Posted By:
JoannDean,
I have to disagree with your statement that gays already have all the rights anyways. They might in areas of housing and employment, especailly in California, but they most certainly do not have inherent spousal rights at all.
As to why these things keep going back to court in California after people have voted on it, it's because a court will strike down an unconstitutional law regardless of whether it was propery enacted by a legislature or citizen vote.
Think about the Bill of Rights at the federal level, which exists for exactly the kinds of reasons you are frustrated about - people vote something in but courts shoot it down. The Founding Fathers knew that some rights are so important that they had to be put beyond the reach of politicians, beyond the reach of the majority, beyond the reach of a mob mentality and beyond the reach of people that would vote them away for others. So the rights in the BoR can only be revised by Constitutional amendment - a much much tougher thing to do that has to much more clearly reflect the very stable and unified fabric of social structure and not just the current mood of 50% + 1.
Some of the states are now struggling with whether gay marriages fall into this category of very basic rights that need this level of protection. I don't know if Prop 8 was an amendment to the Cali constitution or not, but if it wasn't it will most def end up at least back in a Cali court.
(And the whole damn thing would be settled overnight if the proponents would stop using the term "marriage" and use "civil unions" if all that's truly wanted are the legal benefits. As long as they insist on using a term that has profound religious meaning in this country - outside of the legal meaning - it will be a tough haul.)
J