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NRO Explains Why Gays Target Mormons

Posted by TheChair on Saturday, November 29, 2008 2:54:26 AM
National Review Online editors explain that it's really quite simple: Mormons are an easy, vulnerable target.
To date, 30 states have voted on initiatives addressing same-sex marriage, and in every state traditional marriage has come out on top. But somehow the fact that Mormons got involved during the latest statewide referendum constitutes a bridge too far? In truth, Mormons are a target of convenience in the opening salvo of what is sure to be a full-scale assault on much of America’s religious infrastructure, which gay activists perceive as a barrier to their aspirations. Among religious groups, Mormons are not the biggest obstacle to same-sex marriage — not by a long shot. But they are an easy target. Anti-Mormon bigotry is unfortunately common, and gay-rights activists are cynically exploiting that fact.
As NRO says, today the Mormons, tomorrow everyone else because Prop. 8 opponents understand their "enemy" to be America's entire religious infrastructure.

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California Justices Attend Prop. 8 Conference

Posted by TheChair on Friday, November 28, 2008 11:40:03 AM
Six of the seven Justices on the California Supreme Court attended a conference where they heard panelists deliver pros and cons on same sex marriage. I couldn't find the source article for the story, but only this Clip-n-Copy report of it. The item that interested me most was Gerald Uelman's argument that the California Supreme Court cannot overturn Prop. 8 on the "it's a revision" theory without also admitting that its May Marriage Cases holding was also an unlawful constitutional revision.


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Black Friday Stampede Kills WalMart Worker

Posted by TheChair on Friday, November 28, 2008 11:20:14 AM
I don't know about you, but WalMart sells nothing that I would kill a man for.
A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said. . . Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him. "He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."
Trinkets and baubles for a man's life! What and who have we become?

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How Dare the People "Revise" Their Constiitution

Posted by TheChair on Thursday, November 27, 2008 2:58:41 AM
Robert Alt at NRO's Benchmemos tackles Prof. Geoff Stone's argument that Prop. 8's enactment was an improper religious enactment. I liked this paragraph, a mini-analysis of the legal case against Prop. 8:
The arguments made are pretty thin gruel, and turn on a technical question of whether the change should be an amendment, which can be passed (as Prop. 8 was) by a majority vote of the people after collecting enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, or whether it is such a drastic change that it needed to go through the more arduous process of constitutional revision. Deep down, some of the lawyers making these arguments had to find it ironic to argue that the state Constitution could not be modified to change the right to marriage through the formal amendment process, including the approval of a majority of voters, but that it could be done by four judges who changed the law by their own fiat. The case law is pretty strongly against those challenging Prop. 8, enough so that I think even the California Supreme Court will have trouble legislating . . . oops, I mean carefully legally reasoning their way to the conclusion that Prop. 8 is unlawful.
This part in bold reminds me of a good point a friend made. He wondered how Prop. 8 could possibly be cast aside as a "revision" when 4 of 7 justices could make such radical changes to our state constitution without that also being a "revision."

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Can You Pass This 33-Question Civics Test??

Posted by TheChair on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 3:09:43 AM
National Review Online reports that 71 percent of Americans flunk this 33-question civics test sponsored by Intercollegiate Studies Institute. What kills me is that elected officials consistently score 5% worse than average!


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Powerline Predicts Court Victory for Prop. 8

Posted by TheChair on Friday, November 21, 2008 11:11:14 AM
Powerline blog goes out on a limb and reads tea leaves optimistically for the fate of Prop. 8.


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Christian Dating Service eHarmony.com Sued Into Gay Matchmaking

Posted by TheChair on Friday, November 21, 2008 11:06:59 AM
They want it both ways... militant gays want to play the civil rights victim, as in the Prop. 8 campaign, and then they do things like this, forcing by lawsuit Christian businesses to accommodate militant sodomy. Commentator Michelle Malking rightly calls it a shakedown. The settlement included not only accommodation, but a $50,000 fine payable to New Jersey's attorney general (who took the side of the gay plaintiff), and the first six months service free for up to 10,000 new customers.

The monster never should have been let out of the closet.


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California Supreme Court Decides to Decide

Posted by TheChair on Thursday, November 20, 2008 10:56:00 AM
The big news is the California Supreme Court has granted the various petitions to hear and decide the constitutionality of Proposition 8.  Read the one-page order for yourself. The Court could had a couple of other options before it, including deciding the cases instantaneously on the current briefs (very unusual, especially on complex & high profile issues), and dismissing the petitions to let litigation trickle back up from Superior Court. That would have taken 2-3 years to get back to the state Supreme Court. But the Court expedited things. It called for further briefing by Prop. 8 proponents, to be followed by opposition reply briefs, and then by new amicus curiae briefs and replies to them. All this is to be done by January 21st. Very fast. Oral argument soon after, probably March. We can expect a final decision by spring.

Check out Ed Whelan's commentary over at Bench Memos on National Review Online. I like his take on the three issues, although he concludes, as do I, that prognostication is impossible.


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Prop. 8 Legal Update

Posted by TheChair on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 9:43:08 AM
The Prop. 8 legal briefs keep flooding in to the California Supreme Court. Briefs for Amendment's opposition continue to sprout like mushrooms, partly because the lawsuits themselves are multiplying. At last count, there are now six challenges to Proposition 8. There's even more briefing under the surface... look under the hood here, in the lead case. Meanwhile, only a few briefs in support of Prop. 8 have been filed. Fortunately, all we need to prevail is one good brief like this, from Chapman Law's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. It is a masterpiece of clear, concise legal writing written in plain English. Impossibly short at only four pages, it nevertheless covers all the imaginable issues. It is most persuasive and gives supporters much hope. (Perhaps Shakespeare was wrong about lawyers.) Read the whole thing and pass it on. Prop. 8's official proponents also submitted an excellent early brief. Its Section II, pp. 7-11 are worth skimming.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Jerry Brown went out on a limb and asked the Court to accept and decide the cases (oooo, what a daring position), and not to stay Proposition 8 during the litigation. Hooray. Why didn't he brief the merits of the cases? Why didn't he stick up for the legality of Proposition 8? Hey, you know what they say about gift horses. At least he didn't come out and brief for the opposition directly.

This S.F. Chronicle article fairly summarizes the key issues, and rightly lays out the odds against Prop. 8's challengers. L.A. Times notes the specter of recall hanging in the air. But the best reading right now for Prop. 8 supporters is the Chapman Law legal brief.


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The Drive to Nationalize Homosexual Marriage

Posted by TheChair on Saturday, November 15, 2008 3:00:50 PM
Vice is a monster, an all-consuming fire. Once tolerated, once free of restraint, it is never content with its new liberty, but seeks ever more, consuming all before it. We have now elected leaders in California and in the White House who aid and abet the drive for nationalizing gay marriage. Homosexual marriage advocates are going to try to get their way by hook or by crook. By lawsuit, by protests, by vandalism, by packing courts, by boycott, by violence and by ugliness. This is going to be a long, hard fight.

Every elected leader ought to be made to take a public stand, one way or the other. No hemming and hawing. No parsing. No nuance because there isn't any nuance here. Nuance was catered to with civil unions. Either marriage IS and OUGHT ALWAYS TO BE between a man and a woman, or not. Ask elected leaders: Do you support traditional marriage and laws that preserve it? Yes or no? If you support marriage, what have you done and what will you do to preserve it?

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California Supreme Court Asks Jerry Brown to Brief Prop. 8 Cases

Posted by TheChair on Friday, November 14, 2008 11:34:26 AM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/14/BAMU1449RR.DTL


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Prop. 8 Briefing Update

Posted by TheChair on Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:28:03 PM
Here is the link to the California Supreme Court's Prop. 8 website. It accumulates and links to all the legal briefs involved. So far, the only Pro-Prop. 8 brief to be filed is the one filed by Pacific Legal Institute. You may have heard of them when they represented the parents of that school whose children were recruited for "ally week." Attorney General Jerry Brown has yet to file anything.

Don't be alarmed, yet. These actions by Prop. 8 opponents are not appeals, so the procedure is a little different. They are petitions for writ, which mean the parties are suing to stop government officials from doing something they shouldn't do, or to make them do something they should do. I have done writ work before. Normally, when an opponent files a petition for writ, the defendant side waits for the court to order an opposition brief. The reason is the discretionary nature of the procedure. In a true appeal, the parties are on statutory deadlines to brief the case, and the appellate court must hear and decide the matter. In an appeal, when one side files a brief, the other side must then file his brief by preset deadline. But in a writ action, the court has much discretion whether even to entertain the matter. The court can look at the writ filer's brief and then throw it in the trashcan if it wants to. It can order the other side to brief the matter. It can decide the matter on the briefs alone, or it can make the parties engage in oral argument.

Here, of course, the California Supreme Court already said it would consider the matter and decide it very soon. It's possible for the court to decide the matter quickly even without a brief from the Attorney General. But this is what to watch for. If and when Jerry Brown files a brief in opposition, this will show things are moving along quickly and that a decision will soon follow. Meanwhile, be grateful for the Pacific Justice Institute's letter brief reminding the Court there is no precedent or jurisdiction for it to stay a duly enacted constitutional amendment.


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Pacific Justice Institute's Letter Brief

Posted by TheChair on Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:10:21 PM
Pacific Justice Institute continues to do good work. Here is their short letter brief reminding the California Supreme  Court that it has no jurisdiction to stay the enactment of a state Constitutional amendment. It's short, sweet, and loaded with common sense.


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Prop. 8--The Aftermath, Pt. 1 (Lawsuits)

Posted by TheChair on Monday, November 10, 2008 4:11:12 AM
As expected, Prop. 8 opponents, a.k.a., gay marriage advocates filed suit immediately after the People amended their state constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. There appear to be at least three major lawsuits. I intend to study the legal briefs involved and to comment on them as the litigation unfolds. But right now it's important to link to some sources so that those who care can follow along.

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Victory!

Posted by TheChair on Wednesday, November 05, 2008 7:21:01 AM
We won. The People won. Here, in Arizona, and in Florida. In a stunning rebuke to the California Supreme Court and to state Attorney General Jerry Brown, California took constitutional matters into their own hands and restored marriage to its rightful place: between a man and a woman.

It's a miracle. We all know the cultural trajectory in California. And the election night trend went right along with it, for the most part.  Californians voted "no" last night on most things except compassionate measures. Yes to animal rights, yes to veterans' loans, yes to childrens' hospitals. No to the bullet train, no to boosted sentences for gang crimes, no to parental notice before abortion, no to a couple of measures on renewable energy.

But YES to Proposition 8--despite the ballot title summary being rewritten by an opponent to repel as many compassionate California voters as possible.
YES, even in Los Angeles County!
YES, especially in San Bernardino, Riverside and Fresno Counties, who ran up the score there by about a 2 to 1 margin.
YES, despite the civil rights angle taken in the marriage decision and presented in opposition commercials.
YES, despite our opponents' lies.
YES, despite local opposition's campaign antics.
YES, despite Hollywood, California Teachers Association, and Silicon Valley.

Only the concerted, statewide effort of the giant grassroots Protect Marriage coalition with Divine direction and blessing could have pulled this off.

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