Miss California Controversy (from Rumours)

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by jwd

But yet California, what most people would classify as a liberal state and heavily Democrat, has itself denied gay marriage rights, both by the vote of the people and its' Supreme Court. ???

California is an anomaly. Here is the history in relevant part.

On September 2, 2005, the California Senate approved the bill 21-15 and on September 6, the California State Assembly followed suit with a vote of 41-35, making California's legislature the first in the nation to approve a same-sex marriage bill without court pressure.

The next day, September 7, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger indicated he would veto the bill, citing Proposition 22, which had passed with the approval a majority of voters five years earlier.

Like the statutes amended by AB 849, Prop 22 prohibited the state from recognizing same-sex marriages, but as an initiative statute, it was not affected by AB 849.

The legislature avoided physically delivering the bill to the governor for over two weeks, during which time advocacy groups urged Schwarzenegger to change his mind. Ultimately, the bill was delivered on September 23 and vetoed on September 29, 2005. Schwarzenegger stated he believed that same-sex marriage should be settled by the courts (rank hypocrisy for the R party whose words he was parroting) or another vote by the people via a statewide initiative or referendum. He argued that the legislature's bill simply complicated the issue, as the constitutionality of Proposition 22 had not yet been determined, and its ultimate disposition would render AB 849 either unconstitutional (being in conflict with a valid voter initiative) or redundant (being guaranteed by the California Constitution itself, as construed by the courts).

Shortly after the newly elected Assembly was sworn in, Leno resubmitted a similar bill on December 4, 2006. AB 43 was passed by the legislature in early September 2007, giving the governor until October 14, 2007, to either sign or veto the bill. Schwarzenegger had stated months before that he would veto AB 43 on the grounds that the issue at hand had already been voted on by California by way of Proposition 22. The governor followed through on his statement and on October 12, 2007, he vetoed AB 43. Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto statement that to solve the issue of gender-neutral marriage, the California Supreme Court needed to finish its rule on the challenge which had been made to Proposition 22.

Proposition 8 (2008)

Months before the state supreme court's ruling, groups who opposed same-sex marriage began circulating initiative petitions. One petition, #07-0068 (titled the "California Marriage Protection Act" by its proponents; titled the "Limit on Marriage" amendment for the ballot by the California Attorney General), having gathered an estimated 764,063 valid signatures, qualified for the November 4, 2008 ballot, as Proposition 8. The measure would add § 7.5 to Article I of the California Constitution mirroring the now-unenforceable Family Code § 308.5. It would attempt to supersede that part of the Supreme Court's holding that authorized the granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Twelve other proposed amendments since 2004 had failed to qualify to be on the ballot. The ability of the voters to remove a fundamental constitutional right by initiative amendment has been called into question, and lawsuits were filed on those grounds asking for the removal of Proposition 8 from the ballot. That lawsuit was dismissed on July 16, 2008.

On the day after the election, the results remained uncertified. With 100% of precincts reporting, the vote was 52.47% in favor of Proposition 8 and 47.53% opposed, with a difference of about 504,000 votes; as many as 3 million absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted. The organizers of the "No on Prop 8" campaign conceded defeat on Thursday, November 6, issuing a statement saying, "Tuesday’s vote was deeply disappointing to all who believe in equal treatment under the law."

On Wednesday, November 5, 2008, three lawsuits were filed, challenging the validity of Proposition 8 on the grounds that revoking the right of same-sex couples to marry was a constitutional "revision" rather than an "amendment", and therefore required the prior approval of 2/3 of each house of the California State Legislature. Plaintiffs in the various suits included same-sex couples who had married or planned to marry, and the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the county of Santa Clara. The California Supreme Court heard several challenges to Proposition 8 and on May 26, 2009 upheld the proposition, but did not overturn previous same-sex marriages because while it acknowledged its earlier decision that held marriage was an absolute right, it followed its precedent of not finding a 2/3 vote was required to change the California Const. Note - the two decisions are rather inconsistent.

(most of that comes from wiki)

In the end, The Arnold had changed his mind as have the numbers of Californians who oppose it when contrasted with the 2000 vote. So, the numbers have gone down. Also, had the far religious right not lied in ubiquitous commercials about the effect of gay marriage, saying things like public schools were going to be required to teach children about gay sex, etc. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willia..._b_207811.html) -- Finally, if even a small number of black people would get over the homophobia and stop being hypocritical about allowing others the same exact rights they fought for -- and the Hispanics would stop blindly following the Catholic Church -- the next voter initiative will likely pass, esp. when you consider more older people will die and, therefore,m not be able to vote. The younger people are for gay marriage.

Note - the people should never be able to vote of what group gets rights to the exclusion of other groups in the minority. The minority always loses. if the nation could have voted on equal protection for blacks or women's suffrage, those would never have passed the popular vote That is exactly why America is not a democracy - it is a Republic that employees a representative democracy.
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Having said all that, the tide is changing for gay rights and it is way overdue. Sadly, Christianity has been hijacked in the process.