Prop 8: When Demcracy "Fails", Try Anarchy (Then the Courts)

I'm on an email alert list whenever a Prop 8 related act of vandalism, intimidation or credible threat occurs. Some days since the election I've received 5 or 6 notices a day. When you consider all protests, near riots and white powder mailings as well as all the unreported incidents, it's clear the the anti-Prop 8 crowd, the champions of tolerance and freedom have given up on democracy. Democracy failed them. Even in Los Angeles County.

That must have astonished them. Prop 8 won in LA county by about the same margin as across the state. Minority voters (especially African Americans and Hispanics) voted up to 70% in favor of Prop 8.

The marriage revisionists seem to feel that democracy has failed them. Therefore, try anarchy.

Makes you want to ask for a re-vote. I suspect Prop 8 would win by 60% today. Voters tend to punish those despise their free elections (check with those purple-fingered voters in Iraq who've thrown the terrorist insurgents overboard).

Having failed now both by democracy and anarchy, they now pin their hopes on aristocracy--the unelected House of Lords called the California State Supreme Court. These robed potentates gave us this mess. In each state where same-sex marriage has come to be (Massachusetts, Connecticut and, for a time, California), it has only come in via judicial aristocracy. This is a role never envisioned by framers, but frankly, the left could care less. Outcomes, not procedure, is what matters.

The court accepted a triad of cases challenging Prop 8. Actually, Prop 8 itself is not be challenged, but the process by which it came before voters, or the exact meaning of the adoption of Prop 8 is being litigated.

From the Protect Marriage website:

The Supreme Court has accepted original jurisdiction of three cases that claim Proposition 8 is a constitutional revision rather than a constitutional amendment and thus should not have been presented to voters. The Court’s order accepting the cases, as was requests by the proponents of Proposition 8, will provide a ruling on Prop 8’s validity in a matter of months, rather than potentially years of protracted litigation.

Perhaps the most significant part of the Supreme Court’s order is to deny the requests of the plaintiffs in the three cases to stay the implementation of Proposition 8. This means that, once the vote is certified, Proposition 8 will take effect as of midnight, November 5th. The Constitution of California has been amended to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman will be valid or recognized in California.

“The California Supreme Court is recognizing the People’s vote on Proposition 8 and is allowing the measure to go into full effect,” [legal counsel Andy] Pugno said. “This is a great legal victory for voters.”

I hope Pugno is right. But these are the same aristocrats who gave us this mess. Call me, cynical, but I just don't trust them. We'll be well into 2009 before we find out if democracy or aristocracy--or maybe anarchy--prevails.