How You Know It’s NOT Over
This post was submitted by Regan, a law student living in D.C. who grew up on a beach in California and constantly finds himself wondering why he left.
On Friday, Michael Dyer commented on the lack of a conservative reaction against the California Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.
While the reaction to the court’s ruling may not have been the swift national outcry we’ve seen in the past, we are starting to see some of the same old reactions brought by the same old people. And it’s not pretty.
Commenter Eleanor pointed out that House Republicans introduced a Constitutional Amendment, the Marriage Protection Amendment, to ban same-sex marriage and stop the “assault on the Judeo-Christian values of America.”
New York Governor David Paterson is going to be sued by an Arizona-based Christian group over his directive to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of New York.
The New York Times reported that the attorneys general from 10 different states have asked the California Supreme Court to stay its decision and postpone issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until after the November election. And, surprise, the initiative to ban same-sex marriages in California qualified for the November ballot.
The response from the attorneys general is especially interesting. Their argument goes something like this: couples flock from around the country for a quickie marriage in Cali-Vegas, which has no residency requirements. They return home and “demand equality in everything from tax-filing status to testimonial privileges in civil suits” (how dare they). Pandemonium ensues. The California court can avoid this by staying their decision and allowing the California voters to restore sanity to the world. The end.
Seriously, though, this argument is so noteworthy because it emphasizes the importance and potential widespread impact of the California decision. Namely, the California decision has real potential to have national legal impacts. People will go to California to get married (though likely not in the droves conservatives claim), they will return to their home states, and they will file lawsuits challenging their states’ refusal to recognize their marriage. While the California court ruling itself, which was based on the California state constitution, can’t be argued in federal court, a challenge in another state based on a California-performed marriage likely will eventually end up in a federal court. And it really seems to be only a matter of time before we see it at the Supreme Court.
This fight is long from over.
While the reaction to the court’s ruling may not have been the swift national outcry we’ve seen in the past, we are starting to see some of the same old reactions brought by the same old people. And it’s not pretty.
Commenter Eleanor pointed out that House Republicans introduced a Constitutional Amendment, the Marriage Protection Amendment, to ban same-sex marriage and stop the “assault on the Judeo-Christian values of America.”
New York Governor David Paterson is going to be sued by an Arizona-based Christian group over his directive to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of New York.
The New York Times reported that the attorneys general from 10 different states have asked the California Supreme Court to stay its decision and postpone issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until after the November election. And, surprise, the initiative to ban same-sex marriages in California qualified for the November ballot.
The response from the attorneys general is especially interesting. Their argument goes something like this: couples flock from around the country for a quickie marriage in Cali-Vegas, which has no residency requirements. They return home and “demand equality in everything from tax-filing status to testimonial privileges in civil suits” (how dare they). Pandemonium ensues. The California court can avoid this by staying their decision and allowing the California voters to restore sanity to the world. The end.
Seriously, though, this argument is so noteworthy because it emphasizes the importance and potential widespread impact of the California decision. Namely, the California decision has real potential to have national legal impacts. People will go to California to get married (though likely not in the droves conservatives claim), they will return to their home states, and they will file lawsuits challenging their states’ refusal to recognize their marriage. While the California court ruling itself, which was based on the California state constitution, can’t be argued in federal court, a challenge in another state based on a California-performed marriage likely will eventually end up in a federal court. And it really seems to be only a matter of time before we see it at the Supreme Court.
This fight is long from over.
5 comments:
Here's one piece of good news...
USA Today/ Gallup released a new poll today that says 63% of Americans think that gay marriage should be a private decision. Only 33% said the government should interfere.
I'm not entirely sure I trust the numbers since they represent such a radical shift in opinion from older polling, but it is certainly encouraging.
I think you're completely right to point out the potential impact of the CA decision...I wouldn't be shocked to see that the opinion numbers had moved a bit after the publicity around the Supreme Court decision (after all, who wants to deny Ellen happiness?), I'm just not sure they could have moved this much.
Anyway, I wrote a bit about it on my blog, but thanks for your post!
aftereleanor.blogspot.com
As the author of the original post you're rebutting, I couldn't agree more with your legal analysis. I suspect there will always be court challenges to gay marriage rights, just as there continue to be various flavors of legal challenges to apparently long-settled civil rights issues. That's the structural battle.
There's also the cultural one. (I know, they're related.) On that front, I find it fascinating that so little opposition has materialized. That is not to imply that not a single contrary viewpoint has been expressed; I'm sure there has been. But the lack of a national negative cultural response is surprising. Might there still be one? Sure, but my gut says no. With the sheer number of issues that directly affect so many voters, its hard to imagine gay marriage achieving the same level of prominence as a wedge issue as it did in 2004. Fingers crossed.
I think you might be right, miked, that the issue doesn't have the same power of division as a wedge issue that it has in past cycles.
But I think McCain is trying to make it one...
His response to the anti-gay initiative making it on the ballot in CA?
"I welcome the news that the people of California will have the opportunity to decide on the question of the definition of marriage, rather than having that decision made by judicial fiat as the California Supreme Court asserted in their recent ruling." -- John McCain
Asshole.
aftereleanor.blogspot.com
Post a Comment