Anyways, I hope he makes the right decision and strikes down prop 8.

If the gay community loses on the gay marriage issue, my opinion is that we should drop gay marriage, and approach the problem by promoting laws that prevent discrimination based on marital status. This would allow us to form a broader coalition (with unmarried people who live together for economic reasons, with straights who were formerly married with kids and who don’t want to get married again, with confirmed bachelors and bachelorettes, etc).

Marriage and community property laws are great stuff for straight, backward breeders who want to strictly perform their religiously prescribed marital roles, of provider and helpmeet. Why should gays, who are behaving in a more responsible manner, considering the current overpopulation fo the planet, emulate the straights. Let them have their “family courts” with no jury rights. Why should we even ask for this?

Real answer? I wish I hadn’t responded once — not to mention twice

I know what you mean — had the same problem with BUSSY the PUSSY.

I occasionally have the ill-conceived belief that such crass statements encouraging suicide deserve rebuttal or at least comment.

Suicides are a real problem in our community. We absolutely should rebut and discourage such comments. But it’s one thing when someone talks about this specific person (Walker) who, obviously, would not do such a crazy thing as ruling against us and then killing himself (this combination alone, with no regard to the suicide issue, is crazy enough); and it’s the other thing when that someone makes a statement that any self-hating gay person ought to kill oneself — it’s a very reckless comment, very dangerous… many gay people go through the self-hating phase when coming to terms with their homosexuality, and statements like this one may instill even more self-hatred (and gay-hatred towards others) and make one really consider this kind of way out. Been there, done that.

What I’m trying to say… There is another Russian saying that goes “???????? ??? ?? ??????” (“separate flies from rissoles”) — I just thought his comments were way too crazy to even respond to them, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care about the issue of suicide — been there, done that.

I believe there’s a saying in Russian that goes “Opinion is the mother of all suffering.” Similar expression in American: “Opinions are like assholes: everyone has one.”
Same idea!

Next time, I will try to bite my tongue.

So, what is it, man? [question addressed to Charles Merrill]
Is he a kind man or an internalized homophobe?
I don’t think you can really be both.

Either way, statements about suicide are batshit crazy.
Would you, guys, stop paying attention to comments like this?

I can’t speak from a legal perspective, but based on what I’ve read from those with constitutional law backgrounds, I think we’d agree that the Prop 8 supporters had and made a lousy case, and that Olson & Boies [sp?] dismantled those arguments one by one. The people I know who are most informed and “objective” about the case DO
believe he will find Prop h8 unconstitutional, so you and I probably don’t need to argue over whether ending his life would be a fitting conclusion to the story.

From a psych viewpoint, I think he’d have to weigh the importance of the legal reasoning versus what we perceive as his own self interest as a “gay man.” If his legal judgement superceded his own [presumed] bias, then he would no doubt feel bad, but to suggest that this would and should be worth KILLING HIMSELF over seems to oversimplify how we humans deal with our defeats, bad decisions, and letdowns.

Your statement was that he SHOULD kill himself. Mine is that he WOULDN’T necessarily—and OUGHT NOT TO—because his self-immolation would do none of us any good, and would discredit what I believe to be his very valuable hand in dismantling the namby-pamby arguments of those who seek to prevent same-sex marriage from becoming legal in Cal. and beyond.

Better said, a loss in California [which we agree is unlikely] wouldn’t completely dismantle the case for same-sex marriage. A win in Cal. would be a good basis for further “wins” in other states and eventually nationally.

Did you mean that?
I hope you realize the gravity and callousness of that remark and amend or retract it. Is encouraging the suicide of people you disagree with now politically acceptable?

Appeals, no doubt, will be heard by 9th Circuit panel (3 judges), and then there is the full 9th Circuit sitting en banc (all of the 9th Circuit judges). These hurdles must be surmounted first, and the whole thing may get stuck there.

“[T]he Supreme Court takes cases by getting a writ of certiorari signed by four of the nine Supreme Court Justices. They have complete discretion as to which cases they take, but I’ll send you back to my post about the Supreme Court for that.”
— via Brian Leubitz

This means SCOTUS may never even take this case at all (if there won’t be four Justices interested in hearing the case, and we know their attitudes — they already blocked televising the trial for idiotic reasons), especially if Walker rules in favor of defendant-intervenors (in that case they can just say they are satisfied with his ruling).

If that happens (Walker ruling against us and SCOTUS not even hearing the case), I’m sure they’ll try to minimize the damage for us (they are not idiots, they understand that the society some day will be ready to repeal Prop 8 and everything else nationwide) — nothing will really change: Prop 8 will be upheld, and no other state that currently recognizes same-sex marriages will be obliged to ban them.

However, SCOTUS may after all hear the case, for the sake of creating a precedent to refer to in the future — why go through this over and over again state by state when you can create a precedent to show there’s no chance in hell any ban introduced after passing a ballot initiative in any other state will be struck down by SCOTUS in the nearest future?

They just want to relieve themselves of responsibility to decide this very controversial issue now leaving it to future generations of people who will struck it down at the ballot box. I understand them — it’s a huge responsibility and a lot of people will be pissed off if they rule in our favor, but I still think that’s their job to make tough decisions, even against their own beliefs, so they should just suck it up and do the right thing!

I think it’s best if Walker decides in our favor (let’s be honest, if you really rake through the laws, you can find something to support either decision, so it’s really not about which one will be stronger, it’s about which one he’s gonna choose and why) — that will most definitely create more attention to the subject, and this decision would have a bigger chance to be heard in SCOTUS (otherwise they’ll just have to agree with him and open the door for other bans in other states to be overturned).

“Judge Walker will rule on both questions, but the question of fact will be given great deference, while the answers to the questions of law will be reviewed “de novo,” meaning completely anew.”
— via Brian Leubitz

Thus, his decision (answers to the questions of law) will be reviewed anew, so, whatever he decides, it may not be as important as we hope, but, I think, most certainly, they will at least read how he explained it — one can only hope they will agree with his findings, but they don’t have to. And Scalia is not gonna make it easy, damn sure!

… if you are in the middle of a drought and a meteorologist predicts that it is not going to rain, should the meteorologist commit suicide because the weather isn’t to your liking?

If he is a competent jurist, he’ll weigh the facts as they’re presented to him and make a decision based solely on those facts.

His personal feelings about the matter shouldn’t influence him one way or the other.

Sure, it’s fun to speculate and place bets, but until his decision is reached and his rationale clearly laid out, we’re reading goat entrails and tea leaves.

This shouldn’t be a question of his supposed “bias” in his determination, but rather the relative strength of the cases (pro and anti Prop 8) and arguments presented.

And until legal whiz-kid Davey Wavey weighs in with his opinion, I’m not giving the case a second thought! (g)

Another good comparison is that of Justice Thurgood Marshall, one of the foremost civil rights attorneys of his time who successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Ed case before the Supreme Court before, many years later, being appointed to it in 1967. During his 24 year tenure, the court heard many civil rights cases, including many that affected African Americans, such as:

* Jones v. Mayer Co. (1968): The Court held in this case that federal law bars all racial discrimination (private or public), in sale or rental of property.

* Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971): In this case, the Court decided that certain education requirements and intelligence tests used as conditions of employment acted to exclude African-American job applicants, did not relate to job performance, and were prohibited.

* Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. (1977): In this case, the Court declared that proof of a racially discriminatory intent is required in claim that race was a motivating factor in a land zoning decision.

* University of California Regents v. Bakke (1978): The Court decides that a public university may take race into account as a factor in admissions decisions.

* Batson v. Kentucky (1986): This decision holds that a state denies an African-American defendant equal protection when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposefully excluded.

He did not feel the need to recuse himself when those cases were before the court.

There were at least two gay friends of mine who had that problem. One of them said that gay shouldn’t marry. I guess he concluded that based on what he thinks gay people are or based on some of the gay people he has seen , but he ignored the hundreds of gay couples (gays and lesbians) who are good role models and well suited to live a life committed to each other and to create well stabled families. The other one was more like a total mess. When I asked him if he had voted against prop 8, he said he didn’t vote on that issue. I asked him why, and he started having problem to explain me why. First he explained that it was already enough with how everyone else viewed us. It was enough with the prejudice straight people had against us. That didn’t explained me anything, so I kept asking. So, he tried to give me another explanation, and said, “You know, gay people discriminate against each other. There are people who don’t want to be even friends with someone who is fat and ugly.” I kept dropping my jaw. I couldn’t believed that my friend was his own enemy at this point. I explained to him of course, that not eveyone was like that, and that we were fighting not for those people who discrimanate but for all the gay community so we could keep our rights. At the end, it boiled down that he was not happy with being gay. So I told him he had two choices, he could stop being gay or he could accept it. We laughed, he and I knew that our only choice is to accept being gay.

I just hope that Judge Walker is not one with the “gay internalized homophobes” problem. At the end, it wont matter if he is gay or straight, but on what reasons did he based his decision.

From the blogger-made transcripts I’d put the odds on Prop 8 being overturned given the evidence presented, but there may be precedents, rulings, and other legal issues that I am not aware of, so I’m not going to try to predict the outcome with any level of certainty.

Given his reputation, I’d expect Judge Walker’s decision to be backed up by a legally solid argument, whichever way it goes.

He would be a traitor. There is no justification for Prop 8 other than massive ignorance and being brain-washed into thinking that gays do not deserve equal rights or justice.

To everyone, let’s not put lavels on people just because they think different from us.

Judge Walker will have to use his judgment to evaluate the facts of the case, including the credibility of witnesses, but he has to follow existing precedents and can’t just make up what he’d personally like the law to be. It would be a waste of time if he did make a capricious decision – that would simply be overturned on appeal.

William Tam certainly showed there was animus behind the filing of Proposition Eight, at least by some of its sponsors, but not necessary all of its sponsors (some could have simply been deluded and only Tam was called as a witness). There were certainly a string of lies presented to the public to get Proposition Eight passed. There is, however, a legal question of whether animus on the part of some of the initiative’s 5 sponsors is sufficient to justify overturning Proposition Eight as it is not clear if the public that voted for it acted out of animus (people may have honestly thought they were protecting children due to falling for the “Yes on Eight” campaign’s TV ads, but being stupid or easily manipulated does not necessary imply animus unless animus is treated as being inherited in some way).

Judges can’t overturn laws simply because the laws are stupid – there has to be a legally valid reason. So let’s not be yet another group who rants against a judge simply because the only possible decision in some case is not to our liking. Similarly, he doesn’t deserve any praise for a favorable decision either. What he should be given credit for is for fulfilling his responsibilities competently (the expected outcome as he is supposed to be highly qualified).

Another founding idea of the country was no taxation without representation. Gays have to pay the same money to the government as a straight person, and get less service in return. The laws have carved gays out of the protections, and the right to marriage, which the Supreme Court has ruled is an inalienable civil right. GOD BLESS THE USA!

No one can be a good American, and not insist that everything they have, gays also have. That includes marriage.

I’m trying to understand your question. Are you asking that if Prop 8 was defeated at the ballot, would the pro-Prop 8 people go to court, and under what grounds?

If that’s your question, then my answer is that I have a hard time conceiving of any legal arguments for which they’d have standing in court. At best, they might argue some technical point (say, regarding the Attorney General’s title and summary) that could conceivably allow it to automatically be placed back on the ballot (though that seems to be a remote possibility), but would never automatically allow it to pass.

All of the court cases to date have centered around either whether or not there is a constitutional right for same sex couples to marry. Some may have also sued on procedural grounds regarding whether or not the public have a right to vote on the matter. In the states where the courts have required allowing it, some have attempted to sue on the grounds that the courts over-stepped their authority. But no one has attempted to argue that the US Constitution prohibits same sex marriages or that states don’t have the right to enact it on their own.

If I’ve misunderstood your question, can you clarify?

Steve, you’re mostly right, but not entirely. Appellate courts defer to the judgement of trial courts on matters of fact, but that is not to say that appellate courts accept findings of fact blindly. If an appellate court decides that there is insufficient evidentiary basis in the record to support a finding of fact, well then that “fact” no longer exists.

Now, I read the transcripts of the Prop. 8 trial, and I must say that there would seem to be plenty of evidence to support the sorts of conclusions you mention in your post. I’m just saying, don’t expect Antonin Scalia to accept an adverse finding of fact without a fight.

‘Irregardless’?! *shudder*

I agree with your post, however.

The supreme court would have to come up with something seriously clever if they want to deny marriage rights to gays and lesbians without setting precedent to upsetting prior precedents like Loving v. Virginia.