Prop 8 Overturned!

Awesome. Finally some good news for those of us who give a shit about liberty.

Totally agree. What a great decision!

Woot! Woot!

Hooray!

With the villainous Scott Brown having absconded with one of my beloved Bay State's senate seats, and California set to LEGALIZE POT in November, California (despite all their problems) might finally be in the running for "Greatest State in the Union"

PS: Take that, Mormons! >: )

Good news but the Fox News headline will be about a San Francisco judge undermining the will of the people. If we only had a President who would take charge on this issue.

Yeah, no.

This is indeed great news though.

Yeah, I agree.. but I still am quite impressed with their progress.

You are right though; if they were truly the greatest, PROP 8 never would have succeeded in the first place. With that said, I'd really appreciate some legalized pot in Massachusetts

Awesome news!

Good news, but you guys have an odd definition of "it's over".

I wonder how much this will actually serve as a galvanizing rod for the republicans in November, though. This'll give them a real rallying point.

Sanity prevails. Wonderful news.

If they had any plausible person to rally behind.

This is great news, but, yeah, this is very fucking far from over. But for this brief moment: Woo hoo! Eat shit, Hatemongers!

Isn't the pot vote expected to really help progressives though in CA? I've heard that the turn out should be huge if people can vote to finally be able to buy pot from a store like decent citizens

It's a political party that has handed the reins over to hatred and idiocy. All this could do is save them the trouble of making their rallying point up.

And while it may not be over, getting the onus put on the other side where it belongs is a very good thing.

I was about to say the exact same thing.

Urg... let's just enjoy the moment!

Kate, please stop trying to talk about legalized pot in a gay marriage thread. Your ignorance of federal law trumping any kind of state initiative is starting to grate.

I don't really buy into the idea that this could further stir up the hornets nest, as it were, when it comes to the bigoted elements of our society. Perhaps in 2004 when the election was between two white people, that might have made a difference, but the election of a guy named Barack Obama is all the catalyst the hatemongers need to show up to the polls in this or any year.

My discussion of the pot thing in California was in the context of the upcoming November elections there. My point was that I don't think this "prop 8 being overturned" thing has any real potential to increase turn out among republicans beyond what we were already going to see. As a national issue "negro in the white house" trumps "gays kissing in California". I doubt that this latest prop 8 development is going to have much of an effect nationally on turn out, and what effect it might have would only be local IMHO. My point about pot was that the pot issue alone would probably erase any benefit that the hatemongers saw when it came to getting more of their people to the polls in CA

Wait, it's legal to marry another man now? Good. That was the only thing keeping me straight and married! Here I come boys!

That was fast! Here is CitizenLink's (Focus on the Family) response to the ruling:

I've often wondered how homophobes can stand there, smiling, saying they aren't bigoted, they just think that their love is better than your love, as if the hypocrisy detector in their brains isn't just not working, it just doesn't exist at all.

It's like the one religious debate I've ever had with a Baptist--he said that he didn't think I was wrong for not following his faith, but he did think I was going to hell for not following his faith. What. The. Fuck. How people whose logic engines are so faulty aren't walking around bleeding from the ears is beyond me.

So, one judges' opinion < 7 million assholes'. I wonder what they're gonna say when it goes to the Supreme Court, and it becomes 5 or 6 judges.

In any case, I'll just have a huzzah for today. At least for today, something resembling sanity won.

That's so cute. Hausknecht forgot that whole thing where the government is there to protect minorities.

I mean if we always listened to the will of the majority then we'd still have segregated schools.

Agree. I think there's a sickness within the minds and souls of people fighting against equal protection under the law. Their vehemence is vile and creepy and bordering on fetishism.

Wasn't trying to shit on anyone's parade up there. I agree, this is awesome and important. I was just thinking out loud.

Literally just finished watching 8: A Mormon Proposition to read this. Excellent news. (Not a very good documentary, though. At all. Cheesily narrated, horrendous reenactment scenes, and bounces all over the place. Some really strong scenes here and there, however.)

They're already issuing marriage certificates to gay couples- http://sfappeal.com/news/2010/08/prop8.php

That guy was probably browsing on rent-a-boy.com when he wrote that.

Asshole.

Yet did anyone complain when it was only seven million people out of a population of 36 million that were in favour of Prop 8?

If people voted for legalizing rape it wouldn't make it constitutional. These assholes don't understand the role of the judiciary.

Oh, Judd, don't give these troglodytes any ideas.

Exactly. The more and more I hear this argument I think about Stephen Douglas's Popular Sovereignty argument he made against Lincoln during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 1858. He thought that slavery should exist in any territory if that territory voted for it.

That argument is being expanded today in many different situations. First, this Prop 8 bullshit and also the Missouri vote last night that rejected the health care bill's individual mandate.

This is not a direct democracy and there are checks and balances. No matter how much the State of Missouri can hate the individual mandate (as I do as well), there's no way out of it by vote. It's a federal law. Federal law trumps state law and state referendums. You don't like the mandate? Vote for the politicians that will repeal it. I love hearing that two states have constitutional amendments getting out of the individual mandate as well. Good luck with that.

Just like this situation, Americans think their vote trumps all. Not true. Sorry.

I'd like to know at what point in history has any form of civil right ever been issued by popular mandate?

Granted trying to argue with some of these fucks is on par with dealing a mobius strip.

Now if we could only get initiative reform in this state. After the weed proposition, of course.

I love the fact that he pointed out all of the above. LOVE.

I love how they're implicitly saying that they know they're eventually going to lose flat-out.

It's not even true.

“It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience had proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
Alexander Hamilton June 21, 1788

I'm a Debbie Downer, because the first thing I thought of when I heard this news was that it was only going to motivate bigots to vote in neanderthals in greater numbers than before.

Obligatory text below so that it's not just a photo post!

Obviously he hasn't read his John C Calhoun!

Has anyone pointed out yet that, while Massachusetts is pretty cool, it's not a state. It's a commonwealth.

Okay, corrected. Apologies.

California represent!!

Good job, California. You've finally caught up to Iowa in the realm of civil liberties!

I kid, I kid.

Seriously, though, anyone who has a problem with gay marriage should be barred from referring to themselves as Conservative.

This has me worried (and quite a few gay brothers and sisters too). The Supreme Court is leaning decidedly right. An unfortunate ruling from them could set the cause back years.

I wouldn't worry about the courts fucking this up. From everything I know about this the anti gay marriage argument is, as Louis CK puts it, "But your honor, they're queeeeer!"

CHUD Republicans are so much better than regular ones.

Except Snaieke, obviously.

Don't get too excited, they'll find someway to fuck it up. Kudos to Arnie for supporting it.

Name another state that has nearly every kind of landscape in nature represented in its borders--glaciers, mountains, deserts, forests, volcanoes, lake and ocean beaches--has contributed two additions to the periodic table, the best public university on Earth, one of the best private universities, hosts almost all the major players of the computing industry, is the home of the film industry, has the market corned on the emerging green and nano technology industries, and boasts one of the largest economies on the planet.

Yes, Prop 13 was retarded and basically crushed public services in the state and bankrupted us. Yes, the combo of Prop 13's legacy and the direct ballot initiative make the state pretty much ungovernable. Yes, the ungovernable nature of the state has resulted in the state government that governs one of the biggest generators of wealth on Earth receiving a junk bond rating. All that means is that our state constitution is in desperate need of reform. It in no way challenges the greatness of California.

By any objective standard, California is the crown jewel of the United States. The last century was only the "American Century" because of California. The only state that even comes close to matching us in terms of our contribution to the country is New York and they don't have a fraction of the natural resources or capability to generate wealth that we have.

On the topic of the court decision, I would keep the party contained. Remember, this is definitely going to the Roberts Court, which has a majority of social conservatives on the bench, four of whom are four of the most batshit insane right-wing jurists in the history of the institution. Scalia in particular has written opinions that can honestly be described as homophobic. The cause for equality might be worse off than it was before the decision when this gets settled.

As far as contributing to the country? There are 7 states that contribute more (based on a percentage). But hey, if you're talking gross dollars Texas is pretty friggin close AND has more natural resources than poor little California. Get back to us when your state taxes aren't quite so high.