6 to 1.. the California SC caved… to the religious yahoos.

Demonstrators in favor of same-sex marriage wait in front of San Francisco City Hall for the California Supreme Court to rule on the legality of a voter-approved ban on same-sex unions. [Paul Sakuma AP]

From the LAT:

[I]n addition to rejecting the gay-rights lawyers’ contention that Proposition 8 was an illegal constitutional revision, the court also flatly discarded Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown’s argument that the measure was unconstitutional because it affected an “inalienable right.”

But the court said “well-established legal principles” require that Proposition 8 be applied only prospectively, leaving intact same-sex marriages that occurred before the November election.

“The marriages of same-sex couples performed prior to the effective date of Proposition 8 remain valid and must continue to be recognized in this state,” George wrote.

Justice Carlos R. Moreno, in the lone dissent, warned that today’s ruling “places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities.”  […]

“It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority,” wrote Moreno, the court’s only Democratic appointee.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard, who joined the majority last year in giving gays the right to marry, said in a separate opinion that Proposition 8 was not sweeping enough to be a constitutional revision, which can only be placed on the ballot by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

Noting, as the majority opinion did, that judges must set aside their personal views, Kennard said the court was required to follow the state Constitution and the court’s previous rulings.

“And when the voters have validly exercised this power, as they did here, a judge must enforce the constitution as amended,” Kennard wrote.

Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, a former civil rights lawyer who also joined last year’s ruling in favor of marriage rights, wrote separately because she disagreed with the majority’s definition of a constitutional revision.

“The drafters of our Constitution never imagined, nor would they have approved, a rule that gives the foundational principles of social organization in free societies, such as equal protection, less protection from hasty, unconsidered change than principles of government organization,” she wrote.

The court declined to determine whether same-sex marriages performed outside of California — and not formally recognized by the state prior to the election — would be legal in California. The court said it did not hear arguments on that question and “it would be inappropriate to address” it today.

The case for overturning the initiative was widely viewed as a long shot. Gay rights lawyers had no solid legal precedent on their side, and some of the court’s earlier holdings on constitutional revisions mildly undercut their arguments. …snip…

Well.. I think we should just vote on everything.  LOL.  Give it a whirl.  Watch rights disappear.  We are united in our divisions.

IIRC it has been strongly suggested, rumored… that Werdegar is gay.  I wondered when I read it was 6 to 1, if she was the hold out.  But no!  It was a Latino male.

So… we have some 18,000 SSMs… upheld.  And it is banned for everyone else.

You have to love schizophrenia.

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As I find things of interest on Sotomayor and reactions will post in thread.  She is being called “a moderate” out here, with indications of some rulings that will provide ”concern” for liberals.  Apparently last time her name was up, her nomination to the Fed bench was in congress, Hatch voted YES on her.

So Ob may get what he wanted, supposedly he wants a high YES vote on his pick.  On the other hand, who knows what the conservatives are hatching… 😉

She is tangled up in the New Haven firefighter case that is now before the SCOTUS, on the bench there she voted for throwing out the promotional test on the grounds it was tainted – when no black firefighters were able to do well enough for promotion to captain….  Oh well.

You know Ob… make the conservatives happy.  And wealthy.  And whatever else he can serve up for them.