Mark your calendars, ladies and gentleman, history is in the making. Tuesday, September 06th, 2011 @ 10:00am The US Supreme Court in San Francisco will be hearing the proposed question on the prop 8 case. The question is (if you haven't been following) Do the proponents for Prop 8, or as I like to call it Prop H8, have the right to defend it when State Officials have declined to do so? Well, lets discuss exactly what that means...
When a specific party funds and creates an initiative to be placed on a ballot there are some steps they have to go through. They must write up the proposition, gain signatures (basically petition) to have the proposition recognized otherwise anyone would just put random ass laws on the bill. They also have to go through some officials themselves, once they have passed the bill on after completing all requirements including funding, the bill is then out of their hands. It moves on to the state officials, its placed on the ballot and left up to the people.
Here is a problem with the campaign they set forth before the vote to ban gay marriage in California, they lied. Not only did they use images of children without the consent of the parents (who were outraged), but they made the Proposition so confusing many people voted Yes on Prop 8 thinking it was "protecting marriage" as in keeping all marriage alive. I recently spoke with a co-worker of mine who voted yes and she said she thought she was voting for gay marriage and now that she realizes what she did she's kind of pissed and feels extremely horrible for being a contributing vote to the discrimination that is now and has been law. Misleading was inevitable considering you have these so-called Christian "Extremists" heading these campaigns.
Back to the main topic.
After, now retired, Judge Vaughn Walker declared/ruled Prop 8 as unconstitutional, ProtectMarriage.com appealed the ruling sending it straight to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. They plead their case and the 9th Circuit came to the conclusion that further clarification of initiative representation law was needed so they passed the case Perry vs. Brown (then Perry vs. Schwarzenegger) on to the US Supreme Court. In the time waiting between then and what is soon to be now (less than one month, yay) the proponents for Prop 8 appealed Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling claiming that Judge Vaughn Walker should have recused himself or at least announced that he was gay and in an 11 year relationship. The case went to Judge James Ware, Walker's successor, who ruled against the appeal. As a result proponents for Prop 8 appealed his ruling... they also requested that Walker surrenders the video recording of the case Walker presided over ruling Prop 8 as unconstitutional. They did not want these videos seen because it will clearly show how weak their case was that Vaughn Walker ruled on without bias. You can sign an open letter to Judge James Ware here @ AFER to have the video tapes from the case released to the public.
ProtectMarriage.com jumped on the appeal process at first chance, long before then Governor Schwarzenegger or Attorney General now Governor Brown declined to appeal Vaughn Walker's ruling. Later after Gov. Brown was elected into office along with now Attorney General Kamala Harris, they too both declined to appeal Walker's ruling. Being that the Gov and Attorney General of the state are both elected officials, sworn into be the voice of the people, they are to represent the people if they choose to do so against a law that is challenged, when they decline no one else should be allowed to appeal. This needed further clarification to the 3 judge panel of the 9th Circuit, ergo forwarding the case to US Supreme Court.
Prop Haters (as we will refer to Prop 8's proponents from this point on) even went before a 5 party panel in the state to have a bill voted in allowing sponsors of ballot measures to be allowed to represent the initiative once enacted upon appeal. This to me says they too know they are not allowed to and are trying to be sure they are allowed to before it got to the US Supreme Court. They were out-voted 3-2.
So these are all the desperate stops that Prop Haters have pulled:
- Appealed before the State officials even had a chance to, possibly without the right to appeal
- Requested that Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling be thrown out because he is gay
- Requested the video tapes from the November case to be never available to the public
- Requested and lost a vote to allowing anyone proposing a bill to defend it other than state officials and lost
- Appealed Judge James Ware's ruling on not tossing Walker's ruling out
Do you see a pattern here? They are doing everything they can to fight this... I mean you got to give them a little credit, they got a spark. Problem for them is, we are a blazing inferno (a flaming joke could be made, but I don't agree with that kind of humor so if you comment keep it off the comments).
With this case now going into US Supreme Court, Atty Gen. Kamala Harris submitted an Amicus Brief on the case stating in more or less words that the question is do they have a right to appeal/defend this case in the event that the State Officials failed to do so and her answer to the question is "No, they don't. " Allowing them to would, "undermine the constitutional responsibilities delegated to the Governor and Attorney General."
So this is what it all boils down to, if the US Supreme Court rules that proponents of Proposition 8 have no standing then same-sex marriage could very much become legal. First the case will be sent back to the 9th Circuit after The US Supreme Courts ruling has been made, and the 9th Circuit may question the Supreme Court more if they choose to do so. This could have been a process that took up until 2014 to be worked out. It seems now this will all be figured out in a timely manner. We should also be appreciative that US Supreme Court has made sure to hear the case first before any other. Lets hold confidence in our US Supreme Court to make the right decision.
"I don't believe that marriage is between man and woman, but between life and love." - Frank Ocean (you should all by his new album, its amazing).
(SIDE NOTE I MAY HAVE SAID THE ORIGINAL CASE WALKER PRESIDED OVER WAS BACK IN NOVEMBER I READ BACK THROUGH AND COULD NOT FIND THAT I MAY HAVE ALREADY DELETED IT BUT THAT CASE TOOK PLACE IN AUGUST OF 2010)
(you may find another similar article with a little bit more information on this subject here at www.Care2.com
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