The California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage in a 6-1 vote on Tuesday.
Before its vote Tuesday morning there had been some confusion about gay couples who married before November’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages. The Supreme Court said that the approximate 18,000 couples already married will stay legally wed since they did so before the law passed.
According to the ruling’s news release from the Judicial Council of California Administrative Office of the Courts, the vote was made because Californians have every right to change the state constitution through ballot voting, which “establishes a new substantive constitutional rule that took effect upon the voters’ approval of the initiative measure … [T]he people, in exercising that authority, have not usurped a power allocated by the Constitution exclusively to the judiciary or another branch of government.”
Opponents of Proposition 8 argued that the measure was a revision and therefore unconstitutional, according to the Judicial Council. The court came to this decision explaining that the ballot measure was an amendment to the constitution and not a revision, and therefore completely constitutional through the initiative process.
Check the Daily Forty-Niner next Thursday or www.daily49er.wpengine.com for more local coverage on the Supreme Court’s decision.
We should evict all Mormons from the state!
Proposition H8 will be overturned in the U.S. Supreme Court as a direct violation of the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause, making this a civil rights issue equal to the Jurassic laws that once banned interracial marriage. The U.S. Constitution overrides state constitutions. Then same-sex marriages will be legal in all 50 states.
JR Salazar…maybe it’s time you moved to Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont or Conncticut.
WAY TO GO SUPREME COURT! It’s about time we put these homos in line!
Thank goodness the court decided to support the will of the people instead of making their own laws. Regardless of one’s views on Proposition 8, activist judges need to remember they are not part of the legislative branch nor can they disregard us as voters. The right decision was made.
I can’t believe I actually am going out of my way to say this, but it’s official: as a state, California SUCKS. First we are out of money, then we are out of tolerance for marriage equality.
They can learn a thing or two from the people in Massachusetts or Iowa or Vermont or Connecticut. The majority who decided to vote YES on it, that is.
The Supreme Court is prolonging the war with this decision. Nuff said.