Watching the live coverage of the Prop 8 arguments

[thoreau]

Watching this is fascinating - the people on the stand (for and against Prop 8) have volumes of legal opinions memorized - it's almost like people talking in another language. What is scary is that these people are debating the rights of gay and lesbians in California. There is so much ambiguity - so much grey - in both arguments. its tough to watch this. The 'legalese' makes this argument sound like something from last century. Hearing justices try and intrepret the voices of the California electorate. Tough stuff.

 

MSNBC Live Video available here



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Comments

[whatuttercrap.livejournal.com]

I have a bad feeling about this.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that the supreme court will uphold Prop 8 - but not invalidate the marriages performed. And California will be back at the polls in 2010 to attempt to repeal it. I think that changing the revision/amendment is too far reaching for this court - and I don't see them overturning Prop 8.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

The assistant attorney general seems to be out of his league. Where is Jerry Brown during all of this?

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

yeah - they are beating this guy up. but then the AG's office entire argument is pretty weak. thankfully the folks before him were competent and right to the point.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

Kenneth Star == suck up!!! Fortunately, the court seems not to notice.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

i think they are giving him just as hard a time as they were the AG. He's hardly a court-room star here.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

it's really taking me back how the justices can simply interrupt the speaker. This is "playing" much different than I thought it would.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

I still cannot figure out the legal premise for allowing the electorate to vote on the civil and human rights of a minority group.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like why don't they just make a limit on what kinds of things that voter initiatives can be used for? That civil rights can't be changed with them.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

see thats the clincher - I don't that legally marriage equality is seen as a civil right. We might not agree with that - but it's how the majority views the issue.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

"Married" forms a category under civil law. The freedom to enter that category must be a civil right; this is a civil issue about how the law treats citizens.

This is a civil issue, at its heart, and as such, it is secular. California is treading on very dangerous ground by allowing religious views--whether majority or not--to dictate social policy.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

honey - they've been at it since Hawaii 10 years ago - its not like this behaviour is anything new here. Its not like the religious right adding religiously based bans on gay marriage is anything new. 27 other states - as in - over half have constitutional bans. So the precedent isn't that it's dangerous territory at all.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

It sends me mad, it really does. Barking mad. The principle of allowing religion-based bigotry to dictate social policy is going to come back and bite someone in the behind, hard, and the sad part is that we all have to live in the divisive, angry environment that those people created with all of this.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

One more thing, and then I'm going to stop talking b/c you know I get all riled up about the injustice of all this. I really, really fucking hate how certain straight people are behaving.

My parting shot: Laws in a free society are supposed to protect the minority from the majority. If the voice of the minority is just a single voice, it still has the right to exist freely, and it should be able to participate fully in society without being punished for its dissension, whether that dissension is political, sexual, religious or anything else. The laws of this country should never be used to strip anyone of their human rights, and the right to be part of a family is a human right.

When will the right wing and the Republican Party have enough of their own hatred?