The Death Of Civil Rights?

A post at Pam's House Blend goes in detail with respect to concerns/fears I have as to what the future portends if the California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8. Namely, that the stage will have been set to see civil rights for many minorities curtailed or eliminated by a bare majority vote of citizens. While it is true that the U. S. Constitution requires a super majority vote of the states to validate any amendment, nonetheless a bare majority of voters in the requisite number of states could strip away even the protections currently guaranteed under the federal constitution. Anyone who has followed the various Christian Right organizations over the years will realize that gays are merely the first target on the white Christianist agenda. As the author of the post at Pam's blog notes, perhaps LGBT Americans need to start using this slogan more often: "You may not be gay, but you may be next." I have every expectation that is Proposition 8 is upheld, its backers will expand the effort to additional states. Here are some post highlights:

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The NAACP, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and those other civil rights groups probably get that they may not be gay, but if what happened in California on proposition 8 stands, they may be next. You may not be able to fit the next part on a sign, but it's the rest of the argument.

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Remember that we used to live in a country where civil rights weren't decided by majority vote. Remember that we used to live in a country whose founding documents cite "inallienable rights." Remember that we're may not be living in that country anymore, and even if your rights were not up for a vote this time around, they are almost certain on someone's hit list.

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...If you think for one minute that the people who have been against civil rights from the beginning will stop with same-sex marriage or with gay people, you may be surprised. What they did in California was to establish a beachhead as a basis for overruling almost any established civil right on nothing more than a simple majority vote. In other words, they got a foothold for establishing majoritarianism.

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What's unsaid and unquestioned in all of the arguments above is the increasing conservative push for majoritarianism. Or, to put it plainly, absolute majority rule. . . . What's scary is that the creeping support for majoritarianism may result in a situation where no one has any "unalienable rights," that the majority can't take away, because the two avenues minorities have traditionally had to access justice that the majority withholds - the courts and the legislature- will have been delegitimized fo that purpose.

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As I've noted before, the courts have been under attack from the right for quite some time, now, and the progress they've made towards disestablishing the courts as route for minorities to seek justice is disturbing. . . . What's more disturbing is that some progressives are too willing to ceded this ground, and quickly when it comes to issues -- reproductive choice and LGBT equality -- where doing so might win them a few more votes. Even when they themselves support reproductive choice and equality, the full implications of ceding that ground to our opposition get lost in the narrow focus on a particular issue or particular election.

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Like the post's author, I sincerely hope that the justices of the California Supreme Court will look carefully at the larger picture of what they may be about to unleash should they uphold Proposition 8. From my perspective, if Proposition 8 is upheld, the death knell of civil rights for minorities may have begun to sound. It is truly a frightening proposition.