The Supreme Court's punt on Prop 8

The US Supreme Court issued a mealy mouth ruling today on California's Constitutional Amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Californians voted twice to protect traditional marriage. First on Mar 7, 2000 and then again on Nov. 4, 2008 with Proposition 8 which after its passage became a part of the California Constitution - § 7.5 to Article I. When it was challenged in the courts by gay activists, a gay federal judge ruled it unconstitutional. In other words, this jurist opined that the California Constitution was itself unconstitutional.

Then both Gov. Brown and his sidekick the lefty Attorney General Kamala Harris refused to appeal the ruling. Without an appeal the ruling stands. Notwithstanding that both state officials had sworn oaths to uphold the constitutions, both of California and that of the United States.They didn't.Of course, in a normal red state, they would be impeached or recalled. In California, the media here hailed them as "brave" and "heroes" for defying the majority will of some 6.500.000 Californians. How is trashing the constitution and substituting your own personal beliefs while running to the aid of a powerful special interest group now heroic? After the governor failed to appeal, the sponsors of Prop. 8 stepped in. This is reasonable as many citizen-sponsored initiatives attack a government law or policy. If there was to be a lower court ruling against each of the new initiatives, citizen initiatives would never get appealed if all the government had to do was to sit it out. The California Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that initiative sponsors could represent their initiatives in court. This ruling gave them standing. This is why the case was able to go to the California Supreme Court. In today's ruling the Supreme Court said that states have the right to make their own rules about gay marriage. But apparently, they're not entitled to make their own rules about "standing." And so the Supremes ruled that they couldn't hear the case as the appellants lacked "standing." This type of technical kick back to the lower court is bogus. This ruling proved fatal to the proponents of Prop. 8 and to the 6,500,000 Californian's who voted for it. A simple slight of hand and the Constitution disappears - not with a bang but with a whimper. It showed an enormous lack of courage to so trivially treat one of the most important social issues of our time. Can a free people make their own laws or shall a single judge or a court of appeals overrule 6,500,000 voters on a technicality? Justice Roberts, who also contorted the law for Obamacare, has now outdone that first act.