Proposition 8 Undefended

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and current governor Jerry "Moon Beam" Brown, refuse to defend Proposition 8 in a court battle that shouldn't even be in the federal courts in the first place. Any other group that attempts to defend the marriage defining California state constitutional amendment is told they don't have legal standing. So, the leftists are literally stopping a state constitutional amendment unconstitutionally with the federal courts (unconstitutional because the federal government does not have constitutional authority over the issue, and by the limitations placed on the judicial branch by Article III and the Eleventh Amendment in the U.S. Constitution), by blocking any chance to defend it.

In the most recent decision to eliminate any defense of Proposition 8, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that Imperial County lacks standing to defend Proposition 8 before the court. For clarification, the federal court sent an unprecedented request to the California Supreme Court asking it to clarify who has the legal right under state law to defend an initiative when government officials refuse to do so.

The California Supreme Court is under no obligation to answer the request.

Shouldn't anybody willing to defend the marriage protection measure be able to?

Since the Attorney General, under Governor Jerry Brown, and former Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, refused to defend Proposition 8 on appeal, the marriage definition amendment is being defended by the initiative's sponsor, ProtectMarriage.com. Imperial County also sought to defend the proposition, but the recent ruling ended their fight.

The Alliance Defense Fund Litigation Counsel, Jim Campbell, says that ProtectMarriage.com has legal standing to defend the California marriage amendment, and that liberal politicians should not be able to nullify an act of the people by refusing their ability to defend it. The people of California have the right to be defended. Because the people have a right to be defended, the official proponents of Proposition 8 must have standing to defend that law.

What is happening is the liberal left is killing the democratic process this republic functions under by using a progressive judicial system filled with activist judges, an unconstitutional web of case law, and a governor and attorney general willing to snuff out the proposition by indirectly invalidating the measure that they know darn well they have no power to strike down directly.

Imperial County has not given up, however, and has announced that they plan to try to intervene in the lawsuit after both a federal district judge and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals suggested they have legal standing to pursue the case.

If after all of the smoke clears the proponents of the initiative are found by the liberal judges not to have standing, a federal judge's ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional would not get a hearing in the appellate court and the ruling would stand, invalidating Proposition 8 and clearing the way for same-sex marriages, without proponents even being able to defend the measure.

Liberty, and due process, has once again been seized by leftism, and taken from the people.

Just another step towards tyranny.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

What Next? - California Catholic Daily