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Ok, I'm getting annoyed by all these people bemoaning how they thought California was progressive, because the court didn't over turn Prop 8. Let's review the timeline:
* Hawaii's Court says gay marriage should be legally allowed. Lots of states, including HI and Iowa, passed laws or amendments to head that off. In California, this was the initiative-law Prop 22, passing with 61% of the vote.
* Mass. Court strikes down their law, and this sticks. Lots more states rush to amend their constitutions.
* California's legislature votes to legalize gay marriage. Arnold vetoes this, on the grounds that the voters had spoken, and that there was a court case already pending.
* Court case happens, Prop 22 struck down: gay marriage is now legal.
* Prop 8 happens, amending the constitution. Now it's illegal. Prop 8 passed with a whopping 52%, and would have failed anywhere with sane constitutions.
* The exact same court that legalized gay marriage when there was just a law, now bows to the state constitution, since that's what constitutions are for. Equal protection arguments aren't invoked by the plaintiffs, since that's federal legalism and they don't want to try their luck in Federal court. It's argued that between the two cases, the Court has said gays have the right to all the rights of marriage, except the name. I lack an opinion on the amendment vs. revision debate, since that's a legalism with precedents.
So: legislature approved, court approved, only a bare majority of voters and the malleability of the state constitution block gay marriage. That's pretty progressive, especially considering that not a single state has had the voters approve gay marriage. If you had a choice between marriage and civil unions in Massachusetts right now, five years later, I'm not sure marriage would win.
Iowa? The legislature barred gay marriage years ago, the court overturned it now, the current legislture isn't acting. Massachusetts and Connecticut were court driven. Vermont was spontaneous legislature, though the original civil unions were forced by the courts. New Hampshire and Maine will be spontaneous, if they pass and stick respectively.
And, honestly, while California even as a whole has lots of liberal things about it, one should beware of generalizing San Francisco and Berkeley to the whole state. This is the state where Ronald Reagan was governor in 1968, where Prop 13 tax revolt gutted the schools, where conservative voters in the Central Valley and San Diego more than counterbalance the hippie utopia. Some would say California's never been liberal, but crazy. Sometimes crazy left, sometimes crazy right.
ETA: I guess the heart of what annoys me is the monolithic thinking. "Ooh, Iowa is more progressive than California", as if the two were coherent and comparable entities. "I'm disappointed in California today." At the narrow though important level of the legal status, yes, Iowa's currently more progressive. In terms of what happened, it's not. "Iowa" did not legalized gay marriage, the supreme court did, and the rest of the state can't do anything about it quickly. "Massachusetts" didn't legalize gay marriage, the court did, and the legislature has prevented amendments from going to the people. California's government did almost everything it could to promote gay marriage rights, but in a real sense, "California", the voters, did speak against it. But so has every other state where the voters have spoken. The places where it's legal are the places where the court, legislature, or both, have acted or conspired to make it legal and/or keep the voters from getting to vote on it. They've done what they could in California, but the voters are more powerful there.
And, at that, California voters were AFAIK less vocal in banning gay marriage than any other state. 52% to 48%. Flipside is, they can pass it by the same margin, while most other states that amended their constitution will be a long time in flipping over the other way.
* Hawaii's Court says gay marriage should be legally allowed. Lots of states, including HI and Iowa, passed laws or amendments to head that off. In California, this was the initiative-law Prop 22, passing with 61% of the vote.
* Mass. Court strikes down their law, and this sticks. Lots more states rush to amend their constitutions.
* California's legislature votes to legalize gay marriage. Arnold vetoes this, on the grounds that the voters had spoken, and that there was a court case already pending.
* Court case happens, Prop 22 struck down: gay marriage is now legal.
* Prop 8 happens, amending the constitution. Now it's illegal. Prop 8 passed with a whopping 52%, and would have failed anywhere with sane constitutions.
* The exact same court that legalized gay marriage when there was just a law, now bows to the state constitution, since that's what constitutions are for. Equal protection arguments aren't invoked by the plaintiffs, since that's federal legalism and they don't want to try their luck in Federal court. It's argued that between the two cases, the Court has said gays have the right to all the rights of marriage, except the name. I lack an opinion on the amendment vs. revision debate, since that's a legalism with precedents.
So: legislature approved, court approved, only a bare majority of voters and the malleability of the state constitution block gay marriage. That's pretty progressive, especially considering that not a single state has had the voters approve gay marriage. If you had a choice between marriage and civil unions in Massachusetts right now, five years later, I'm not sure marriage would win.
Iowa? The legislature barred gay marriage years ago, the court overturned it now, the current legislture isn't acting. Massachusetts and Connecticut were court driven. Vermont was spontaneous legislature, though the original civil unions were forced by the courts. New Hampshire and Maine will be spontaneous, if they pass and stick respectively.
And, honestly, while California even as a whole has lots of liberal things about it, one should beware of generalizing San Francisco and Berkeley to the whole state. This is the state where Ronald Reagan was governor in 1968, where Prop 13 tax revolt gutted the schools, where conservative voters in the Central Valley and San Diego more than counterbalance the hippie utopia. Some would say California's never been liberal, but crazy. Sometimes crazy left, sometimes crazy right.
ETA: I guess the heart of what annoys me is the monolithic thinking. "Ooh, Iowa is more progressive than California", as if the two were coherent and comparable entities. "I'm disappointed in California today." At the narrow though important level of the legal status, yes, Iowa's currently more progressive. In terms of what happened, it's not. "Iowa" did not legalized gay marriage, the supreme court did, and the rest of the state can't do anything about it quickly. "Massachusetts" didn't legalize gay marriage, the court did, and the legislature has prevented amendments from going to the people. California's government did almost everything it could to promote gay marriage rights, but in a real sense, "California", the voters, did speak against it. But so has every other state where the voters have spoken. The places where it's legal are the places where the court, legislature, or both, have acted or conspired to make it legal and/or keep the voters from getting to vote on it. They've done what they could in California, but the voters are more powerful there.
And, at that, California voters were AFAIK less vocal in banning gay marriage than any other state. 52% to 48%. Flipside is, they can pass it by the same margin, while most other states that amended their constitution will be a long time in flipping over the other way.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 04:17 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 04:57 (UTC)From:The CA Supreme Court didn't really have any choice -- what they did was the legally correct thing to do. Allowing the marriages that had taken place to remain legally valid was pretty progressive, IMO, though I don't know the technicalities. It just means there's going to be some ridiculous year-to-year voter initiative in CA voting for constitutional amendments legalizing/forbidding gay marriage. Which is silly, but what will happen.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 07:04 (UTC)From:I lived in SoCal for 4 years (3 in LA, 1 in SD), and that was very much my opinion, which is one of the reasons that I greatly prefer living in the PNW and would never consider living in CA again.
That said, our constitution is also insane (living on the West Coast and dealing with ballot measures is the best argument I know of against any sort of direct democracy), but the overall populace is far less crazy.