twilloughby,

"As you can see not only does this outlaw gay marriage it guts the existing Domestic Partner laws. If it manages to get on the ballot and wins the California Supreme Court would toss it in a minute. Another likely scenario would be an appeals court tossing it out and the Cal Supremes refusing to hear it on further appeal"

The California Supreme Court CANNOT "toss it in a minute". They can REFUSE to hear a case or they can hear a case an refuse to rule on it. I suppose they can choose to IGNORE the Amendment...but the plantiff would then have the perfect opportunity to push it to the US Supreme Court (as what happened with Al Gore in 2000). Now ASSUMING the Supreme Court HEARD the case (and there's NO guarantee that they would), they would probably do the SAME thing they did to the Florida Supreme Court (basically send it back to them and tell them to READ their Constitution this time), and if it came back a second time, they would have to go with what is in the California state contitution.

If they DIDN't hear the case, then the verdict of the California Supreme court would stand...and it would be challenged again and again and again...simply because the Amendment would be PART of your Constitution.

"Actually, I don't think it's simply a specified period of time in any states anymore. I think you have to at least present yourselves as married to be considered such, even in those places that still have such a thing as common law marriage. (And the alimony and child support thing varies wildly from place to place -- even from judge to judge -- and sometimes has nothing to do with marital status, official or common.)"

Well perhaps not in your state...in mine, if you live with a woman for 7 years, you are common law married.

"One can't change a person's faith directly, but one can certainly influence a conversion. That's the point of missionaries and other proselytizers."

True...but if you try to get them to go against their fundamental beliefs, they will not listen. And to them, this is against the bible's teachings. How would you fight THAT?

"My GOP brother and some others I know can be rather annoying in their middle-school "humor" regarding these things, but it's important to keep in mind that they are being the juvenile simpletons in this regard. Maybe that sounds "elitist", but frankly it's hard to take someone seriously who refuses to grow up on such a fundamental level. F'em."

One of life's little injustices...you don't get to pick your relatives.

RW,

"We all see what side of this issue YOU'RE on." Frankly, I don't have a dog in this fight...I just trying to explain what an Amendment means.

"If it DOES pass, I still think Equal Protection is so fundamental to the Constitution that it would be summarily declared as contradictory to a central tenet of California law and therefore unconstitutional, illegal and in general fucked-up."

THIS is what I'm trying to explain...no matter HOW messed up an Amendment is, if it is passed by the people, it becomes PART of their Constitution and CANNOT be removed - or for that matter declared unconstitutional...because it is NOW PART of the Constitution. ONLY another Amendment repealing the previous Amendment can make it null and void...THAT is what I am trying to explain.

"But since you, chiefpayne, just don't like us faggots and dykes, I guess I'm wasting my bandwidth."

So because I don't agree that an Amendment cannot be summarily dismissed by your Supreme Court, suddently I "just don't like you faggots and dykes"???

GEEZ man, you need to pull your head out of the sand...it's not all about you, you know. This is how the government works, man!

"I think you might be misunderstanding chiefpayne's analysis.

I think he's right, legally, as far as amendments go. Think about this:

The 1st amendment of the US Constitution is arguably the most fundamental, or possibly the US Equal Protection Amendment. If a new amendment were, theoretically, passed today nullifying either of those, they would be nullified, no matter how "fundamental" one might think they are to the Constitution itself. The Constitution would then be a different document.

I really don't think you should imply homophobia on chief's part simply because of a logical/legal debate point."

Thank you Eric! Although, it may not necessarily be all RW's fault. Perhaps I did explain myself clearly enough. Ah well, guess I won't run for office anytime soon then. :^)

"The Cal Supreme Court rules on the Constitutionality of propositions. They heard a case on the famous Prop 13 and found it to be Constitutional. They also upheld Prop 140, a term limit law. Both of these Props were State Constitutional amendments. Of course not all propositions in California are Constitutional changes. Some are merely additions or changes to existing statutes."

Ok...I admit I do not know California law...but if the California State Supreme Court can rule on the Constitutionality of an Amendment, how in the world would you EVER be able to pass an Amendment the high court doesn't like??? That makes no sense at all to me. This prospect actually gives the California State Supreme Court VETO power over the will of the people, the legislature and the executive!

If this is the case, that's really scary! It gives ultimate power to your courts to do whatever they want to do, reguardless of what the people want! It's essentially an oligarchy.