The California Supreme Court Sucks, Sucks, Sucks
Here's some words from Justice Moreno, the lone dissenter:
The rule the majority crafts today not only allows same-sex couples to be stripped of the right to marry that this court recognized in the Marriage Cases, it places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities. It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority. I therefore dissent.
Equal protection principles lie at the core of the California Constitution and have been embodied in that document from its inception…Ensuring equal protection prevents “governmental decisionmakers from treating differently persons who are in all relevant respects alike…” The doctrine’s purpose is to protect “against intentional and arbitrary discrimination.” As such, it is a shield against arbitrary government power, because equal protection “requires the democratic majority to accept for themselves and their loved ones what they impose on you and me.” Thus, it is not so much a discrete constitutional right as it is a basic constitutional principle that guides all legislation and compels the will of the majority to be tempered by justice. The Iowa Supreme Court, in affirming the constitutional right of gays and lesbians to marry, recently recognized the importance of this promise of equality, stating: “If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.”
And here's a picture I took outside the Courthouse this morning:
The rule the majority crafts today not only allows same-sex couples to be stripped of the right to marry that this court recognized in the Marriage Cases, it places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities. It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority. I therefore dissent.
Equal protection principles lie at the core of the California Constitution and have been embodied in that document from its inception…Ensuring equal protection prevents “governmental decisionmakers from treating differently persons who are in all relevant respects alike…” The doctrine’s purpose is to protect “against intentional and arbitrary discrimination.” As such, it is a shield against arbitrary government power, because equal protection “requires the democratic majority to accept for themselves and their loved ones what they impose on you and me.” Thus, it is not so much a discrete constitutional right as it is a basic constitutional principle that guides all legislation and compels the will of the majority to be tempered by justice. The Iowa Supreme Court, in affirming the constitutional right of gays and lesbians to marry, recently recognized the importance of this promise of equality, stating: “If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.”
And here's a picture I took outside the Courthouse this morning: