Not very hopeful

Earlier this morning I was willing to believe that I was just a cynical old morning person who shouldn't be allowed to post about politics after dark. I don't think that now.

What disturbed me, and still disturbs me, about the Religious Right's apparent victory on Prop 8 is the signal it sends to them: that even in "liberal" California, they can get over half the electorate to vote with them if they just pour in enough hatred, fear, lies, and money. That over half of my fellow citizens really are religious bigots.

Over the course of a couple of months, the Religious Right turned support for eliminating the right of gays to marry from about 30% to over 50%.

If they'd lost, there would be some hope that their grip on power, on the Republican party, might be weakened. Now they know for certain that they can get control back if they can just tap into enough fear and hatred. That over 50% of the people still believe that it's ok to deny civil rights to gays. Black people won their civil rights because most of the churches in the country believed that they deserved them. Blacks and Latinos voted in favor of Prop 8.

The next couple of elections are going to be very ugly.

I would pray, to whatever gods there may be, to save us from their followers. But I don't believe that it would work.

Challenge to Prop 8 filed

American Civil Liberties Union : Legal Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Proposition 8, Should It Pass

SAN FRANCISCO – The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes. The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid.
[...]
This would not be the first time the court has struck down an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court stuck down an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the "Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States." That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California's courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state's constitution.

I like this. It's straightforward, unambiguous, and best of all has nothing at all to do with gay rights. It's purely procedural.

Doing better

It's basically impossible to sit in the living room, trying to be at least a small part of the conversation, and get much writing done. I can read, so I can keep up with LJ, but that's about it. But that's ok.

A couple of good little conversations; nothing very deep. It's hard to carry on a one-to-one conversation with other people in the room trying to have their conversations -- I'm easily distracted. Sang The River, Wheelin', Ferret Went A-Courtin', and The River.