'I think people are beginning to look at it differently, I know it’s happened for me. I started out not supporting it. The longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve seen the happiness of people, the stability that these commitments bring to a life. Many adopted children who would have ended up in foster care now have good solid homes and are brought up learning the difference between right and wrong. It’s a very positive thing.'
-- U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), quoted yesterday in Maureen Dowd's column. Feinstein (above right) was among the precious few high-ranking politicians who cut a television ad against Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that aimed to limit marriage in California to opposite-sex couples. (Prior posts here and here.)
Prop 8 passed by a margin of 52.1% to 47.9%. But it remains to be seen whether it will take effect. The California Supreme Court (below) has agreed by this order to hear petitions contending that the simple-majority-rules initiative process cannot be used to take a fundamental right like marriage away from a group that the Court has declared a suspect class -- as the Court did for same-sex couples in In re Marriage Cases (May 2008) (prior post). Invoking the Equal Protection Clause, petitioners argue that the only way to effect such a deprivation is by the state's more cumbersome, super-majority-needed "revision" process.
Throughout the course of this new round of litigation, filings by litigants and the many amici curiae may be found here.
