Wednesday, May 20, 2009

It is fun to see bigots get burned with their own crosses.

This is one of those political issues that make me laugh. Prop 8. in California is being challenged on the grounds that it violates the Federal constitution. This is something I am not sure about. I could argue that it should violate the constitution but it is very unclear whether it does. However the Federal defense of marriage act is also being challenged and it does clearly violate the constitution. Not because of gay rights but because it uses a law i.e DOMA to overrule the clear wording of the Constitution i.e. the full faith and credit clause. This should be a legal no brainer. A law can not nullify the constitution, period. Only an constitutional amendment, ratified by the states can do that. Therefore DOMA can not survive a constitutional challenge. If the court actually respects their duty which is notoriously uncertain.

So if this challenge to Prop. 8 fails DOMA should still be overturned allowing out of state gay couples to have their marriages recognized in California. This could actually be Constitutional, CA could refuse to marry gay couples but have to honor gay marriages from out of state. If they do it will be a direct result of them passing the anti-gay amendment in California to start with. The law of unintended consequences will have claimed yet another victim.

Even if you don't care about gay rights you have to find the irony amusing.

1 comment:

Kerri Love said...

this whole subject is just dumb. I think 2 concenting adults should be able to share their lives and call it whatever they want to call it. No one gets to claim a discriptive word, if the act falls under the discription, then that's what it is.