Perhaps California will soon make it 8.
Illinois might make it 9. Yesterday, Illinois legislators introduced a marriage equality bill. Since the division between Chicago and Illinois is perhaps even more drastic than the one between New York City and New York State, who knows what will happen there. (Hat tip to JoeMyGod)
For the record, yes I think H8 will go to the Supreme Court. I don't think Justices Thomas and Scalia will have too much difficulty persuading Roberts and Alito to hear it. Yes, the 9th Circuit very carefully worded their decision to make it particular to California and its very peculiar situation, all very reasonable. But when did reason ever have anything to do with this whole argument? As to what the decision will be, who knows.
If the Court decides for H8, this would set an extremely bad precedent, not just for lgbts, but for civil rights. Such a decision would effectively mean that everyone's rights are subject to popular referendum. Just as the Citizens United decision seriously blurred the distinction between democracy and oligarchy, so finding the line between democracy and mob rule would become that much harder if H8 prevails.
Who knows, maybe bills of attainder will make a comeback. I can just hear the talking points on Fox News now ...
EXTRA:
Gay activists in Texas (yes that's right, TEXAS) are doing actions across the state on Valentine's Day for marriage rights. Well I'll be dipped in shit!
Funny I have heard nothing on the news about this (marraige in Washington) passing. Illinois and Maryland as well as the end of Prop 8 seems like counting on things that are FAR from clearly going to come out good!
ReplyDeleteI was struck by the headline.
ReplyDeleteEarlier today, one of the eight candidates for the leader of Canada's principal opposition party dropped out of the race. Romeo Saganash had been the first First Nations person to seek the leadership of a Canadian federal party.
When I saw your headline, I couldn't figure out how you'd noticed or why you'd comment on it.
But to relate this back to your actual topic . . .
When the Parliament of Canada voted for equal marriage, only one Member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party voted against it. Within days, a young woman in the MP's remote, northern Manitoba constituency decided to challenge the MP for the NDP nomination.
Admittedly, the young woman was well connected. Her father was a senior Member of the (provincial) Legislative Assembly and at the time was Deputy Premier.
But still, to launch your political career by standing up for LGBTQTS rights in a constituency of small villages and larger resource communities seemed like a long shot.
But I'm very proud t be supporting Niki Ashton, one of the seven remaining candidates for the NDP leadership.
Based o our experience here in Canada, I can tell you that you will eventually win equal marriage across the US ... and within a couple of years, everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about.
The law has passed (in Washington State), but the marriages haven't yet commenced (w/ haters collecting sigs). I'm keeping my champagne chilled until...
ReplyDeleteMalcolm, you have a very unrealistic veiw of the USA. Just look at EVERY single person running for President from the Republican side...in a few years we coudl eb a "Christian Nation" where being gay or useing contraception is OUTLAWED! I am 55, I do not think the United States will have gay marraige (I mean real, NATIONAL gay maraige) in my lifetime!
ReplyDeleteI'm 54, and from Texas, and I never thought I'd live to see marriage equality even on a state level. Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo (Dripping water hollows a stone, not by force but by contiunously dripping) said Ovid.
ReplyDeleteLovely citation, Doug.
ReplyDeleteMy quote will be more recent (and directed at Tristan): "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire." Peter Gabriel, Biko
The recognition, acknowledgement and CELEBRATION of same-sex spousal relationships are a (flaming!) FIRE, Tristan. They can't be blown out now. With all those young people lifting them up? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late to blow them out now!!! :-D
JCF, wishful thinking! I hope you are right and I am wrong, but after 55 years on the planet and 27 with my husband, I just don't see the USA with all it's hate and Republican fake rightiousness ever allowing me to be realy, leagaly married!
ReplyDeleteI said eventually, Tristan. And eventually there will be equal marriage across the US.
ReplyDeleteI never gave a timeline.
Well Malcolm, "eventually" does NOT matter to me if it happens after I am dead! It mean nothing to me if it happens in some far future!
ReplyDeleteThen keep working at it. Progress tends to advance incrementally, with periodic, wholesale leaps that are entirely unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteFive - ten years ago, when the far right sarted really pusshing gay unions as a wedge issue, it would have seemed far fetched that, in 2012, there would be seven states that had legalized equal marriage.