Tom Hanks:"Mormon Supporters of Proposition 8 'Un-American'"

[_Rollo Tomasi]

"Un-American?" President Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay marriage legalized in the states. That Act has been on the books for 13 years. By definition, Prop 8 was "American," bringing California into line with DOMA.

DOMA did not strip away a state constitutional right (at that time no state supreme court had recognized a state constitutional right to same-sex marriage). That wasn't the case in CA. The CA supreme court had recognized a homosexual's fundamental right to marry another homosexual (just like heterosexuals had) under the CA state constitution. Prop. H8te stripped that away.

I am a lawyer sworn to uphold the law, so I felt forced to vote in favor of Prop 8.

BS. You voted for Prop. H8te because the Brethren told you to, period. The "lawyer" in you should have recognized how wrong it was to mix religious dogma with constitutional rights.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Except in California, of course, where it did establish it as settled constitutional law.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

That's a point of dispute.

I lean toward No.

When a state's supreme court rules that a fundamental right exists under the state constitution, then it is "settled." That's what the judiciary is for.

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[_Rollo Tomasi]

[Mod Scottie: Personal attack deleted.]

[_Mercury]

When it comes to determining who or what is un-American, I regard the Hollywood elite as uniquely qualified.

He/they are more qualified than an organization who not less than 120 years ago were relishing the overthrowing of the Union.

[_The Nehor]

When it comes to determining who or what is un-American, I regard the Hollywood elite as uniquely qualified.

He/they are more qualified than an organization who not less than 120 years ago were relishing the overthrowing of the Union.

I agree but so far I see no way to stop the Democrats from shooting their mouth off about what is and isn't American.

[_Daniel Peterson]

When a state's supreme court rules that a fundamental right exists under the state constitution, then it is "settled." That's what the judiciary is for.

So, by direct analogy, you do believe that Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson were rightly decided.

And you believe that, while congressional decisions can be overturned and decisions of the state legislature upended by state referenda and legislators removed from office by ordinary majority vote, and while presidents and governors can be voted out of office in routine elections, both the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution were intended to create regimes of judicial supremacy in which even one-vote court decisions can never be altered and in which the people, in principle, surrender all of their rights of self-governance to judges who can only be removed from office with considerable difficulty (e.g., on the federal level, only through impeachment).

[_Mercury]

I agree but so far I see no way to stop the Democrats from shooting their mouth off about what is and isn't American.

Do you always try to think first of quashing others right to disagree with something?

[_Rollo Tomasi]

When a state's supreme court rules that a fundamental right exists under the state constitution, then it is "settled." That's what the judiciary is for.

So, by direct analogy, you do believe that Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson were rightly decided.

Not at all. But they were settled law. And neither dealt with establishing a fundamental constitutional right, like the CA case did.

And you believe that, while congressional decisions can be overturned and decisions of the state legislature upended by state referenda and legislators removed from office by ordinary majority vote, and while presidents and governors can be voted out of office in routine elections, both the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution were intended to create regimes of judicial supremacy in which even one-vote court decisions can never be altered and in which the people, in principle, surrender all of their rights of self-governance to judges who can only be removed from office with considerable difficulty (e.g., on the federal level, only through impeachment).

I never said they couldn't be altered. But amending a state constitution for the sole purpose of taking away from a specific segment of society a recognized and established constitutional right (which the rest of society gets to keep, by the way) is as un-American as it gets. The right to marry a person of one's choice has long been recognized as a fundamental constitutional right of citizens, and Prop. H8te was aimed to take that right away from just one part of society. Religious dogma has no place in deciding which citizens get which constitutional rights, in my opinion.

[_Jason Bourne]

I think the political process itself was very American, and the fact that people were able to choose and support the side they wanted was American. It was, as someone mentioned previously, the fact that what was being supported was the stripping away of a right from a persecuted minority that appears to many, including myself, as fundamentally un-American. I'm not sure when I've ever seen a fundamental right, essential to full equality of that minority with the majority, stripped away by constitutional amendment before. It's unsettling.

Too many, and apparently still the majority, defining marriage as other than between husband and wife is un American.

[_Jason Bourne]

Except in California, of course, where it did establish it as settled constitutional law.

Last I checked constitutions can be amended as it apparently was with Prop 8.