Los Angeles Times: Throw Out Prop. 8

The Los Angeles Times has come out in a main editorial urging Judge Walker to strike down Proposition 8 in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger. The fact that neither the Republican Governor nor the California Attorney General, Jerry Brown, would defend Proposition 8 ought to have sent a message - one that Obama needs to take to heart in the wake of the recent DOMA rulings out of Massachusetts. I have long been convinced that the ONLY justification behind Proposition 8 is unconstitutional religious based discrimination. The fact that it was religious denominations - the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church - take were the real backers of the amendment in and of itself underscores this reality. As is the case in every state with a DOMA law or an anti-gay constitutional amendment such as Virginia's is to punish and stigmatize gays for failure to live their lives according to one set of hate and fear based version of Christianity. Here are highlights from the editorial:
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What is the rational basis for laws that deprive gay and lesbian couples of the right to wed? The arguments that have emerged so far — that same-sex marriage is bad for child-rearing and that it damages heterosexual unions — fall apart under the slightest scrutiny. A judge in Massachusetts recognized this in a case involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act; now the judge in the lawsuit against California's Proposition 8 should do the same.
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In this year's trial on the proposition, however, even its defenders were unable to show that same-sex marriage threatened the traditional institution of marriage. And not only is there ample reason to doubt that the children of gay and lesbian couples are any worse off than those in traditional families, that's not reasonable grounds for denying marriage based on sexual orientation. Many people make less-than-ideal parents. They aren't denied a wedding license because of it.
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Tauro, in his opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act last week, wrote that denying marriage to homosexual couples was so clearly a failure to provide equal protection that it qualified as unconstitutional discrimination even without considering the question of a suspect class, because it was based on nothing more substantive than a belief in the immorality of homosexuality.
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Tauro referred frequently to a 2003 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law directed solely against gay sex; the decision said: "The fact that a governing majority in a state has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law." The lack of a solid justification for laws against same-sex marriage suggests that, like the sodomy law, they're based only on a traditional moral belief. That's why the Supreme Court should reject them.
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Would that the Christianist version of morality put as much emphasis on telling the truth, ending bullying and religious based hate, and treating neighbors as they would have themselves treated. It is they - not LGBT Americans - who are always seeking special rights.