 "Photo: Jared Iorio / Roundup")
The tyranny of the majority.
Mob rule.
Call it what you will, but civil rights issues should never be relegated to the ballot box.
Last May, California's ban on same-sex marriage was overturned by the State Supreme Court. The court declared the ban unconstitutional, citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution— declaring gays and lesbians to be a class of people due the same rights, in this case marriage, as straight people.
With that background, we can finally get to the crux of the problem— California's referendum system.
Voters in last November's election, fueled by last-minute Mormon money, came out in droves to pass Proposition 8 with 52 percent of the vote, which reads “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
Essentially, the state Supreme Court's decision to uphold Proposition 8 is flawed. Proposition 8 changed the very document by which the court must base it's ruling, the state Constitution. A classic “catch-22” case if there ever was one.
Based on the pre-November election Constitution, the ban on same-sex marriage was declared unconstitutional. Forced to use the current, Proposition 8-revised Constitution, the court had almost no choice but enforce the law as it now reads.
Changes must be made to the referendum system, if not outright abolishment. Can you imagine if the question of slavery was decided by the popular vote back in the mid-1800s?
What about women's suffrage? Separate but equal? The list could go on, ad infinitum.
None of these major civil rights achievements have been subject to the tyranny of the majority, and I think most of us are pretty pleased that they weren't. These issues were decided by “activist judges” with the minority-group protections of the Constitution as it's basis. We could use a few more “activist judges” in this state.
The majority should never be able to take way a segment of the population's rights, but that is exactly what has happened here in California.
The Supreme Court should have paid closer attention to the United States Constitution, instead of taking the technically correct , but morally deficient route in their 6-1 decision to uphold Proposition 8 last week.
“No State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
So says the 14th Amendment, ratified by the states just after the Civil War.
Legal mumbo-jumbo aside, it means that everyone is treated equally by the law. If I can marry who I want to marry, you can marry who you want.
Simple.
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In addition to those here are some other quotes that are pertinent in backing up the restriction on Religious Freedom shown in the first quote:"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816. ME 15:24"Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:545"We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:546"Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:198"From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:545 "I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811. ME 13:18This clearly lay out the intent of our Founding Fathers to prevent a religious majority group from restricting the rights of others. This basically invalidates opposition based on the majority's religious belief system.|Finally in closing, often those arguing in opposition based on their religious belief's often will state that this country was founded on Christian principles and values. This is incorrect, the Founders of this country were primarily motivated by the Principles of Enlightenment, which while inclusive of religious belief in so much as belief in a diety or higher power of some sort, is not restricted to Christianity or Judeo-C|Christian beliefs. One final quote validating this:
"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom... was finally passed,... a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:67
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