The forces of bigotry lose again
by David Atkins
As you no doubt know by now, the 9th Circuit has ruled against California's Proposition 8:
In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit announced its long-awaited ruling that Prop 8, approved by voters in 2008, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, in the court’s 128-page opinion, wrote that “although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.”
“All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of ‘marriage,’ which symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committed relationships,” Reinhardt wrote. “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for ‘laws of this sort.’”
The panel also rejected arguments by Prop 8 proponents that the purpose of the initiative was “to promote child rearing by biological parents, to encourage responsible procreation, to proceed with caution in social change, to protect religious liberty, or to control the education of schoolchildren.”
“Simply taking away the designation of ‘marriage,’ while leaving in place all the substantive rights and responsibilities of same-sex partners, did not do any of the things Proponents now suggest were its purposes,” the opinion says. “Proposition 8 ‘is so far removed from these particular justifications that we find it impossible to credit them.’”
Now would be a good time to remind freaked out conservatives that if it had been up to the voters to decide these sorts of civil rights issues, anti-miscegenation laws would still be on the books in many parts of the South.
Maybe Ron Paul thinks that's a good idea, but decent people don't. There's still an effort to get Prop 8 repealed by will of the voters, an act that may be necessary if the case goes to the Supreme Court and Proposition 8 is upheld. It would also be sweet to win this battle in the court of public opinion, not just the court of law.
Still, any victory against the forces of bigotry is a good one.
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