Traditional marriage is the law in California. Like Florida, California voted to reaffirm this happy fact on the same day as it voted (in Florida’s case, decisively) for President Obama. And the State Supreme Court has now said so definitively.
Just as Democratic America has the pro-life majority that Republican America never had, so the Democrats owe their pre-eminence to the supporters of traditional marriage in California and Florida. To the opponents of deregulated gambling in Missouri and Ohio. To the opponents of legal discrimination against working-class white men in Colorado. To those who keep the black and Catholic churches (especially) going from coast to coast. And to an increasingly large chunk of the white Evangelicals.
It is time to put away the childish things of campus pseudo-radicalism from the year before yesteryear, and instead to get on with the Pregnant Women Support Act. With the Employee Free Choice Act. And with all other aspects of the restoration of America as the land of big municipal government. As the land of strong unions whose every red cent in political donations buys something specific. As the land of very high levels of co-operative membership, not least including housing co-operatives for the upper middle classes. As the land of small farmers who own their own land. As the land that pioneered Keynesianism in practice. And as the land “not seeking for monsters to destroy”.
From the SCOCA decision:
ReplyDelete"...we by no means diminish or minimize the significance that the official designation of "marriage" holds for both the proponents and opponents of Proposition 8; indeed, the importance of the marriage designation was a vital factor in the majority opinion"s ultimate holding in the Marriage Cases, supra, 43 Cal.4th 757, 845-846, 855. Nonetheless, it is crucial that we accurately identify the actual effect of Proposition 8 on same-sex couples' state constitutional rights, as those rights existed prior to adoption of the proposition, in order to be able to assess properly the constitutional challenges to the proposition advanced in the present proceeding. We emphasize only that among the various constitutional protections recognized in the Marriage Cases as available to same-sex couples, it is only the designation of marriage, albeit significant, that has been removed by this initiative measure."So they've eaten their words, essentially taking back their May 2008 decision that had overturned the results of the earlier Proposition 22 (which became the California Defense of Marriage Act), and undercutting the rationale for their action against Prop22.
It looks like SSM is coming up for a popular vote in my state also. I'm not looking forward to this. I fully expect that a number of people will stop speaking to me once they find out that my position on this issue has changed.
Anyway, interesting blog you've got. Nice work.
Democrats owe nothing to anyone who voted for Prop 8. They are not Democrats anyway, and the demographic trends are clear.
ReplyDeleteBetween now and the next time this is on the ballot, people who fill the obituaries dying of old age are going to be the ones who voted for you.
The new voters, the ones who are as young as sophomores and juniors in high school today, are going to vote to repeal Prop 8 in large numbers.
Their younger brothers and sisters, even more so when they get to be voting age.
This is a matter of time is all.
In the meantime, to paraphrase one of your countrymen:
It's the best years of our lives you want to steal!
"Anyway, interesting blog you've got. Nice work."
ReplyDeleteThank you. Do keep coming back.
"Democrats owe nothing to anyone who voted for Prop 8."
Apart from California's Electoral College votes, since the two polls took place on the same day.
"They are not Democrats anyway"
Some of them must have been. Literally must.
"Between now and the next time this is on the ballot, people who fill the obituaries dying of old age are going to be the ones who voted for you."
How do you know?
"The new voters, the ones who are as young as sophomores and juniors in high school today, are going to vote to repeal Prop 8 in large numbers."
Really? Why? What were the views of those who passed it when they were that young? Not just on this, but on anything and everything?
"Their younger brothers and sisters, even more so when they get to be voting age."
Why? How do you know? They will have grown up with it. It will simply be a fact of life to them.
"In the meantime, to paraphrase one of your countrymen"
Which one?
> Apart from California's Electoral College votes, since the two polls took place on the same day.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should learn about US Federal (Presidential esp) and State Elections and how they work before you spout off.
> Some of them must have been. Literally must.
And it doesn't matter. It was not a partisan issue, as you well know. You will not be able to spin it that way, especially from across the pond and be credible to anyone with a brain that works.
"Between now and the next time this is on the ballot, people who fill the obituaries dying of old age are going to be the ones who voted for you."
> How do you know?
We are not a third world nation. The number of deaths in any 3 year period of ages 45 and up, say, far outnumbers the number of deaths of 15-17 year olds.
Not only that, but every poll ever, regardless of affiliation or independence, shows that the younger one is, the more likely one is to support SSM then oppose it.
The older you are, the more likely you are to oppose SSM, and not coincidentally, the more likely you are to die before the next election.
> Really? Why? What were the views of those who passed it when they were that young? Not just on this, but on anything and everything?
The views of those that passed this the last time are that this was their last great chance to get this done. They know it.
You may not know, but there was an election 6 year prior where the exact same language was voted on as law (not Constitutional Amendment) and it passed by, IIRC, an 18% margin.
This past election, on precisely the same language, passed by 4%.
So, in 6 years, as older people died, and younger people replaced them on the voter rolls, there was ~14-15% swing. In only 6 years! Only 2% left to go!
This is why everyone here knows it is just a matter of time, regardless of one;s position on the matter at hand.
> Why? How do you know? They will have grown up with it. It will simply be a fact of life to them.
Grown up with hate and prejudice taught by their parents and churches?
In the last 6 years that clearly has not been working.
Young people know when they are being scammed by old people, in the aggregate.
"In the meantime, to paraphrase one of your countrymen"
> Which one?
Google is your friend sir, I am not doing *all* of your work for you :)
What you're forgetting, Anonymous #2, is that the young do change their opinions as they gain more experience in life.
ReplyDeleteIn just the past couple of years, I've gone from fervent supporter of same-sex marriage, to reluctant opponent. And I'm the same completely secular Lefty I've always been: I didn't get religion, or start voting Republican.
What I did was to begin taking the perspectives of working class people and ethnic minorities seriously, instead of just assuming that I knew better, and that it was up to enlightened little old me to "educate" the masses out of their objections to altering any further their society's most basic institution.
If an activist like me can find her views changing, what makes you so sure that the present opinions of all those far less political teens and twenty-somethings represent some kind of permanent sea-change in our culture?
Well at least the 18,000 gay couples who married while gay marriage was legal will stay wed!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 01:37, your main point has been answered by Anonymous 05:11. And the people to whom Anonymous 11:02 refers are the ones who are going to die out.
ReplyDeleteBut which part of this is wrong: California's (and Florida's) voters gave their state's Electoral College votes to Obama on the same day as they voted to reaffirm traditional marriage?
As for this not being a party issue, it was you who said that those who voted both for Obama and for Proposition 8 were not real Democrats.