Calif. high court asked to hear gay marriage cases

Good. Anxious to hear the final outcome. . .

Meanwhile, the interfaith California Council of Churches and the Episcopal bishops of Northern California and Los Angeles added their petition Monday to those asking the high court to invalidate Proposition 8. They argue that if voters are permitted to take away rights from a group based on sexual orientation, the same could happen to religious minorities.

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Interesting.

In any case, IF Prop 8 actually stands and isn't simply dismissed for violating the democratic process (by pretending to be an amendment instead of a revision), that just means in 2 years Prop 8 will get overturned. Over the course of 8 years, people who don't want same-sex marriage had their winning margin drop from 23% to 4%. In 2 more years, especially with so much anger when Prop 8 passed, it's going to be strongly in favor of same-sex marriage.

Especially since in 2 years, more old people (who generally oppose same-sex marriages) will be dead and replaced by new younger voters (who are generally in favor of it).

For those who need the explanation...

California's Constitution prescribes that it may be amended, but not revised, by the initiative/proposition process, where a petition results in a ballot referendum on a measure. The term "revised" apparently includes both extensive revision of the document proper and also a measure that removes or restricts a previously held civil right. Somebody with expertise in California law can perhaps spell this out more clearly.

Now the point to all this is that regardless of how you may feel about the legality and morality of gay marriage, under the May court decision and for six months thereafter, gay couples could legally contract marriages and Proposition 8 removed that right from them. According to petitioners, that makes Proposition 8 a "constitutional revision" and not an "amendment" under the technical procedures for amending the state constitution, and thus, if they're correct, something that could not legally be enacted by the proposition process.

These petitions were before the court prior to the election, and were dismissed at that time without prejudice for lack of 'ripeness' -- that is, they challenged something that had not yet happened, the passage of Proposition 8. The courts declined to hear arguments and rule on the substantive question, since if Proposition 8 were defeated, the issue of its legality would be moot.

Well, it did pass, and now the question of whether it was a valid exercise of the initiative/proposition route for amending the state constitution is a legitimate one. Some people are seeing this as sour grapes on the part of the No on 8 folks; to the contrary, it's refiling something the courts told them to wait and file again if Prop 8 passed.

With any luck the court will overturn Prop. 8 as being unconstitutional.