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Judge refuses to toss suit challenging Prop. 8
SF , Chronicle ^ | 10/14/09 | Bob Egelko

Posted on 10/14/2009 6:33:22 PM PDT by Drango

A federal judge refused today to dismiss a lawsuit challenging California's ban on same-sex marriage, setting the stage for the nation's first trial on the constitutionality of a law allowing only opposite-sex couples to wed.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, in a ruling from the bench in San Francisco, said a trial was needed to resolve crucial issues, including whether gays and lesbians are persecuted minorities entitled to judicial protection from discriminatory laws.

He has scheduled the trial for January. Sponsors of Proposition 8, approved by 52 percent of the voters in November, argued that the initiative was clearly constitutional under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, which have never recognized a right to marry a person of the same gender.

Plaintiffs in the suit seeking to overturn Prop. 8 - two same-sex couples, a gay-rights organization and the city of San Francisco - contend that the measure's real purpose was to strip a historically persecuted minority group of rights held by the majority. The sponsors contended that Prop. 8 was based on an ages-old tradition of male-female marriage and the ability of opposite-sex couples to conceive children. But Walker said the Supreme Court, in striking down laws against interracial marriage and by allowing prisoners to marry, had defined the right to wed as fundamental without limiting it to certain groups.

Disputes over the state's authority to enshrine traditional marriage in its Constitution, and exclude same-sex couples because of their inability to conceive children, raise factual questions that require a trial, the judge said.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: gay; gayshocktroops; gaystapo; homosexualagenda; lavendermafia; lawsuit; prop8; ruling
Unable to achieve a victory at the ballot box, the lavender mafia has turned to the activist courts.
1 posted on 10/14/2009 6:33:23 PM PDT by Drango
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To: Drango

America is no longer Free! We have no voting power, the courts are corrupt, and the government has been taken over by leftist radicals...

Even so come quickly Lord Jesus...


2 posted on 10/14/2009 6:36:12 PM PDT by pollywog (staying...... " Under His Wings" Psalm 91:4)
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To: Drango

Is American Revolution II going to be straight vs. gay?


3 posted on 10/14/2009 6:36:16 PM PDT by pray4liberty (http://totallyunjust.tripod.com)
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To: pray4liberty

No...I’ve never met a gay that wants to do me harm.

However, the Somalis..........


4 posted on 10/14/2009 6:38:56 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo (FR.....Monthly Donors Wanted.)
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To: Drango
persecuted minorities entitled to judicial protection from discriminatory laws

Do they just make this stuff up as they go along?
5 posted on 10/14/2009 6:39:23 PM PDT by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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To: Drango

We the Leftist lawyers stomp on We the People.


6 posted on 10/14/2009 6:41:01 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (Darkness has no response to light, except to flee.)
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To: pray4liberty

White vs black
straight vs queer
American patriot vs socialist/nazi/communist


7 posted on 10/14/2009 6:44:52 PM PDT by clamper1797 (If Obama were a paid Soviet agent he could not do more damage ... Sen Thomas Jordan)
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To: Drango

Let’s have another proposition, then let’s have another leftish judge shoot it down... and so forth and so on.... “whether you like it or not”. I guess we were warned. San Fransicko may well sink into the ocean.


8 posted on 10/14/2009 6:48:30 PM PDT by BigFinn (Obamanation then Obamaggedon.)
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To: Drango

Yep - a federal judge in CA... imagine what he might think...

What I am trying to figure out - wasn’t Prop 8 and constitutional amendment? If so, then what could be unconstitutional about a constitutional amendment?


9 posted on 10/14/2009 6:49:33 PM PDT by TheBattman (Pray for our country...)
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To: Drango

As much as I don’t like it, I do believe there is a valid Constitutional issue. Under review, we may lose this one eventually. It’s a sign of the times to be sure.

The moral decay in this nation, has riddled it to it’s foundation.

Whether same sex people are allowed to cohabit or get married, the more important issue to me is what this portends for our school children. If this is legitimized, the schools will propagandize the youngest children. That’s the part than makes me angry.

So this becomes less about rights for grownups and more about reasoned protections for children every day.

This is just NAMBLA on steroids as far as I am concerned.

This will be judged on basic human rights grounds. It should be based on minimum standards for a wholesome society. It’s not wholesome to explain and support same sex marriage, and all that goes with hit to children.

We don’t explain and support heterosexual marriage and all that goes with it to very young children.

So this really does become institutionalized insanity.

Perhaps homosexuals do have rights. Do heterosexuals have rights? Should they be able to raise their children free from the homosexual indoctrination that is sure to come (hell, it’s already here and has been)?

Do children have the right to be free from sexual indoctrination in school?

Answer that one Judge.


10 posted on 10/14/2009 6:50:29 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Deficit spending, trade deficits, unsecure mortages, worthless paper... ... not a problem. Oh yeah?)
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To: clamper1797

Of course, notice a trend in your list - the black/Homosexual/Socialist/Marxists/Commies are pretty much on the same side (with a handful of notable exceptions).


11 posted on 10/14/2009 6:50:59 PM PDT by TheBattman (Pray for our country...)
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To: DoughtyOne

I believe this would have been more appropriate if written like this.

“So this becomes more about rights for grownups and less about reasoned protections for children every day.”


12 posted on 10/14/2009 6:51:56 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Deficit spending, trade deficits, unsecure mortages, worthless paper... ... not a problem. Oh yeah?)
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To: Drango

If Governor Shriver was half the man he thinks he is, he would of ordered the State Police To ARREST this Federal Judge for Usurping the Rights Of The Citizens of the Free, Independent, and Sovereign State of California. Put him on Trial and let him prove to a Jury that he has the right to interfere with States Rights, especially since there is no such enumerated power found within the Constitution.

The only recourse I have found in the Constitution is the Presidential Pardon. No State is required to listen to any Federal Judge or Federal Court with regards to Crimes against the People of said State.


13 posted on 10/14/2009 6:53:16 PM PDT by eyeamok
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo
I’ve never met a gay that wants to do me harm.

I haven't either, but there a tens of thousands who DO want to do us and our families harm.

Unfortunately for us a lot of them are in politics, and in schools, and in the Judical system, and in............, well it's a nearly endless list.

14 posted on 10/14/2009 6:54:53 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: Drango

Who cares if they get married? Seriously. Let’s use that energy to fight abortion.


15 posted on 10/14/2009 6:59:54 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Go Longhorns)
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To: Flightdeck
Who cares if they get married?

52% of the voters in California cared enough to pass a constitutional amendment.

16 posted on 10/14/2009 7:03:48 PM PDT by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: Drango
"But Walker said the Supreme Court, in striking down laws against interracial marriage and by allowing prisoners to marry, had defined the right to wed as fundamental without limiting it to certain groups."

Why bother with the show trial? The judge has already telegraphed his ruling. Let him make it and let's go straight to appeal, where it will be overturned.

The obvious consequence of such a notion becoming settled law is that the state no longer will have the right to restrict marriage between anyone or anything.

Every pervert in the country becomes a 'persecuted minority'.

17 posted on 10/14/2009 7:15:06 PM PDT by telebob
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To: Drango

Once again, the Founders have lit the way: drag this treasonous SOB off the bench, tar and feather him and toss him in a ditch.


18 posted on 10/14/2009 7:15:23 PM PDT by sergeantdave (obuma is the anti-Lincoln, trying to re-establish slavery)
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To: Drango
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, in a ruling from the bench in San Francisco, said a trial was needed to resolve crucial issues, including whether gays and lesbians are persecuted minorities entitled to judicial protection from discriminatory laws.

IMO this man, Judge Vaughn Walker, is seriously insane, and unfit for the bench.

Does this demented man understand the history and purpose of marriage? No sane person can be comfortable with couples that cannot produce children, and furthermore, statistically carry high risks of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, AIDS, perform depraved and unnatural acts, and, as a group, possess a statistically significant shorter lifespan. How can anyone with common sense pretend that this is normal and acceptable?

Furthermore, the purpose of marriage is to produce children;same sex couples covet what they cannot have.

Claiming that same sex couples need judicial protection is based on a warped, demented, and twisted view of the world. What cannot be, cannot be, with or without laws. You cannot make a snake walk like a dog no matter how many laws you pass, or how much a snake wants to walk like a dog.

Where are the laws that protect people from increased risks of AIDS, HIV, and sexually transmitted diseases? People need judicial protection from risk of horrible diseases; they do not need more exposure to physical, moral, and mental harm, as a result of an insane judge who wants to increase the public's exposure to depraved and unnatural behavior with their attendant added risks of diseases.

19 posted on 10/14/2009 7:16:09 PM PDT by olezip
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To: pollywog
"America is no longer Free! We have no voting power, the courts are corrupt, and the government has been taken over by leftist radicals..."

Calm down. He only allowed the suit to proceed. Nobody won anything.

20 posted on 10/14/2009 7:17:24 PM PDT by mlo
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To: Drango

All I’m saying is that I don’t empathize with the passion folks put into this particular issue. And I will note that if medical science ever proves that homosexuality is something they are born with, then it would be a civil rights issue, and we (conservatives in general) would be on the wrong side of it. If a person feels it’s a religious issue, then I understand even less, because the catholic faith I practice is in danger of marrying two men or two women. The only legitimate social concern I see is equal rights of a homosexual couple to adopt. I would think after a while studies will show that these children will be somewhat ill-adjusted, statistically speaking. But that issue can be dealt with separately.


21 posted on 10/14/2009 7:18:57 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Go Longhorns)
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To: Flightdeck
...if medical science ever proves that homosexuality is something they are born with, then it would be a civil rights issue, and we (conservatives in general) would be on the wrong side of it.

I don't think any such discovery matters.

Whether it is learned or genetic or a combination, we have limited control over who we are attracted to. We can encourage some attractions and not others, but basically attraction is involuntary.

However what we do as a response to attraction is up to us.

22 posted on 10/14/2009 7:26:03 PM PDT by AndyTheBear
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To: AndyTheBear

“Whether it is learned or genetic or a combination, we have limited control over who we are attracted to. We can encourage some attractions and not others, but basically attraction is involuntary.

However what we do as a response to attraction is up to us.”

I don’t buy that for a second. There isn’t any amount of convincing that is gonna get me sexually attracted to another dude. You can put me in the Clockwork Orange setup, and it’s not going to happen. Can’t you agree with that? So, if somebody else is born gay, how is he going to convince himself to be attracted to women?


23 posted on 10/14/2009 7:29:34 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Go Longhorns)
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To: Flightdeck
I don’t buy that for a second. There isn’t any amount of convincing that is gonna get me sexually attracted to another dude.

Please read my post more carefully.

24 posted on 10/14/2009 7:36:04 PM PDT by AndyTheBear
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To: Flightdeck
And I will note that if medical science ever proves that homosexuality is something they are born with, then it would be a civil rights issue...

Perhaps. It would also be a birth defect.

25 posted on 10/14/2009 7:46:34 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: pollywog
America is no longer Free! We have no voting power, the courts are corrupt, and the government has been taken over by leftist radicals...

Right on. The electoral process is corrupt with a stacked deck of globalist that only get on each factions ballot & then the corrupt electon process along with no verification as to the voting machines. It's all a clusterf-ck.

26 posted on 10/14/2009 7:51:29 PM PDT by Digger (If RINO is your selection, then failure is your election)
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To: AndyTheBear

Ok, I re-read it. So someone who is born gay (if they are born that way) is supposed to suppress one of the strongest instincts in humans and live their lives without intimacy? Why? Because some passage in the bible maybe possibly implies it’s a sin? I’m asking because if the argument all comes back to religion, then that is where the debate has to be framed. If it is not a religious issue, and it turns out to be in the human DNA, then it shouldn’t be an issue at all.


27 posted on 10/14/2009 7:54:02 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Go Longhorns)
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To: Flightdeck; AndyTheBear
So someone who is born gay (if they are born that way) is supposed to suppress one of the strongest instincts in humans and live their lives without intimacy? Why? Because some passage in the bible maybe possibly implies it’s a sin?

Please forgive me for jumping in...

Replace homosexuality with pedophilia. Are you OK with that?

What if a guy is born a pedophile? (Just as much evidence of that as there is that people are born gay.)

What is right or wrong does not change depending upon the urges you're born with.

28 posted on 10/14/2009 7:58:55 PM PDT by TChris (There is no freedom without the possibility of failure.)
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To: TChris

“Are you OK with that?”

No, and it’s a valid comparison, but there is overwhelming evidence that pedophilia is a severely destructive behavior with a clear victim. Not the case with adult homosexuals, and that is also an important point.


29 posted on 10/14/2009 8:13:25 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Go Longhorns)
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To: mlo
Calm down. He only allowed the suit to proceed. Nobody won anything.

He clearly telegraphed the court's decision in advance. Can any sane person read his comments and come away with any other conclusion?

30 posted on 10/14/2009 8:20:43 PM PDT by fwdude (It is not the liberals who will destroy this country, but the "moderates.")
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To: fwdude

People are always trying to read too much into judge’s comments and questions. He’s not telegraphing a decision. He’s only saying there’s enough for a trial.


31 posted on 10/14/2009 8:23:35 PM PDT by mlo
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To: Flightdeck
Not the case with adult homosexuals, and that is also an important point.

Great. Then if there are no victims and no harms, then it should be fine for the kids too, eh? Why limit it to adults?

(PS There ARE harms, FRiend. Lots of them.)

Why does the word "harm" only include immediate, direct, obvious and usually physical harm?

There are COUNTLESS other types of harm, and they shouldn't be ignored in the analysis.

Perhaps the most important class of harm caused by homosexuality is its insidious and profound damage to society. Have you taken a good, long look at the communities where homosexuality is rampant? Have you witnessed the disease-ridden debauchery on parade and will you then SERIOUSLY claim that there is NO HARM?

If you truly believe there to be no harm, would you bring your young children to watch the Gay Pride parade in San Francisco?

Do you honestly believe that this lifestyle and all it includes does NOT have a damaging effect on neighborhoods, cities and nations? Doesn't a society have a legitimate interest in preventing that very REAL harm from growing???

It is a damned lie that homosexuality is about two consenting adults in private. It stopped being about that a long time ago.

Homosexuality is pushed in every television show of which I am aware, even those made for children. It is pushed in movies. It is glamorized, revered and applauded on the screen. It is working its slimy way into the school lessons of my children. Homosexuality is taught in history, in social studies, in health, in reading, in writing, in literature.

Homosexuals are striving to be declared a protected class, joining religion and race as untouchable subjects in most areas of life. Laws are being pushed to give them STRONGER protection under the law than heterosexuals. MORE rights than straight folks.

Homosexuality TODAY is about destroying the very meaning of the words "marriage" and "family". Those institutions are under direct and relentless attack. They are the very foundation, the very bedrock of our society, and I WILL NOT sulk quietly away as the Sexual Perversion Lobby works to destroy them!

Please drop the insulting pretensions about homosexuality. It's just not about "love" and "privacy" any more.

32 posted on 10/14/2009 8:46:08 PM PDT by TChris (There is no freedom without the possibility of failure.)
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To: Flightdeck
Ok, I re-read it. So someone who is born gay (if they are born that way) is supposed to suppress one of the strongest instincts in humans and live their lives without intimacy?

Well I still maintain it doesn't matter whether they were born attracted or whether they were conditioned by their environment. It might matter if somebody had intentionally conditioned themselves to be gay, but I don't think anybody is arguing from this view.

But before tackling the question of sin, we should keep in mind that it does not make sense that every sinful act should be outlawed. Heck, lustful thoughts for a woman you are not married to are considered sinful by authoritative Christianity. And yet, our mostly Christian founders did not see fit to try to outlaw such thoughts.

But then, how fair is this? I am married to only one woman. But I find millions and millions of them attractive. How can it be a sin for me to share intimacy with some of the others as might be willing...provided I'm careful participate in "safe sex"...and provided the woman doesn't have any hard feelings after I start ignoring her in favor of my wife, or my next conquest...totally victimless right?

Granted it seems even more unfair to gay people in this area. But on the other hand, how about extremely ugly men who can't attract a woman to marry them. Does it become un-sinful for them to hire a hooker?

Sex is not as clean and simple an act as your making it out to be. It has profound impact on us, that we don't always understand. And avoiding sexual sin is almost impossible for most men, be they gay or straight.

As to gay marriage. It is not the same issue as gay sex. It is at its essence a sanctified religious covenant. Gay people can certainly go home and sin behind closed doors without being married, just like straight people often do.

33 posted on 10/14/2009 8:51:26 PM PDT by AndyTheBear
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To: TChris

Yeah, well it’s not that I disagree with much of what you wrote, but back to my original point: this offends me far less than abortion, where the “harm” IS immediate, direct, and obvious.

Maybe the fact that I have three daughters biases my opinion, which places the whole gay issue WAY below some of the others...


34 posted on 10/14/2009 8:55:26 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Go Longhorns)
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To: Flightdeck
Maybe the fact that I have three daughters biases my opinion, which places the whole gay issue WAY below some of the others...

I'm with you there.

I have two daughters of my own.

Homosexuality makes me sick and angry.

Abortion makes me weep.

35 posted on 10/14/2009 8:58:53 PM PDT by TChris (There is no freedom without the possibility of failure.)
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To: TChris

“No, and it’s a valid comparison, but there is overwhelming evidence that pedophilia is a severely destructive behavior with a clear victim. Not the case with adult homosexuals, and that is also an important point.”

The lifestyle is very destructive, physically, mentally and spiritually.


36 posted on 10/14/2009 10:27:18 PM PDT by BenKenobi
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To: BenKenobi

Their lifestyle has created/spread the HIV/AIDS virus to non-homosexuals and innocent adults and children. To ignore this fact is deadly.


37 posted on 10/15/2009 4:38:24 AM PDT by DilJective (High time for men of the mind to go on strike.)
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To: Flightdeck
All I’m saying is that I don’t empathize with the passion folks put into this particular issue. And I will note that if medical science ever proves that homosexuality is something they are born with, then it would be a civil rights issue, and we (conservatives in general) would be on the wrong side of it.

So what if medical science "proves" that? What if it proves some men can't help themselves from sodomizing children? Being born messed up is no excuse for anything.

38 posted on 10/15/2009 8:00:58 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte
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To: Drango
Sponsors of Proposition 8, approved by 52 percent of the voters in November, argued that the initiative was clearly constitutional under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, which have never recognized a right to marry a person of the same gender.

The U.S. Constitution shouldn't enter into it since marriage is a state, not a federal matter. If California amends its Constitution to forbid same-sex marriage then that's it.

39 posted on 10/15/2009 8:04:32 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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