More A Way Of Life… Look, this is just between you and me

A Few Words On Prop 8

If you followed me on the SF blog, you'll be aware that I became mildly obsessed with US politics while I was there.  In truth, I still am - more so than I can find the energy to be about this shower of opportunistic bastards we're stuck with in the UK certainly.

And it was while I was in the US that the voters of California, a majority of them at any rate, elected to remove the right of same sex couple to marry.  They did so on the same day that the country as a whole was energised by the election of Barack Obama, which made that day bittersweet for a lot of Californians.

Earlier this year, a case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 was heard by a judge in San Francisco.  There's a lot of coverage elsewhere of the case itself, so I won't get into the detail - suffice it to say that the State of California itself was the defendant, and the State chose not to defend the Proposition.  It was left to a ragbag of anti-equality types to do so, and their case in defence of the Prop was laughably thin; expert witnesses who weren't expert in marriage, witnesses who actually accepted the benefits of same sex marriage, it was a joke.  The case against was thorough, impeccably reasoned, and entirely robust.  I'm not just saying it as someone who would obviously want Prop 8 overturned; that's a pretty broad consensus.

And most remarkably, the advocates of the case were two men called Theodore Olson and David Boies - incredibly experienced litigators who've argued before the US Supreme Court, and astonishingly, against each other.  They actually represented Bush vs Gore in their contested election.  Ted Olson went on to be one of Dubya's Solicitors General.  That's right - someone who worked as the legal muscle for George W Bush is a stronger advocate of marriage equality than the increasingly disappointing Obama.

Today, Judge Vaughan Walker issued his ruling.  Proposition 8 is Unconstitutional.  Over more than 130 pages of carefully considered analysis, he found that, as he concludes:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. 

It'll be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of course, so the matter doesn't end here.  But this is huge.  The Constitution should, in theory, stop the majority enshrining in law any kind of discrimination against a minority.  And the arguments against same sex marriage are all about doing exactly that.  Exactly how the anti-SSM forces will argue otherwise will be interesting to see.

But in the meantime - Great Day.