Court Rejects Christianist Challenge to Proposition 8 Ballot Summary

As I previously posted, the enemies of gay marriage in California are apoplectic that California Attorney General Jerry Brown's,office re-wrote the summary of Proposition 8 for the November ballot to correctly describe the amendment initiative as eliminating the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Such an accurate description of the consequences of passage of Proposition is too much for the disingenuous Christianists who prefer to use vague description and euphemisms so that the uninformed can be more easily duped into voting the way the Christianists want without often realizing the full consequences. Yesterday a California Court ruled in favor of Brown's summary and the Christianists are shrieking like a cat with its tail caught in a meat grinder saying they will appeal the ruling.

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I continually find it ironic that those who claim to be such devout Christians are among the most dishonest and disingenuous people one is likely to ever meet. The push to pass Virginia's "Marriage Amendment" to amend the Virginia Constitution's Bill of Rights to LIMIT rights is a perfect example of false advertising by these modern day Pharisees. All of the Christianist blather was about stopping gay marriage in Virginia leaving out the inconvenient fact that ALL couples, gay or straight, would be impacted. Since the amendment's passage, many unmarried heterosexual couples - particularly the senior citizen set where re-marriage can result in the loss of medical coverage and/or retirement benefits - have learned to their horror that are total legal strangers to one another and that full sets of legal documentation - often costing more than some can afford - are required to protect their relationships. Duplicity is the one consistent hallmark of the Christianists. Here are highlights from the Los Angeles Times:

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A Sacramento judge on Friday said state officials do not have to rewrite the ballot summary describing Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban voters will consider in November. The ruling is a setback for the initiative's supporters, who say the title and summary written by Attorney General Jerry Brown are argumentative and could prejudice voters.

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In his 8-page ruling, the judge said the title and summary is an "accurate statement" of the proposition by saying it would eliminate the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. "The court is not willing to fashion a rule that would require the Attorney General to engage in useless nominalization," Frawley wrote.

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Brown wrote a new title and summary after the measure qualified. He said he did so to reflect the state Supreme Court ruling in May that overturned California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. The new summary says the proposition would "eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry." Brown responded to Friday's decision by saying the court properly dismissed a lawsuit that "was more about politics than the law." The initiative's supporters said they would appeal.

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Supporters of Proposition 8 also had asked Frawley to order state officials to modify arguments against the measure that will appear in voter pamphlets, including one saying the initiative will not affect school instruction. He denied that request.