Really people, this is sooooo 2004:
Setting the stage for a political showdown, the California secretary of state today said an initiative barring gay marriage had enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 4 ballot.
The proposal would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as a union “between a man and a woman” and undo last month’s historic California Supreme Court ruling, which found that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was unconstitutional.
A coalition of religious and conservative activists submitted 1.1 million signatures for the ballot measure. Random sampling by Secretary of State Debra Bowen found that enough legitimate signatures had been collected.
Even though this is silly (in my gay-assed opinion) have you noticed that the California and New York decisions haven’t caused nearly the uproar they did a little over 3 years ago? No matter what the final outcome is, I think that’s progress. Still, the process is flawed. The California legislature has thought this through – twice – and has decided that allowing gays to marry is not going to be the downfall of civilization. Putting it to a popular vote is a process that the Founders of this country would likely balk at. To quote Al Gore from his terrific book, The Assault on Reason:
When reason and logic are removed fromt he process of democracy – when there is no longer any purpose in debating or discussing the choices we have to make – then all questions before us are reduced to a simple equation: Who can exercise the most raw power? (p. 244)
And that’s the question in California. Or, at least it’s a question the right-wing sponsors of this measure are hoping to answer.