Posted by: CotoBlogzz | 03/04/2009 7:00PM

 

As Frank Sinatra might say, “though there’s one who is gone, we still carry on… watta a show, what a fight,  with a full throttle on and our struts in a storm, we’re coming in on a wing and a prayer.”

Hollywood just finished shaming the nation:

 

“I think it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights.”
Sean Penn, accepting the Oscar for Best Actor- February 22, 2009

Proposition 8 supporters have filed all their briefs, and their attorneys are fully prepared. They even held a Day of Prayer last Sunday.

Now the fate of Proposition 8 is in the hands of the California Supreme Court, to rule tomorrow.
.
Prop 8 supporters however  have confidence that the Court will uphold Proposition 8.

 

 ”Because the law is clearly on our side. Proposition 8 has become Article 1, Section 7.5 of the California Constitution, and though some justices on the Court may not agree with the decision the people made in adopting Prop 8 and defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, we are very confident that the Court will respect the right of the people to have decided this issue”,

reads a ProtectMarriage.com mailer, adding

“As Dean Kenneth W. Starr has told the court in his brilliantly written briefs, “The constitution has now been amended by the sovereign people who are its creators. That is the beginning and end of this case.”"

 

The legal issues before the Supreme Court tomorrow are primarily procedural and deal with whether Proposition 8 was a properly enacted constitutional amendment. This is a very different legal battle than when the Court decided last year to interpret the constitution to provide a right to marry for same-sex couples. Now, the constitution is plainly clear that only traditional marriage is valid in California. Thus, the main issue before the court is whether the people had the right to enact Prop 8 in the first instance.

Prop 8  opponents argue that Prop 8 was so sweeping that it constituted a fundamental revision of the constitution. However, as detailed in the ProtectMarriage.com  legal briefs, the law is clear that the people had the right to enact Prop 8, and properly exercised it.

Excerpts from ProtectMarriage.com   briefs:

“There is no higher legal authority within California to which the judiciary can appeal.”
“Proposition 8’s brevity is matched only by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions, or exclusions. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

 

“Describing Proposition 8 as a revision to the state constitution, “depends on characterizing Proposition 8 as a radical departure from the fundamental principles of the California Constitution.  But that portrayal is wildly wrong.  Proposition 8 is limited in nature and effect.  It does nothing more than restore the definition of marriage to what it was and always had been under California law before June 16, 2008 - and to what the people had repeatedly willed that it be throughout California’s history. It is now part of the state constitution.”

On the Attorney General’s novel contention that even though Proposition 8 was a validly enacted amendment, it should still be invalidated as violating the right to liberty of same-sex couples,  ProtectMarriage.com  legal briefs reads:

 ”This position is utterly without foundation in this Court’s case law. His theory fails at every level. The Attorney General is inviting this Court to declare a constitutional revolution that would fundamentally alter the role of the judiciary, putting judges in the role of supreme overseer of the people’s constitution-making power, a result patently contrary to popular sovereignty.”

Nothing else left to do, other than to pray…then whatever the courts decide, be ready to fight another day, because it is what is needed and is the right thing to do.