I'm a little nervous about this. The court still leans a bit conservative. I was hoping Scalia or Thomas would kick the bucket before they rule on this. Anyone want to send the two of them a bucket of extra fatty fried chicken and a side of fried cheese?
I jest.
I don't think they'll be able to limit the ruling strictly to California. If a case is brought before the Supreme Court, it's a question about whether something violates the constitution. If Prop 8 violates the constitution when it forbids same sex marriage in California, I can't see how it would violate the constitution any less in another state.
It scares me because of the impact the ruling will have. If the court rules against us, I can't see any of the other courts ruling against same sex marriage laws and GLBT marriage cases will grind to a halt for quite a while. If the court rules for us, it could easily open the flood gates to GLBT rights, not just marriage (in fact, the reason marriage is such a big deal to us is because there are so many marriage rights that don't apply to us).
Still, if you pay attention to history, you can see that this is a loosing battle for the side fighting against marriage equality. When DOMA was passed, the population was so overwhelmingly against gay marriage that I didn't even think it would make a difference. Now, just a short 15 years later, over half the nation supports same sex marriage. Think how many more will be on our side in another 5 years? Or 10 years? Or, 15 years from now will things have flipped around to the point that religious conservatives are telling us how religious people were the ones fighting for GLBT rights and refusing to acknowledge how they used their religion as a tool to beat down the same rights they're trying to champion?
I jest.
I don't think they'll be able to limit the ruling strictly to California. If a case is brought before the Supreme Court, it's a question about whether something violates the constitution. If Prop 8 violates the constitution when it forbids same sex marriage in California, I can't see how it would violate the constitution any less in another state.
It scares me because of the impact the ruling will have. If the court rules against us, I can't see any of the other courts ruling against same sex marriage laws and GLBT marriage cases will grind to a halt for quite a while. If the court rules for us, it could easily open the flood gates to GLBT rights, not just marriage (in fact, the reason marriage is such a big deal to us is because there are so many marriage rights that don't apply to us).
Still, if you pay attention to history, you can see that this is a loosing battle for the side fighting against marriage equality. When DOMA was passed, the population was so overwhelmingly against gay marriage that I didn't even think it would make a difference. Now, just a short 15 years later, over half the nation supports same sex marriage. Think how many more will be on our side in another 5 years? Or 10 years? Or, 15 years from now will things have flipped around to the point that religious conservatives are telling us how religious people were the ones fighting for GLBT rights and refusing to acknowledge how they used their religion as a tool to beat down the same rights they're trying to champion?
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"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
