Clamour Underbridge

Reflections on California's Proposition 8

I've been reading about Prop 8 and I'm not sure what I think. 

How does this effect Kentucky?  Not at all.  Kentucky has one of the most bigoted and regressive marriage laws in the nation.  In 2004 Kentucky voters decided to reserve marriage and any other "legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage" to heterosexual couples.  California still has domestic partnerships that are substantially equivalent to marriage.

Can the California Supreme Court's decision be appealed?  Yes and no.  It cannot be appealed under the constitution of the state of California.  It can be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

What about the same-sex couples that are already married in California?  They're still married.  The California Supreme Court ruled that the ban approved by voters was not retroactive and marriages performed before the proposition was approved by voters are valid. 

Are same sex couples that got married in California or get married in Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Iowa or Vermont still married if they move to Kentucky?  No.  They are not.  Even though the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution of the United States clearly states "acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the US" the US Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 to specifically exempt states from their responsibility to recognize marriages performed in other states if the persons getting married are of the same sex.  States are still required to accept marriages of opposite sex couples of different races or religions even though many states have laws that specifically make those types of marriages illegal.  DOMA is unconstitutional on its face but has never been appealed to the Supreme Court.  President Obama has also decided to renege on his campaign promise to ask Congress to repeal DOMA.

Does this mean that all civil rights are subject to popular vote?  No.  Other unpopular minorities in the United States are protected by the due process clause of the United States Constitution.  Due Process has, however, been attacked by Justices Scalia and Thomas.  The possibility exists that as public opinion waxes and wanes on the acceptability and unacceptability of identifiable groups that they could also lose their civil rights in a popular vote without recourse to the courts.  One wonders how, for example, separate but equal and other odious ways of enacting racial segregation would have been overturned without due process protection since segregation was a popular practice and received overwhelming majority votes in its time.

NOM just can't take the heat and it scares them

My sainted mother always said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."  And then she'd throw something at me because, well, you have to do things to get my attention and my mom was a woman accustomed to being heeded.  Meanwhile, back at my point if groups like the Camp Meeting Association (Ocean Grove, New Jersey) and the North Coast Women's Care Medical Group (San Diego, California) want to offer a public service and take public payment then they are required to abide by the non-discrimination laws and everyone's right to access a public accommodation. 

But then that wouldn't be news worthy and juicy, would it?  So now you have you to go see the "Gathering Storm" commercial from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to really get a flavor of the issue.  Browse to your favorite search engine and check it out.  I'll wait.  OK.  Isn't it creepy?  Yeah, I thought so too.  It's also a pack of lies but, hey, NOM must protect, uh, something, doctors and children and churches or something.  Wait, oh yeah, straight-people-only marriage. 

The things that scares NOM is that gay Americans (and lesbians and bisexuals and transgender folk and queer Americans and all those other Americans) get to be citizens of the US even though NOM really, really doesn't approve.  See how we're right back to the kitchen thing.  NOM  has deluded itself into thinking it owns the kitchen.  NOM only wants the right people to have rights. And by "right" people they mean Christians and not just any Christian but just those with the right kinds of beliefs and practices.  Usually that included "practicing" on other people.  Fortunately, it just doesn't work that way.  We're all in the kitchen together and if NOM can't stand the heat then they need to go back to their churches (or whatever) and hate freely and without hindrance.  Westboro Baptist does it all the time.  There's a role model for you.  We'll all free to believe as we please but out in the harsh glare of the public domain all Americans get to be citizens whether NOM likes it or not. 

Here's how it works.  If you're a non-profit organization and you rent out your pavilion on the Jersey shore for dog shows, concerts and graduation parties then you have to rent it out to lesbians that want to have a commitment ceremony too.  Did you notice a church being punished?  No, neither did I.  NOM is lying to you.  Then there's the "punished" doctor.  If you're the Women's Care Medical Group and you treat women, left, right and center then you don't get to say, "oops, sorry, we don't treat lesbians."  It doesn't work that way and we're all pretty happy about that.  And then we have that Massachusetts parent that fears her son will learn that gay marriage is OK.  Well, guess what?  Gay marriage is OK in Massachusetts as is interfaith marriage, interracial marriage and civil marriage.  Civil marriage is a civil issue and your faith doesn't get to dictate which civil rights other people get.