In the year 2000, 61% of Californians voted to protect traditional marriage. It was called Proposition 22, or the California Defense of Marriage Act.
Prior to Prop 22, in the California Civil Code, and more specifically in the sections referred to as the California Family Code, and section 300 defined marriage as:
a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary.
Section 308 was seen as a loophole:
A marriage contracted outside this state that would be valid by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the marriage was contracted is valid in this state.
And the need for additional language became available in Prop. 22. After passing Prop 22 added a new section, 308.5, that reads:
Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
The voters in California wanted this language included in the California Civil Code.
In May of this year, 4 judges overturned the will of the people in California and ruled to legalize same-sex marriage. Proposition 8, as a Constitutional amendment, will override the ruling by the judges that struck down Proposition 22 as being unconstitutional. The Constitution, as amended, would add a new section to Article I. This new section would read:
Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
So, instead of 4 activist judges dictating the will of the people, the will of the people will amend the California State Constitution. In this way, Yes on Proposition 8 will equal DEMOCRACY!
4 comments:
Hi;
May I interject a real life situation. I’d like to hear your guidance on this.
My mother was given a drug to take to lessen the chance of miscarriage and promote healthy babies — that’s what the doctor told her. The drug is Diethylstilbestrol, or DES. In male fetuses, it feminizes the brains of one in five of us ‘DES sons’.
I finally came to terms with this, and realized my choice was transition or die. So, I’m now a male-to-female transsexual who’s had ‘the operation.’ I’ve changed all my legal paperwork and although I still have a male body with XY chromosomes, it has been retrofitted to approximate female anatomy, which is good because if I ever end up in an accident, there will be no ’surprise’ for the first responders.
I ‘pass’ very well, thank you. Only rarely do strangers figure out I was not born this way. Most people have to be told, by me, or, more often, by someone else who just has to ‘drop the bomb.’
All my paperwork has been changed. Legally, I'm female. But I have to find an OB/GYN who can check my prostate during my yearly pelvic exam (yearly mammograms don't need that level of disclosure.)
So my question to you is — knowing what you know now about me, and assuming for the moment you get absolute power to label me and make determinations on where I can and can't go —
-Do I marry a man? Or do I marry a woman?
-Which restroom and changing facility do you feel I, a male-to-female transsexual, should use when in public spaces?
-Am I immoral?
-Am I a paedophile?
-Am I tearing down western society in support of a deviant agenda?
-Am I selfish?
I eagerly await your responses;
Hazumu Osaragi
Dear Hazumu Osaragi, I'm sorry that when I clicked on your name, I couldn't find your blog, neither could I find your name associated with .blogspot.com. But my question for you: How does your sad plight allow four judges to override millions of voters?
"How does your sad plight allow four judges to override millions of voters?"
Those four judges are the champions and advocates for 1- to 3-million Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders who reside in the state.
If your religion were a minority religion - misunderstood, feared and hated - and the majority got together to vote to eliminate the legal practice of your religion, you would see the need for those four judges to stand between your rights to free exercise and the mob who would eliminate it 'for the good of society'.
From the inception of our country, judges have been called upon to defend minorities against the tyranny of the majority.
This (and not 'majority rule, always') is the true meaning of Democracy.
And a bit of trivia. The lawyer who successfully argued the case before the California Supreme Court, Shannon Minter, is a trans-man, i.e., born female and transitioned to male.
Hazumu
I ran across this and figured I'd pass it on in light of the comments for this post.
Virginia Republicans are having a big gathering of activists from around the state this weekend. One of the tweets on one of the bloggers twitterfeeds about the event says,
"jasonkenney: One principle - marriage amdt didn’t go far enough, needs to be NATURAL man and NATURAL woman #rpvadvance"
I'm trying to get more info on what he means by it, but this whole trans gender thing could get really messy down the road.
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