What exactly is Propostion 8?

[KevinS]

Hey American friends:

I'm just a Canadian bumpkin here, and I am confused a bit about what you call Proposition 8. Can someone explain it to me?

My [probably incorrect] understanding is that California passed a law allowing gay marriage, and then changed their mind. Is that correct?

Maybe we're a little backward up north here, but once we pass a law, we can't just change our mind. In Canada, marriage law comes under federal jursidiction, so when gay marriage was passed in 2003, it was legal in the enitre country, and that was the end of the story. Yes, lots of evangelicals yelled and screamed that world would end, but it didn't. Eventually everyone realized there was more interesting stuff to get all excited about and just moved on.

Kevin.

[Zerbie]

In the US, one hears a lot about 'states' rights.' Short version, there has always been debate about how much jurisdiction the federal government has, versus how much is alloted to states. There are differing opinions about whether marriage belongs to the jurisdiction of states or to the federal government.

In CA, a state court overturned previous legislation (I believe it was legislation formerly passed by voters, is that right everyone?) prohibiting marriage between members of the same sex. That was last May. In Nov, voters passed an amendment to the CA constitution eliminating the right (recently defended by the state court) for same sex couples to marry in CA.

Soon, we get to find out whether or not this amendment will be interpreted to nullify the nearly 20,000 same sex marriages that occurred between last July and last November.

[KevinS]

Thanks Zerbie. Wow, that sucks. My impression has always been that CA is very liberal. What made people change their mind about this? It just seems like a really quick flip-flop. It also seems cruel to so many people's lives. Not only the 20,000 marriages you are talking about, but also all the people who planned to get married, and now they can't.

Do you think they'll change their minds again?

[Alecto]

There's a lot of weird balances going on with prop 8.

The specifics of how "marriage" is handled IS considered a state's jurisdiction, hence part of the problem. THere is an actual federal law or policy (which are two different things, and I don't remember which it is) saying that states should recognize other states' marriage, so that straight people don't need to worry about whether or not they're still married if they move. DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) signed by Bill Clinton made this untrue ONLY for gay marriages. There's all kinds of debate (I read it as: excuses) as to why he signed it and why he "had to" politically, but this is the number one NASTIEST piece of legislation currently on the books.

There's also some weirdness about courts versus votes of the poeple. The California history I don't remember as well, but there was something about people having voted on the ban before. It then got overturned as unconstitutional discrimination (which, historically, has kind of been the purpose of the Courts to preserve the rights of the minority). So, the people said "well if we can't discriminate according to our state constitution, let's CHANGE our constitution. Then we can make all sorts of crazy laws!". Which means the courts still don't know what to do with the couples who got married in the meantime (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WpwA...next=1&index=4).

[pnggrad79]

Hi Canadian! Yes, we here in the good ole USA take away rights instead of letting people have them! You pretty much nailed that one on the head. We might as well rename ourselves RSA for Repressed States of America!

[Rick336]

Prop 8 was a law passed in California in November that said that the lives of LGBT Californians do not hold the same value as the lives of everybody else. Prop 8 says that LGBT Californians should remain second class citizens and that because their sexual orientation or sexual identity is different from heterosexuals then they are not worthy of the same freedom, respect, and pursuit of happiness that the rest of America enjoys.

Rick