[JimSEA]

what separates us from Haiti or Venezuela?

Answering your retorical question, Not a whole hell of a lot. This will benefit the Democrats in that they can paint Newsom as a "well intentioned loose cannon" but, at the same time decry the excesses of the religious right and Bush (if he gets involved). If Bush doesn't show leadership on this issue -- as he well may not -- he will lose a lot of votes. It seems like a win, win for the Democrats if the leadership doesn't press but is supportive of "Local initiative". You got to remember that Kerry, like Clinton, is a 60's activist.

[livius]

It's a very bizarre situation - actually, in the case of Judge Moore, of course, the ACLU and everybody else in the universe came forward to demand that he adhere to state law. But I'm not expecting this to happen here...

The problem is that the Executive Branch cannot deal with a judicial and state issue, particularly when it has been Oprah-ized - that is, taken out of the legal context entirely and turned over to the emotions of the ruling bureaucratic class (I wish to remind everybody that the CITIZENS of San Francisco, except for the gay ones, have had no say in this). That's one of the reasons we need to get a lot of strict constructionist legislators elected, so that they can appoint judges who will knock this stuff back.

Our society is founded on the rule of law; the judiciary has obviously done a lot to undermine this (in this case, simply by withholding their decision, because they know there's no legal support for gay marriage in the State of CA). But if we let this go, we're in for serious problems in the future.

Unfortunately, it's not something the Executive Branch can really handle at the state level.

Call to Freepers - does anybody have any idea how people can defend the rule of law in our country?