BREAKING: Prop 8 - Gay Marriages Can Resume in California, Court Rules (Effective Immediately)

[happyslug]

23. Look at who lost, it was the people as a whole.

The ruling was a bad ruling, not because it involved Gay Rights, that is a minor problem with this ruling. The larger problem, the one where the PEOPLE lost, is that the Court said a Governor can rule that any law passed by a voter's initiative (such as any of the California Propositions), that the Governor had opposed, was unconstitutional and no one else has STANDING to challenge that ruling.

That is a very disturbing ruling. It is a ruling that any state that has the right of initiatives by the people, can ignore what the people passed by the Voter's Initiatives.

The Gay Rights Part of the Decision is at a minor problem, the rationale used by the US Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8 undermines the whole concept of initiatives. Initiatives were adopted around 1900 in many states in an attempt to work around special interest (mostly pro-business special interests) who used their power to give Campaign Contributions to politicians to prevent the passage of laws the people wanted.

That this decision undermined the whole concept voter's initiative is why you have the strange combination of Kennedy, Thomas, Alito and Sonia Sotomayor in dissent. All were willing to uphold proposition 8, on the grounds that Marriage is a item of law reserved up to each state and nothing in the Federal Constitutions either supports Gay marriage or oppose Gay Marriage, thus it is up to each state's law and in California that included Proposition 8. Now, we have a situation that a Governor can ignore a law he dislikes and unless you can show a direct harm, you have no standing to challenge the law.

As mentioned above, this will affect environmental law big time. In most cases of pollution, the people suing can not show direct harm and under this ruling if a State Government says someone's pollution is not pollution NO ONE ELSE HAS STANDING TO STOP THE POLLUTION. It is a bad decision for the rationale used in making the decision is just BAD and will harm a lot of people.