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Aging Hippie Dispatch

9th Circuit Overrules Arizona Bigots

by on Feb. 07, 2012, under Arizona, Bigotry, Catholic, Christian, GLBT, Republican, santorum

(No – not talking about SB1070 this time)

Today the 9th Circuit finally issued it’s long awaited decision on Prop 8,
finding it to be unconstitutional.

The vote was 2-1 with the Democrats outvoting the Repubbigots.

“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.

When I first moved to Arizona the first thing that greeted me was the christian bigot funded ballot proposition that amended the State constitution to discriminate against gays.

Pima County voted against it, but was outvoted statewide in this reddest of states.

What the decision means is still unclear – it will in all probability be stayed and appealed and may apply to Arizona or may be limited to California.

In the long run equality will have to wait for the Supreme Court, as always.

And there it hangs by a thread – the re-election of President Obama.

All of the Repub candidates have, of course, vowed to make the United States the most backwards country in the Western world and write bigotry into the Constitution.

Anyone who actually votes for Mitt or Newt or whatever clown they come up with has no excuse claiming that they don’t know they are voting for hate – it is in plain sight.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 11:40 am and is filed under Arizona, Bigotry, Catholic, Christian, GLBT, Republican, santorum. Tags for this post: , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • cochisecitizen

    I first became exposed to the same sex marriage issue when I lived in Hawaii in the 90′s, working in hotel management. The HI Supreme Court issued half assed ruling on a challenge to state law limiting marriage to one man & woman, instructing the state legislature to show “just cause” why same sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry. The legislature responded by trying to pass a civil union law for same sex couple, religious groups responded by getting a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot, enshrining the “one man one woman” limitation in the state constitution.  
     
    I have to admit that I didn’t get back then why a gay or lesbian couple would want to get married. An atheist since a young teenager, I had no religious or moral conflicts on the issue. Twice divorced and very happily single, I might have been prejudiced by my own bad experience with marriage. And this was shortly after the Mathew Sheppard murder in Wyoming, and I told one gay co-worker that I thought gays should be more concerned about not getting beat up and tied to a fence and left to freeze to death. (Yes, she was aghast). But in the end I voted against the same sex marriage ban based on one principle: Amending the constitution should be  about expanding  rights and freedom, and should never ever be about delegating any one group to a lessor status. 
     
    But I get it now – “separate but equal” didn’t cut it 60 years ago and doesn’t cut it now. There is not a single reason why gays & lesbians should not enjoy the same rights, privileges and freedoms that every other American enjoys.  And there is a big reason why they should enjoy those rights, privileges & freedoms.  It was written over 230 years ago:
    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
     

  • Tip O’Neill

    Yes – Hawaii was when the Mormon church first developed their anti-gay jihad.

  • Roger W

    9th Circuit is a bunch of neocons!

  • Just like greece

    Well, one more swirl around the toilet. 

    • baja-democrats

      Flushing the religious zealots out relevance in our society? I agree, double flush.

    • Tip O’Neill

      IN related new it appears that the santorum is surging in Minnesota although results are just sort of dribbling out.

      • leftfield

        I’ve never had to deal with any santorum, but I did step  in a big pile of romney the other day, slipped and fell right on my gingrich.

  • just like greece

    No, the majority opinion purports to be narrow.
    It doesn’t opine on the general question “[w]hether under the Constitution same-sex couples may ever be denied the right to marry.” [Emphasis in original.] Instead, it maintains that the particular context in California—in which same-sex couples under California’s domestic-partnership law had all the rights of opposite-sex couples and in which Proposition 8 restored the definition of marriage that the state supreme court had invalidated—means that there was no “legitimate reason” for Proposition 8.
    In the grand scheme of things, there is nothing enduringly significant about today’s ruling. The Ninth Circuit was just a way-station on the path to the Supreme Court, and the composition of the Ninth Circuit panel meant that there was no prospect for a reversal of Walker’s ruling. What would have been most troubling would have been a ruling that Prop 8 proponents didn’t have standing on appeal, as that might have complicated the prospects for Supreme Court review. But the case now has a seemingly clear path to the Supreme Court.

    • baja-democrats

      Well, that’s a little more detailed than “one more swirl around the toilet”.
      Yes, a very narrow decision the court said they were not asked nor did the address the larger issue of universal gay marriage. California was the only state of 11 under it’s jurisdiction where gays they once had the right to marry, and that was taken away. And they found that it was taken away for no benefit to society to the public, nor to protect them from any harm. And that is the same basis the US Supreme Court cited in ruling that interracial marriages were unconstitutional.  Far from a swirl around the toilet, it is a step in upholding the Constitution.

      • Todd

        Gays will have equal rights, much sooner than the Republican establishment would ever want.  The goods news tonight is that Santorum has taken Missouri, Minnesota and will likely get Colorado.  If nominated he will unite atheists, gays and women to remain solidly behind Obama.  We need Obama to be re-elected, and we all need to make sure we are behind him.  2012 could be the year that Dems overtake Repubs in AZ.  The Republican party is a mess. 
         
         

        • Tip O’Neill

          Santorum: Man on Dog; Romney: Dog on Car.

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