Good As You

And this from a jackass who has suggested that eliminating state medical support from 35,000 medically indigent AIDS patients will help to alleviate the state's budget woes. I was almost ready to kiss-and-make-up with the flip-flop-inator, until he pulled that gem out of his ass.

He is supposed to be on CNN at 5pm. Hopefully they will grill the bastard on that this afternoon. Balancing the budget on the backs of those who are most vulnerable is the lowest form of vile. Even if it were to cut off more state benefits from the radical religious granny brigades who love to hate on us, it's still disgusting.

My understanding is that the illegality of those legislative bills would've had negative effects on marriage equality in California. I don't know this for sure, as Arnold vetoed for those reasons, but at the same time it should be duly noted that signing those bills would not have made them lawful. In fact, the common thinking is that he prevented a lot of needless courtroom.

However, it would've been nice if he had said "despite these vetoes on technical grounds, I support marriage equality," which he did not do.

Actually, I disagree. Proposition 22 had the same wording as proposition 8 "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in the state of California." The same language the judges agreed usurp even the court itself legally regarding marriages performed WITHIN and WITHOUT the state.

I think based solely on the legality of the legislative bill vs. the people's vote, the people's vote would have won. That's a narrow judgment not dissimilar to what the judges are saying about prop 8's validity. The question of the legality of denying marriage equality based on the equal protection clause is what would have in either case overturned proposition 22. The legislative bill was by definition not capable of being legally enacted, the way the legislative system (including initiative) is set up in California. Perhaps that's just an incorrect reading on my part...however I believe Schwarzenegger when he said it was a court's decision. I of course still agree that he could have signed the bill anyway.

By all means disagree, Bruno. I'm just telling you what the working logic was at the time. What I quoted you from the ACLU was the stock answer for the "Does the marriage equality bill conflict with Prop 22?" question. It was common belief that if put to a test, the court would've determined that 22 spoke only to recognition of out-of-state marriages, not whether same-sex unions could be performed in CA. Whether or not that would have been the case is up for debate.

While 8 has the same wording as 22, the diff. is that Prop 8 is a constitutional amendment, whereas 22 was only a statute.

Now, the matter of whether or not the people could have still invalidated a legislatively-enacted (as opposed to judicially-enacted) marriage law via Prop 8 is a separate question. And yes, based on the court's determination yesterday, it's likely that Prop 8 would have still been upheld under that set of circumstances. However, has the governor led on this issue and signed the bill either time that it hit his desk, I firmly believe that he could have had some positive effects that would have kept 8 from ever passing. Plus it would have taken away that pesky "activist judges" argument that the far-right so effectively (and frustratingly) uses against us. The "activist legislature and governor who you elected" argument is not nearly as effective as the judges one.

What I don't understand then is...why did 22 only speak to out of state marriages and 8 to all? Just because the people who put 22 on the ballot said it was a gap-filler? I'd be curious if the intent of the ballot providers would have been enough to convince the justices that the language was limited only to out of state marriages.

Well, as stated in the cited ACLU snip: Prop 22 established an exception to California Family Code Section 308, which applied to the recognition of out of state marriages. But that's not the code that spoke to same-sex marriages being banned in the state. That section was Family Code Section 300, wherein the legislature chose in 1977 to limit California marriage law as applying only to that which exists between a man and a woman. So since it affected ONLY section 308 and not section 300, the working belief was that it had no effect on the ability of the legislature to amend section 300 so that marriage would be open to same-sex couples. But keep in mind that some of 22's issues, like whether or not it would have eliminated legislative-enacted marriage, were never really tested.

Then, of course, 22 was mooted by the May '08 ruling. So the anti-gays pass Prop 8, which, as a constitutional amendment (complete with a higher threshold for getting on the ballot), speaks not only to one section of state law or another, but rather to state law in general. It's a sweeping alteration to the governance of CA.