California Legislators Move to Stop Proposition 8

Apparently, a number of the members of the California Legislature has awoken to the extremely dangerous precedent posed by Proposition 8: any minority group - and I do mean any minority group - can have its rights eliminated if a bigoted majority decides to do so. In short, minority is safe. This is something the black community ought to wake up to if it can get past its homophobic bigotry. One of the aspects of the division of powers between the branches of government is to restrain a rogue majority from stripping portions of society of legal rights. A concept that the Christianists and Mormons despise since it is the only bulwark against their fascist theocratic designs on controlling government. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times:

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Forty-three Democratic legislators, including leaders of the California Senate and Assembly, filed a brief Monday urging the California Supreme Court to void Proposition 8.Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and incoming President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg signed the friend of the court brief, filed with the state Supreme Court.

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"The citizens of California rely on the Legislature and the courts to safeguard against unlawful discrimination by temporary, and often short-lived, majorities," the legislators said in the document, written by attorneys at the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

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In their brief, lawmakers described the 500,000-vote margin as a "bare majority," and said it was "compromising the enduring constitutional promise of equal protection under the law.""Proposition 8 seeks to effect a monumental revision of this foundational principle and constitutional structure by allowing a bare majority of voters to eliminate a fundamental right of a constitutionally protected minority group," the brief says.

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The action contends that the ban, created by the initiative that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, cannot be done by a mere constitutional amendment. Rather, it must be done by a revision of the entire Constitution and the Legislature would have to be involved.

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One can only hope that the effort to overturn Proposition 8 is successful or else the lesson in California is that no minority group will be safe from a well organized campaign of bigotry.