CALIFORNIA: THE LAW GIVETH, THE MOB TAKETH AWAY

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again, and again.  I'm flabbergasted by the continued assault on my civil and human rights through the ballot box.

The recent decision by the California Supreme Court to give California voters the opportunity to abuse majority rule to deny civil and human rights to a specific group of American citizens is not only unconstitutional, it is ethically and morally offensive.

In fact, it's madness.  How did we come to place where civil and human rights are not protected by constitutional law but rather determined by the mood of the majority?  That is not freedom, that is persecution at its most expansive.

For a nation that claims to be the world's freest society and most robust democracy, the nation that sets the standard for individual rights and freedoms, relegating decisions on civil and human rights to the ballot box is profoundly offensive to any definition of freedom.

There simply is no way to justify this most un-American and unconstitutional assault on our not-so-free society; and yet the California Supreme Court has done so.  Of course, they've done so in silence offering no legal explanation for their decision; likely because an publicly disclosed "legal" justification for this travesty would set a new standard for absurdity.

The court on Wednesday denied a petition to remove the gay marriage ban initiative from the state's general election ballots. The unanimous decision was handed down without elaboration.

The worst part of this has nothing to do with same sex marriage, it's the broader notion that a majority of voters--not even a majority of citizens--but a majority of voters has the right, the bloody fucking right, to decide who among us as Americans is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Why isn't every political leader and constitutional authority in this nation not raising a ruckus over this insanity, this direct frontal assault on the most basic principle of the American dream: individual rights?

Mob rule, whether it's carried out with torches and lynchings or polite visits to the ballot box would smell as rancid.

Much legal mumbo jumbo is being bounced around on this issue, in my view obfuscating this basic truth.

If California voters do decide to overturn the May decision of the state's Supreme Court to allow two people in love to form a legal family regardless of their sexual orientation, it will be a black mark on American history that will shatter the already fragile confidence that some still have in this nation as a freedom-loving, human-right respecting society.

Bigots and fascists nationwide have been further emboldened and inspired by the court's decision to allow the mob to overturn the court's legal and constitutional enforcement of constitutional law.  It hearkens back to the days when a black man was found not guilty of some trumped up crime and then the court and the cops turned their backs while an angry mob seized the poor man as he left the court house, freed to be beaten and hung.

Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy would have been appalled by this mockery of basic constitutional law, individual rights and civil rights.  How will the Great Gay Hope respond?  Oh, right, Barack MLK JFK Obama doesn't believe in gay marriage--which will be his excuse for allowing civil and human rights to be thrown under the bus.

Comments

[paul]

Gay rights are tenuous at best and do hang on the whim of society. The travesty here, I believe, is not that the supreme court allowed the ballot initiative, but rather that a constitutional amendment is so easy to adopt. The supreme court justices, contrary to what many people say, do not rely on opinions to render a decision. They must rely on the constitution. Now, of course, opinion can dictate how they interpret said constitution. It's very wishy-washy. Those who dissented in the Lawrence v. Texas ruling (which made anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional) were doing so based on their interpretation of the constitution. They found that there was no inherent right to privacy. Thomas even said that he thinks sodomy laws are bad, and would himself work against them in the legislatures and ballot box, but he couldn't find a constitutional basis for overturning them, or allowing them to be passed by lawmakers. Scary how flimsy our rights really are. As George Carlin said, rights are an illusion. We have no rights, only privileges.

We are just lucky that society has progressed enough that more justices side with personal liberty. This may not always be the case (hence even though I think midwestern militia-types are insane, sometimes I think that they have the right idea). Anyone even thinking of voting for McCain should reconsider, given that he has said that he will nominate justices of the Scalia type. Scalia dissented in Lawrence.