Monday, November 10, 2008

The Law of Unintended Consequences

We went to a very encouraging, fun, raucous, noisy, peaceful anti-Prop 8 rally in Sacramento, which gave me hope that there are a lot of really pissed off people who are more that willing to fight this through. I took a lot of video of the very creative signs, which I will make a montage of. I was in particular thrilled to see Caesar Chavez's granddaughter speak as some of us were beginning to feel abandoned by other minorities (but that's another blog entry).

Ahnold has weighed in again saying he hopes the courts will overturn 8, and while I wish he were more outspoken earlier I'm thrilled that he's speaking out and bluntly. (Ref.)

But while the demonstrations show the state that we're not going to take this lying down, the real power is with the courts and that's where our attention will be pointed. Conversations with cooler, insightful heads reveal that the Yes on 8 folks may have painted themselves into a corner that they may very well regret.

Calif law dictates equal protection. The court can invalidate 8, or there's another option that I've heard someone describe as the "nuclear option." If the church is so attached to the M-word then it could just disappear entirely from the state law and we all would have civil unions. I've heard this echoed more than once (3-4 times I believe). Wow, I'm quite sure that's not what the Yes folks intended or want - the tricky part is that it will be considered the lgbt community's fault even though it was the Yes folks who started this nonsense.

I'm hoping that 8 is just overtuned - I do like being married rather that civil unionized, though I'll happily take either as long as it's exactly the same as what everyone else gets. This will still lead to lots of arguing, but years from now the dust simply has to settle.

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