xiggi

Kluge, why be so hasty to call people who might not applaud this latest decision ... haters? Isn't your last sentence an expression of hate as well for people who happen to have different values from yours?

xiggi

Would you maintain a similar position regarding education since the "tyranny of the majority" is what has kept the current system of a secular education as a monopoly except for the people who are fortunate enough to buy their way out.

Are some "rights" more important than others?

Hanna

"the "tyranny of the majority" is what has kept the current system of a secular education as a monopoly"

What? The First Amendment and its interpretation in the courts is an expression of the tyranny of the majority? How so?

Northstarmom

"Actually razorsharp, I and many others really couldn't care less how many people support a law - if that law violates a person's constitutional rights, it could be the most popular law in the world and I would still consider it null and void."

I agree. Whether a law is constitutional is most important. That's the way our democracy works.

As for me, I am a hetero who supports gay marriage, so am glad that the California Supreme Court voted the way it did.

vicariousparent

xiggi: The difference is that you CAN legally buy your way out of a secular public education. You cannot legally buy your way into a gay marriage if it is not recognized.

marite

So you think that legislatures are the tools of special interests but individual voters are free from the manipulations of such interest? Why should we have elections--at any level?

Bring back Athenian democracy!! But remember, it was based on slavery.

vossron

In a sense, this was a legal technicality, that the law violated the constitution. The people are free to remedy this by amending the constitution, if they want. I personally applaud the court's decision, but the majority will rule in November.

xiggi

Hanna, hasn't ZELMAN V. SIMMONS-HARRIS changed the landscape of education at it relates to the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Or should we still consider the Blaine Amendment as the voice of the people?

xiggi

Is the discussion about the legality of same-sex unions or about the "rights" that are attached to the "marriage?" The absence of "benefits" for gay couples is similar to the absence of true school choice. In this regard, the decision to "opting out of the "system" simply costs you. Same difference?

razorsharp

Kluge, I would rate your understanding of the meaning of judicial activism at a big fat zero. When a court overturns a statute, it tells you absolutely nothing about whether that court has engaged in judicial actism. If congress passed a law making it a crime to say anything negative about a member of congress and a court overturned that law, it would not mean the court engaged in judicial actism. Why? Because the court would be applying the first amendment which prohibits congress from passing a law infringing freedom of speech. The US Constitution supercedes any statutes passed by Congress.

The Calif Supreme cout re-wrote the Calif Constituation to require gay marriage when there is no logical or reasonable basis to support that re-writing.

One of the most important concepts of American goverment is a balance of power among the different branches of goverment. The California Supreme Court made itself "more equal" than any other branch of goverment and the people of Calif.

BTW, most of you posters have falsely assumed I opposed gay marriage. I could care less whether there is gay marriage. I care that laws are enacted by the will of the people instead of by judical fiat. When court pass laws, it creates a lot of resentment and it is completely unnecessary. All you have to do is look at all the resentment resulting from Roe v. Wade. That resentment doe not exist at the same level in many European countries because they resolved their differences by majority rule.

mommusic

LOL Mini, I never thought of it that way! Clearly cause and effect.

And razorsharp, I like your headline. Kind of how the Supreme Court overruled millions of Southerners in Brown v. Board of Education?

vicariousparent

xiggi: I don't understand what you are talking about. I don't see any parallel between the gay marriage issue and the school choice issue. The school issue is about a government provided benefit (public eductation). If you don't want that benefit you can pay for a private school. The gay issue is about discrimination.

If you want to draw a parallel to public education, it would be a law that said kids who are left-handed are ineligible for public education. People who think that being left-handed is a personal choice might be OK with this law. People who hate the left-handed would welcome this law and fight to enact it. A good judge would strike down such a law as being unconstitutional. That is what the California supreme court did.

kluge

Sorry, Xiggi - gotta call it like I see it. There's no rational basis for denying homosexual couples the social and economic stability and legal recognition of mutual rights and responsibilities that heterosexual couples are entitled to simply because they are same-sex couples. All the elaborate ratiocination and carefully muddying of the waters can't conceal the basis for opposition to the recognition of those simple human rights - and it ain't pretty.

Instead of calling it what it is should I instead "hate the sin of homophobic bigotry but love the sinning bigots?" Either way, sometimes you have to call a thing by its name to deal with it rationally. Maybe if the haters have to confront their personal demons they will learn something about themselves which will let them free themselves from their inability to perceive other humans as their equals.

Or maybe not. Bigotry is hard to unlearn.

razorsharp

Mommusic, you obviously did not read my post. Overruling a decision, means nothing. It tells you nothing about judicial actism. Try again.

marite

razorsharp:

I have not commented on gay marriage, pro or con, but on your discussion of the appropriate role of the legislature and of the constitution of each state.

But for what it's worth, the will of the people allowed anti-miscegenation laws to prevent the Lovings from getting married in 1965; the will of the people prevented women from voting until 1920; the will of the people considered that blacks were worth only a fraction of white people.

Democracy and demagoguery share the same root. Consider as well the phenomenon known as "illilberal democracies" where women can get stoned with the full approval of their community for falling in love with someone not of their group. There, too, the will of the people is at work. But I would not want to live there.