Well shit.
Thank you Supreme Court of California. There aren’t words. I’m not angry yet, because I’m still dealing with the punched in the stomach, sick and nauseated, I-can’t-believe-they-did-that, sorrow. And shame. I feel so deeply ashamed of this state today. Give me a few. I’ll be angry in a bit. I need to go throw up first.
To the people who just got their civil rights handed back to them with a big red “DENIED” stamp, I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so, so sorry. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you either don’t live in California or you aren’t paying attention. You should be paying better attention.
I want to say something about why it isn’t ok that it will pass eventually or that future generations will be wiser than we are. At least, why it isn’t ok with me today, because usually I have been right in that court too. But I’m not, anymore. It needs to pass now. WE need to be wiser, now. Platitudes about the future are not good enough.
5, 10, 20, 30 years from now is not good enough.
There are so many implications in this ruling, the worst of which to me is the legal creation of a second class of citizen that is somehow “less than” and therefore not entitled to the same rights and protections as those who identify as straight. When you create a “less than” class of citizen and you start stripping away their rights, it becomes very easy to eventually strip away their lives and the things that make their lives meaningful or possible because you’ve created a perception and a climate where such abuse is a fact of life. Let’s just skip on the edge of Godwin’s Law and think up a few examples of times when governments created second classes of citizens and what happened. Hell, we don’t even need to start with 1930′s Germany, we can find a few nice examples in US history of the 20th century. Civil Rights, anyone? Japanese internment camps? Women’s Sufferage?
It needs to change today. NOW. It’s not good enough that one justice out of seven wrote a scathing rebuttal or that we’ll get there eventually. Not to me. Not to the people who just got emphatically told they’re not actually entitled to equal rights and protections like the rest of us.
Oh, wait… yep. There it is. Angry now.
Normally I like to foster an atmosphere where dissenting opinions are welcomed. I’d like to issue a blanket warning right now – anyone choosing to tell me why the CA Supreme Court’s decision today was okay or good or morally right, will get their ass handed to them verbally as well as a one way ticket out the airlock. Not interested.
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It doesn’t matter whether the CA Supreme Court’s decision today was okay or good or morally right – it was the only decision that they could render under the laws of California.
Also, California recognizes both hetero- and homosexual Domestic Partnerships, which as of 2007 grant all of the same rights and responsibilities as marriages under CA state law (see California Family Code §297.5) So nobody lost any Civil Rights.
Offering someone Domestic Partnership is nowhere near the same thing as equal marriage rights. No. Where. Near.
I’m also not capable of having a rational discussion about this right now. Not when people I love and respect have just been told they are not equal to the rest of us in California.
With all due respect, you are wrong, athough understandibly so, regarding the effect of 297.5. The plain meaning of 297.5 supports your view that the rights are precisely equal, and yet the complexity of the law leads to smaller but not completely trivial differences.
The “In Re Marriage Cases”, majority opinion, footnote 24, pages 42-44, list nine differences and a possible tenth. To pick an example, there is no domestic partnership equivalent of a confidential marriage.
(Of course, §297.5 does not address how those relationships are treated *by virtue of their name* by other jurisdictions, the social implications, and so forth, and that’s a far more substantial difference, particularly should the US ever insist on interpreting Full Faith and Credit to include marriages and same-sex ones at that, but that’s obviously a hypothetical future.)
I’ll be over in the corner fuming and spitting if you want company. I’m not quite sure I’m angry yet.. I think I’m still at “Horrifyingly disgusted”.. give me another few minutes.
Ditto on everything you wrote!
Also, maybe legally no one lost any “civil rights” but they sure in the hell lost their EQUAL RIGHTS!
I’m really at this place of wanting to tell everyone who thinks this was somehow okay to fuck off and die but that’s not really conducive to much of anything resembling respectful discourse.
Then again, today I am not so much with caring about respectful discourse.
Still trying to bite back those sentiments, however.
I’m just so appalled. That we could still be those people who think “separate but equal” was okay. Or equal.
What’s really pissing me off right now is hearing that it’s all the Christians who did this. I go to church every week. I work at a church. My pastor wanted to perform gay weddings. I am NOT one of those people and you can’t co-opt me.
They are not Christians, they’re Christianists. I am not one of them.
eightfoldrabbit,
CA law explicitly declares that Domestic Partnership are the legal equivalent in every legal way to Marriages. They grant exactly the same privileges, rights, and demand exactly the same legal responsibilities.
That being the case, the court couldn’t claim that Prop 8 violated the Equal Protections clause, nor could they claim that Prop 8 wasn’t an amendment to the state’s Constitution that could be done through a ballot initiative.
Yes, if you want to discuss public sentiment and approval and/or acceptance, this was a slap in the face for the LGBT community and their supporters. But the law and the courts cannot address those issues; they can only address the laws as they are written.
(You seem to have posted this twice, so I’ll reply twice.)
With all due respect, you are wrong, athough understandibly so, regarding the effect of 297.5. The plain meaning of 297.5 supports your view that the rights are precisely equal, and yet the complexity of the law leads to smaller but not completely trivial differences.
The “In Re Marriage Cases”, majority opinion, footnote 24, pages 42-44, list nine differences and a possible tenth. To pick an example, there is no domestic partnership equivalent of a confidential marriage.
(Of course, §297.5 does not address how those relationships are treated *by virtue of their name* by other jurisdictions, the social implications, and so forth, and that’s a far more substantial difference, particularly should the US ever insist on interpreting Full Faith and Credit to include marriages and same-sex ones at that, but that’s obviously a hypothetical future.)
I am so ashamed of a country that tolerates this type of bull*&&^. Why can’t we just GROW UP??? I’m beyond outrage at this – I am ashamed.
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
I’m so with you on this! I was so disheartened, horrified, angry, saddened to hear the decision handed down. With all due respect to your dissenter about the law as it is written, that’s not a terribly cogent argument. Laws were written that made certain individuals only fractionally human, but that didn’t make them right. And the courts forced change because mob rule will always (sadly) tend toward inequality and marginalization.
Human beings are–much as I hate to say this–not intrinsically nice. We tend to look out for our own self-interests. And that’s what happens when a majority hell-bent on imposing THEIR morality and THEIR notions of right and wrong are allowed to legislate.
What the court did was frankly a cop-out. You are married. You can get married. You don’t exist.
Yeah, I’m still quite mad.
Thank you for your comment.
I’m really struggling with the fact that I can marry adn others can’t. That I am free to do things, to CHOOSE things, and others can not. I wonder, how do those people who are denied choice tolerate it? Well, they shouldn’t have to. Society shouldn’t expect them to.
conchobara,
So you don’t like the outcome of the Prop 8 ballot initiative and, therefor, you’re angry that the court didn’t violate the law and the California constitution to over turn it, is that it?
Think about that, and also think about how you’d feel about that same attitude in the opposition.
Yes. Angry. No matter how legally “correct” it may be. The outcome of the court’s decision and the legality of same, well maybe that was to be expected or inevitable. Legal or not, inevitable or not, that outcome gets to be bitterly disappointing to people.
I don’t think people need to be told how to think. We all make that decision for ourselves. If you don’t agree with someone that’s fine, but I personally think it’s not conducive to dialogue to imply that their thought process is flawed simply because they are expressing feelings that you don’t share.
Anger is understandable; I’m not fond of Prop 8 myself.
On the hand, people may not “need to be told how to think,” but they do, especially when they are angry, sometimes need to be told to think.
Advocating for the the laws and constitution to be ignored because things didn’t work out the way you think is right sets a poor precedent, which was my point in the statement.
How would any of you feel if Proposition 22, which legalized fay marriage in CA for a while, had been overturned by the court because people were “disheartened, horrified, angry, saddened” by its passing?
I’m sorry if I came off harsh, but I’m worried, and a bit angered and dismayed, whenever people advocate putting aside the legal / constitutional system for the sake of their own interests.