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To: Congressman Billybob
In California, such a petition will go on its ballot this fall, to write the subject into the California Constitution and put it beyond the reach of its Supreme Court.

What do they need to do to succeed there?

Can we help?

14 posted on 05/16/2008 2:22:08 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Paul Ross
What do they need to do to succeed there?

As I understand, it's too late to get more signatures there, the deadline has passed. Now, they're in the position of validating the signatures already received. If they don't get to the magic number of 10% of active voters, then the measure does not make the ballot. As a practical matter, invalidities occur frequently, therefore you must get many more signatures than what is nominally called for.

Frankly, I don't think it will pass even if it gets on the ballot. There will be a lot of enthusiasm among California liberals for Barry O's campaign, and unless McCain turns around from what I've perceived as squishiness on gay marriage, it's not even going to become a campaign issue on the national level. It's much more likely to affect local races in swing districts or states, most notably Florida.

One thing the case did show is that if a state tries to adopt civil union or domestic partnership as a 'compromise' measure, that state's Supreme Court can use that as 'intent' to create equality, and just give it that extra push towards wiping out a nominal distinction. That would appear to give ammunition to forces in red states that oppose any kind of official recognition of homosexual relationships.

We're moving towards a situation where we have red states with no recognition of anything besides traditional marriage, and blue states that have full hetero and homosexual marriage. At the time that bans on interracial marriage were struck down by the SCOTUS in 1976, only a small handful of states had such bans on their books, and they were often unenforced.

Surely, this issue will come before the Court as well, if that happens when only a minority of states have gay marriage, and the great majority do not have it (or its equivalents) the Court might just find that it can simply be a regional policy only, and not something that needs to be recognized on a national basis. I'm certain there are other exceptions to the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution, the SCOTUS can create another one here.

19 posted on 05/18/2008 9:37:59 AM PDT by hunter112 (The 'straight talk express' gets the straight finger express from me.)
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