California's Prop 8, banning gay marriage has been overturned by a Federal Judge. I'm not sure how exactly to feel about this. (Obviously, I'm happy about it, but I'm not sure how to feel about it from the point of view of analyzing the decision itself. To be more specific.) On the one hand, glancing at basic summaries of the decision, it's hard to argue with. Yes, to me, this is an equal protection violation. You can't say that one group of people can have a right and another can't- that's pretty clear in the Constitution.
The due process argument part of the decision (strange how this seems to center around the newly and perhaps increasingly unpopular 14th Amendment) seems to be more of a stretch. It looks like there's legal precedent for the idea of marriage as a fundamental right and if that holds up, then yeah, we can count this as a violation of the due process clause as well.
The core of the arguments seem to be pretty good from where I'm sitting. Basing the argument on equal protection and due process will carry the legal arguments further than anything else I can think of- but then again, I'm not a lawyer. What makes me queasy about this decision is that people voted and said 'thanks, but no thanks.' And while the court decision recognizes the importance of popular sovereignty, it also seemed to take the line that the voice of the people cannot trump the basic notion of fundamental rights. On the one hand, that's a perfectly valid position to take: if people vote slavery back into existence, amend the constitution and everything does that make slavery OK? I would say 'no' to that.
But in terms of further appeals, especially with an eye towards the Supreme Court, I'm just not sure how the notion of overriding a vote of the people is going to play. In general, I'm not sure how the Supreme Court is going to take this once the case gets in front of them.
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