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Great. That's the trouble with getting up late with a hang over. The world moves on...
``...wouldn't it make more sense to organize rather than litigate?'' Doug wonders.
The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact they usually work in tantum. That's what the right did to get 8 on ballot to counter the other side's public movements and court cases. So it goes back and forth, between the courts and the street, and between the right and left.
Go here for a detailed summary of these twists and turns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)
Just reading a little about the first legal challeges, it looks like they depend on a legal technically about the difference between a Revision and an Amendment. A revision requires a 2/3 majority of both state Houses. One lawsuit claim prop 8 is so sweeping it requires a revision and not a simple amendment.
The WSJ wonders:
``..One result that's far from clear, however: what happens to all those same-sex couples who rushed to wed prior to the election?''
Guess who is Attorney General, in California? Jerry Brown. His office has been dogging and challenging the Prop 8 folks for months. In August the Brown ruled Prop 8, if passed was not retroactive. If the Right tries to make that case, they might well lose, because there are various laws and principles that say you can't take away a right, once it has been granted.
Pursuing this line of reasoning, might boomerang on the Right, if you think about. The Left could argue that marriage licenses confer rights and privilages. Could the State now claims those rights and privilages are annulled?
Shane Mage imagines an even better approach. Fly in a couple from Massachusetts.
``...Proposition 8 is clearly unconstitutional because by specifying that only man/woman marriages will be `valid' in California it would make invalid in California "gay" marriages performed in Massachusetts or Connecticut. This blatantly violates Article IV Section 1 of the US Constitution, which states: `Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each state to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every other State...' ''
I am not sure how you get standing though (I am not a lawyer, obviously, I just know a lot of them....). In other words, how do you get into court with a valid case in the first place? Maybe just go to court and ask a judge to certify the license as legal?
``...these legal groups are making a big mistake by basing their suit on the nebulous notion of a `core commitment to equality' that would trump the voters' decision...'' SM
I certainly agree. The ACLU and other groups are usually a more sharp about how they build cases. Maybe the above only refers to one group. There are others. Still they usually try to coordinate with each other.
While I was trying to dream up a discrimination case over ambiguous and transgendered people, I wondered why the suits didn't attack the constitutionality of Prop 8, directly. I thought maybe they had some legal plan I couldn't see.
Or, maybe they got up with hang-overs and were not thinking clearly either.
CG