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[Romosome]

Ok, I see it now.  I thought he was simply proposing that this shit was, you know, unconstitutional under the federal constitution, not whatever dumb archaic crap passes for our state constitution.

[TA]

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.

Not quite.  The problem with the Prop 8 amendment, and why this is a legitimate argument that's also almost completely devoid of precedent, is that it's adding contradictory material to the state constitution, which is thus unconstitutional.  The 21st Amendment, and the rest of the federal amendments, have repealed or overwritten the parts of the Constitution that they conflicted with.

In Re Marriages was based on California's equivalent of the 14th Amendment, so to change the California constitution, you'd have to amend their equivalent of the 14th Amendment.  Something like "Except for the matter of marriage, in as much as it is hereby defined as being between one man and one woman, <equal protection>."  This didn't do that.  This kept their equal protection amendment exactly as it was, with the language on which the case was decided exactly as it's been, and then added stuff later that contradicted it.  It'd be like passing an "It's okay to enslave illegal immigrants" amendment without altering the 13th Amendment, and it doesn't fly.

Prop 8 was a clusterfuck, thrown together by idiots who put dogma ahead of jurisprudence.  This is far from the only procedural problem with it, and they're all grounds to throw it out.

[TA]

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.

Pretty much this.  Any matter brought before the current Supreme Court needs to be a matter that the Pope doesn't have an opinion on, because if he does, the five Catholics will rule lockstep in accordance with that geriatric ex-Nazi, even if they have to defy all legal precedent and basic reasoning to do so.  Just look at Gonzales v. Carhart.

Until either Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts, or Kennedy gets booted off, equal rights in marriage are dead in the water, as far as the US Constitution is concerned.

[Mongrel]

But judges are supposed to be impartial otherwise the whole idea behind their role is a failure, right? 

[TA]

Whenever religion shows its ugly face in government, it rapidly fucks things up.  Catholicism especially.

[François]

Whenever government shows its ugly face in religion, it rapidly fucks things up. Monarchy especially.

[Thad]

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.

We may not have a liberal majority on the Supreme Court during the Obama Administration.

Ages of the current Justices:

Stevens: 88
Ginsberg: 75
Scalia: 72
Kennedy: 72
Breyer: 70
Souter: 69
Thomas: 60
Alito: 58
Roberts: 53

Rehnquist died at 80, O'Connor retired at 75.  As for other justices who've retired in the past couple of decades, Blackmun was 85, White was 76, Marshall was a few days shy of his 83rd birthday, Brennan was 84, and Powell was 79.

Lots of justices stick around until after they're 80 -- while it's possible that Kennedy or Scalia may retire before that age, it's not certain by any means.  It's very unlikely that either of them will retire during Obama's first term, and it's pretty damn early to be talking about whether he'll have a second.

And barring something very unexpected, Thomas and Alito won't be leaving during Obama's administration OR his successor's, and Roberts later still.

Obama's certainly going to be nominating Stevens's replacement, and probably Ginsberg's, but there's no guarantee anyone else's seat will open during his administration.  Kennedy and Scalia may stick it out longer than Souter or Breyer simply for strategic reasons -- let's not kid ourselves and say Stevens is still on the court for any reason besides waiting until Bush is out of office.

[The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji]

Some jerk at my office decided to turn the email service into a soapbox. The moving transcript goes something like...

Do you know what happened this week back in 1850, 158 years ago?

             California became a state.
             The State had no electricity.
             The State had no money.
             Almost everyone spoke Spanish.
             There were gunfights in the streets.
               So basically, it was just like California today....
                 Except  the men didn't hold hands.

Why is it that all the homophobic sentiment seems to be about the proverbial "two gay guys?" It looks like when two women are involved, the response seems to go from "Ya damn gheys!" to "Oh, hotness!"

I'd protest this sooner if it weren't for the sender being one of our sales reps, i.e. the guys who are responsible for our having work in the first place...

[Royal☭]

You know that the federal government protects your right not to have to work in an awful work environment, right?


PS Your sales rep just sent you primo material to get him fired.

[Büge]

And it's timestamped and everything.

[Dooly]

Also, he probably sent it to a large group of employees, if not the entire company, so those wheels should already be turning right now.

[The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji]

Also, he probably sent it to a large group of employees, if not the entire company, so those wheels should already be turning right now.

It was sent to everyone with an email address at the company, so I'd think and hope so. Unless I'm the only one who isn't conservative and/or Mormon, which I doubt with all the younger staff in Tech Support.

What's got me more worried is that if he's anything like my dad, he'll pull some bullshit about defending this kind of thing as "free speech" or whatever.

[Royal☭]

Free speech isn't allowed on company e-mail addresses.

[Brentai]

The company basically gets in trouble if they don't fuck him.

I've always felt a little uncomfortable about that but it is sort of necessary to get through the legal jumble of trying to tell people that the workplace is not the proper type of environment to say that sort of thing.  Because otherwise the company would get in trouble if they decided for themselves that it was inappropriate and took action.

Free speech makes my head hurt sometimes.

[Royal☭]

It's actually mostly a top down kind of protection.  The lower level workers have a legal recourse from things like sexual harassment or discrimination with a threat of termination if they dislike it.  But it's also handy to protect people from their fellow workers who don't know limits.

[sei]

Eh.

[Transportation]

Eh.

In addition to that being incredibly old. I'm going to assume your post is in reference to

The proposition was trailing among white voters, but was ahead among black voters. Latino voters were closely divided.

As opposed to the stronger correlation

Voters older than 65 voted mostly for the proposition, while those in the 18-29 range voted against it.

Please see here:
538 on Prop 8 Myths.

In short, the Baby Boomers/Greatest Generation need to hurry up and die so social progress can actually get somewhere. Unless the younger generations decide to Weimar Republic on us or something equally unexpected.

[TA]

Fucking goddamn finally, California is trying to strip marriage from the law entirely, instead providing domestic partnerships for all couples regardless of orientation..

[The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji]

So, someone wants to get rid of marriage itself and slap another name on it?

...FINE BY ME

I've always thought that this whole "traditional marriage" BS was endorsement of a religion by the state and a violation of the First Amendment, anyway.

[Büge]

Congratulations, New Hampshire!