Last night a cloud that had descended eight years ago when an election was stolen in Florida was finally lifted. We Americans took a major leap forward to repudiate the destructive policies of the last 8 years, and of the last 400....
But another cloud descended on us here in California, when voters appear to have passed Prop. 8, institutionalizing into our very state constitution discrimination and bigotry against gays and lesbians.
Last night a cloud that had descended eight years ago when an election was stolen in Florida was finally lifted. We Americans took a major leap forward to repudiate the destructive policies of the last 8 years, and of the last 400....
But another cloud descended on us here in California, where voters appear to have passed Prop. 8, institutionalizing into our very state constitution discrimination and bigotry against gays and lesbians.
It is hard to find any other examples in our state or federal constitutions where the amendment process has been used to constrict, rather than expand, the rights of individual citizens. Simply put, there is no moral right, and therefore there ought to be no political right, for the "Tyranny of the Majority" to impose its will on a minority in this manner, and to dictate when two consenting adults can marry.
What to do, other than fume?
- Hope that court challenges can do something:
Yes, it is now a state constitutional amendment, but it is on its face in conflict with other (state and federal) constitutional protections and (state and federal) supreme court rulings regarding equal protection. One possible interpretation (a legal long-shot,..) is that by defining marriage as between a man and a woman only, it actually prevents ANY legal marriages in the state, because these marriages would violate equal protection. Another legal line of attack may be to point out the biological, sociological, and therefore legal ambiguity surrounding the very terms "man" and "woman."
- Call for an investigation into the Mormon Church:
Yes, much of the money was provided for by individuals, which is their right, but this was apparently done at the written behest of the church leadership, including written letters read in temples. I think a real case can be made that these activities crossed the line into political advocacy, threatening the tax-free status of the church under federal rules.... Call your representatives in DC to demand a federal investigation.
- Fight to fix the proposition system:
All that was needed to amend our state constitution was a few thousand signatures to get this thing on the ballot, and a simple PLURALITY of votes in favor over votes against. To undo Prop 8 will now require super-majorities in the state legislature and then ratification by the people.
This is silly. The CA proposition system is broken and needs to be fixed. While we are fighting to re-amend the state constitution to undo 8, let's fight to amend the amending process as well.
Historically, the proposition system was implemented for good reasons – as a populist counter-insurgency against the robber barons and others plutocrats who ran CA for their own financial gain from the smoke-filled back rooms of San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. But it is way too easy to get a proposition on the ballot, and way too easy to misinform and misdirect busy voters about the consequences. We are busy with our jobs and our families, and should not have to do the job of our state legislature every November, in what is supposed to be a republican (with small r!!!!) system. While I do not think we should necessarily get away entirely from the plebiscite, we pay our legislators good money, and they should earn it by carefully researching the issues, consulting experts, drafting carefully-written legislation that can withstand judicial scrutiny, debating it, and passing it. If we do not like the outcome, we can vote for new representatives who better reflect our views and goals.
- Election reform: while were at it, let's lobby our leaders to institute fundamental election reforms so that:
legal bribery by corporations and other large institutions to our elected leaders is made more difficult, and the ability to fill the airwaves with outright lies without any consequence;
and
when we do manage to get another vote to undo Prop 8 and similar nonsense in CA or elsewhere, we have uniform, transparent and fair standards for voter registration, access to the polls, clear ballots and voting procedures, and accurate and verifiable vote tabulation
- Demand more from the Fourth Estate:
A vital, free, and accurate media is vital to any democracy. In large part, we no longer have such institutions. So many votes come down to near 50%-%50% splits because the electorate has collectively been put in a state of near complete uncertainty and confusion by the misinformation by partisan camps essentially unchecked or uncorrected by the mainstream media. They seem to see their fundamental role as one of superficial sense of "balance" or false "objectivity" rather than accuracy - simply repeating what both sides are claiming without bothering to do any meaningful background analysis, fact-checking, or careful comparison and contrast. Somehow they have come to believe their role is primarily stenographic rather than empirical and critical – they act as parrots rather than gadflys, and lap-dogs rather than bulldogs. Much of our mainstream media also seems to delight in the all-too-easy path of the meaningless arm-chair meta-analysis of the election as a horse-race, rather than helping to inform citizens about the true costs and consequences of the options before them. The latter, after all, requires actual journalistic effort....
- Improve the dialog between leaders within the African-American and LGBT communities:
Looking at the numbers, it is clear that one major reason for the failure of Prop 8 to fail was that in large numbers, African-American voters failed to see the direct connections between this issue and the historic struggles of the civil rights movement -- sadly ironic in the very same election where we elected our first African-American president, and despite the fact that almost the very same language was being invoked in the 21st century against gay or lesbian marriage as was used in the 20th against inter-racial marriage.