, but echoed in pretty much every fucking civil rights case in American history.

There's even precedent in laws about marriage itself.  It's 2008 and the people running our governments can't even wrap their heads around what happened with that whole "miscegenation" thing.

I'm going to go lay down.

[Cthulhu-chan]

Do not attempt to understand the reptilian thought processes of lawyers.  They are not people.

[Brentai]

I think it's the who that's throwing people off, not the "oh hey someone actually read the Bill of Rights" part.

[Romosome]

It's clear that there's a bit of "Hey, the Attorney General is saying that, wacky" and "Hey, he was defending Prop 8 a while ago", but there's just as much if not more "What a ridiculous idea!"

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Well, legally, it is weird; he's essentially suggesting a double standard for constitutional amendments, depending on the seriousness of the change. And it's not echoed in classic civil rights cases; generally speaking, your landmark civil rights cases (Brown v. Board of Education, for example) found that certain previous rulings (i.e. Plessy v. Ferguson) and laws based on them were unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. The constitution trumps everything, and the 14th amendment is part of the constitution.

What Brown is arguing here is essentially that a constitutional amendment is unconstitutional, under the constitution it's amending. That's a) unprecedented and b) ludicrous; if a constitution can't be amended in such a way to change things in the constitution, then amendments can do nothing except add new, non-contradictory law. For example, the 21st amendment would unconstitutional when it was proposed/ratified, because it was seeking to change something in the constitution - namely, the 18th amendment.

People keep confusing law with morality. Do you want to know why the law works the way it does, instead of simply being based on what's right? Because a significant portion of the United States of America thinks it's right that gay people can't marry.

[Kazz]

And that may have nothing to do with the people themselves.  It's ridiculous, of course, but that segment of people will never be convinced that gays are their equals; therefore, they will never support that they be afforded equal rights.  Even worse, I'm positive that their argument goes like this:

"Well, I don't care what they do, but I don't want my kids to grow up and believe that being gay is okay."

And of course my answer to that is "then don't have kids, you tremendous fuckwad."

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Well, my point is that one of those people might be the guy in charge of deciding what's Right.

(And your suggestion would infringe on their right to have children.)

[Brentai]

What Brown is arguing here is essentially that a constitutional amendment is unconstitutional, under the constitution it's amending.

Apparently this is what he's arguing, which is kind of silly.  It would be easier to say that the constitutional amendment is unconstitutional under the constitution that it is under, which sounds redundant but is pretty unequivocally true.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

I just had a thought: the California Supreme Court doesn't have the jurisdiction to make a ruling on grounds of federal law or U.S. constitution, do they? If I'm remembering my polysci right, it has to go through the state courts system before it can go to the federal appeals courts (and, ultimately, SCOTUS), in which case his intent may simply be to hurry up and lose so he can make an appeal on a level that can override the state constitution.

[Brentai]

I don't think he gets to appeal with a completely different argument, though.

[Kazz]

Don't you have to contend that the court mishandled the case (and not just go in saying "hey, I don't like this result") in order to appeal the decision?  Or is that just for criminal trials?

[Detonator]

I just had a thought: the California Supreme Court doesn't have the jurisdiction to make a ruling on grounds of federal law or U.S. constitution, do they? If I'm remembering my polysci right, it has to go through the state courts system before it can go to the federal appeals courts (and, ultimately, SCOTUS), in which case his intent may simply be to hurry up and lose so he can make an appeal on a level that can override the state constitution.

At this point, the California Supreme Court is much more likely to rule in favor of gay marriage than the current US Supreme Court.  That may be a few decades off.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Kazz: You're probably thinking of a mistrial, which can happen anytime something screws up the due judicial process; a mistrial just means you all have to start over again, at the beginning, from scratch. An appeal really is "I don't like this result".

Brentai: Sure, he does; he can't argue here that it's in violation of the United States constitution, because only the SCOTUS has the authority to find things unconstitutional under the United States constitution; however, if the case then goes to SCOTUS, he can make that argument.

An appeal is a new trial, plain and simple; you get a different judge, a different jury, and possibly different lawyers. "You can't change your argument" would thwart one of the basic scenarios for an appeal - namely, you realized you had a bad lawyer.

At this point, the California Supreme Court is much more likely to rule in favor of gay marriage than the current US Supreme Court.  That may be a few decades off.

Certainly true, but the California Supreme Court still needs to have some shred of legal grounds for making a ruling. The precedent that Brown's argument would set could have dire consequences for California's legislation; precedent means that the slippery slope is a very real thing in law.

I seem to recall hearing arguments to the effect that Prop 8 needs to go uncontested for exactly this reason - when the Supreme Court rules on something, it's pretty damn hard to get them to change that ruling, and so there's a theory that the best way to ensure high-level legality of gay marriage is to wait a few years until Obama's appointed a few new judges, and then challenge something to bring before the court.