“NewsWrap"
for the week ending May 30, 2009
(An abbreviated edition, as broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,105, distributed 6-1-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Chris Wilson and Pam Marshall

  The California Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8, the ballot measure approved by 52 per cent of the state’s voters last November to constitutionally ban same-gender marriage.  The ruling, announced on May 26th, revoked the same court’s decision on May 15th last year that denying marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples was a violation of constitutionally protected fundamental rights.  Proposition 8 overturned that ruling.  The Court declared this week, however, that there was no “retroactive” provision in the measure, and that the estimated 18,000 marriages of lesbian and gay couples that were held between its original ruling and the passage of Proposition 8 will remain valid.  Supporters of the ballot measure had asked the Court during oral arguments in March to annul them.
In the 6-to-1 decision written by Chief Justice Ronald George, who also wrote the original marriage equality ruling last year, the high court rejected arguments by its opponents that Proposition 8 was not a simple amendment requiring a simple majority vote, but a fundamental change to the California Constitution � a revision � that would have first neeneeded the legislatu re's approval.

  The Court essentially said in its 136-page majority ruling that only the word “marriage” was being denied to same-gender couples, who can enter into legal domestic partnerships in California that provide virtually all of the state rights of marriage.
Justice George wrote that Proposition 8 “carves out a narrow and limited exception to... state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term ‘marriage’ for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law.”

  Justice Carlos Moreno was the lone dissenter.  He said that denying same-gender couples the right to marry "strikes at the core of the promise of equality that underlies our California Constitution... Promising treatment that is almost equal is fundamentally different from ensuring truly equal treatment."  He wrote that this week’s ruling “places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities.  It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority.”
Proposition 8 supporters are threatening to sponsor a recall vote to remove Justice Moreno from the bench.

Marriage equality supporters took to the streets across the state to protest the ruling, and in actions that would have been unheard of even a year ago, in several other cities across the country.
Chanting “Shame on you,” thousands protested in San Francisco.  About 175 people were arrested during a peaceful civil disobedience action as they blocked an intersection near the Supreme Court building.  Each was released later in the day.  In sharp contrast to the so-called “White Night riots” of May 1979, many of those making the arrests were members of the force’s LGBT police officers association.

  About two thousand people rallied against the ruling in West Hollywood.  Some drew peace signs and other messages on the street with chalk.  Others carried American flags and signs that read "California Needs Love Not Hate."
An equally peaceful protest in the Orange County city of Santa Ana drew an estimated 600 people.  Hundreds also gathered in Palm Springs.  A few couples carried signs that read “Still married but not equal.”
A crowd estimated at from 5- to 10-thousand people hit the streets in San Diego.  Among those speaking at the march-ending rally were Mayor Jerry Sanders and his lesbian daughter Lisa.  A noisy, 5-hour sit-in at the county clerk's office the following day, launched when a gay couple was denied a marriage license, ended quietly in the early evening without arrests.

  Five activists were arrested after staging a similar sit-in at the clerk and recorder’s office in Denver, Colorado.  Other mainstream media reports we’ve seen about protest actions in some 100 cities across the U.S. included hundreds marching in Seattle, Washington; Atlanta, Geo rgia; Dallas, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; and Phoenix, Arizona. Dozens also protested in Lincoln, Nebraska, while thousands marched in New York City from near the West Village’s fabled Stonewall Inn to Union Square to protest the ruling, and to demand that the state legislature pass a pending marriage equality bill.

  Two high-profile attorneys have announced a controversial federal lawsuit against Proposition 8.  And California equality activists are vowing to qualify another initiative for the state ballot next year to overturn the same-gender marriage ban.  Stay tuned for a lot more about the Proposition 8 ruling, and reaction to it.

  In other news this week, the Church of Scotland approved its first-ever openly gay minister, but issued a 2-year moratorium on similar appointments.  Meanwhile, the Church of Sweden elected its first-ever lesbian Bishop.

  In the U.S., Nevada’s governor, as expected, vetoed a domestic partnership bill passed by state lawmakers.  But New Hampshire’s legislature and governor have reportedly agreed on compromise wording on a marriage equality bill that strengthens exemptions for religious groups.  We’ll have more on these stories, and other LGBT news from around the world, next time on “This Way Out.”



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