Translate

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Proposition H8 Update

Potentionally good news for the freedom of marriage for same-sex couples and perhaps full marriage equality for all. Opponents of California’s Proposition 8 (“H8”) submitted arguments to the federal appeals court in the case, asking the court to uphold the decision of the previous court that found Prop H8 to be unconstitutional on due process and equal treatment grounds.

See this story

Lawyers Theodore Olson and David Boies, representing the couples, cited U.S. Supreme Court cases that called marriage a fundamental right and "the most important relation in life."

"Fourteen times the Supreme Court has stated that marriage is a fundamental right of all individuals," the attorneys wrote.

From this story

Proposition 8 is antithetical to the “principles of equality” on which this “Nation . . . prides itself.” It creates a permanent “underclass” of hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian Californians (id.)—who are denied the fundamental right to marry available to all other Californians simply because a majority of voters deems gay and lesbian relationships inferior, morally reprehensible, or religiously unacceptable.

The same surely applies to polygamous and consanguineous marriages, which have a rich historical tradition.

From this story

Just as the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia ban on interracial marriage without creating a new right to interracial marriage, the court could overturn California's gay marriage ban on the grounds that all persons are free to decide whether or whom to marry, Olson wrote.

We certainly agree: All persons should be free to decide whether or whom to marry. We’re glad Olson agrees with us, and we home the panel will, too.
— — —

No comments:

Post a Comment

To prevent spam, comments will have to be approved, so your comment may not appear for several hours. Feedback is welcome, including disagreement. I only delete/reject/mark as spam: spam, vulgar or hateful attacks, repeated spouting of bigotry from the same person that does not add to the discussion, and the like. I will not reject comments based on disagreement, but if you don't think consenting adults should be free to love each other, then I do not consent to have you repeatedly spout hate on my blog without adding anything to the discourse.

If you want to write to me privately, then either contact me on Facebook, email me at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com, or tell me in your comment that you do NOT want it published. Otherwise, anything you write here is fair game to be used in a subsequent entry. If you want to be anonymous, that is fine.

IT IS OK TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN YOUR COMMENTS, BUT PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY AS I WANT THIS BLOG TO BE AS "SAFE FOR WORK" AS POSSIBLE. If your comment includes graphic descriptions of activity involving minors, it's not going to get published.