Judicial Activism Run Amok

California was at the forefront of the state proposition idea. The thinking being it was easier to get public questions on a ballot and it also allowed the state to decide some important issues--issues the state legislature would never take up. The first major vote was the passage of Prop 13, which put a limit on property tax increases of no greater than 1% of assessed value. The passage of it shook the nation and horrified state and municipal elected officials. The passage was argued up to the US Supreme Court where it was ruled constitutional.

In further years, many controversial propositions were voted on and many legal cases were brought by the losers. The most notorious was Prop 187, which would have blocked all services to illegal aliens. It passed 59%-41% and every county voted for it except three in the Bay Area. An injunction was almost immediately imposed against it and Democratic governor Gray Davis ended up letting it drop, so it never went anywhere.

No major proposition that was voted for and passed has ever been overturned by a federal appeals court...until today when the Ninth Circus did what they do best and overstepped their legal authority once again:

In the nation’s most closely watched gay rights case, the Ninth Circuit Court divided 2-1 on Tuesday and struck down “Proposition 8,” the ban on same-sex marriage adopted by California voters in November 2008. The panel majority did not uphold a broad right of gay couples to wed, saying it was enough for now to rule that it was unconstitutional to take away a right to marry only for one minority group, when everyone had the right before. The 128-page ruling can be read here.

The panel unanimously ruled that the sponsors of Proposition 8 had a legal right to be in the appeals court to challenge a federal District judge’s ruling in 2010 striking down the ballot measure, but it also rejected the sponsors’ plea to wipe out that ruling on the theory that the trial judge had a conflict of interest because he is gay and is in a long-term relationship with another man.

The majority summed up its ruling this way: “By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the people of California violated the Equal Protection Clause [of the federal Constitution]. We hold Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional on this ground.”

In essence, the 9th Circus pissed on the people of California who, given the opportunity to vote on the issue, said no to gay marriage. The uber-liberal judges didn't like that because like all liberals, they know better than us peons who didn't earn a law degree. They are the real arbiters and they decide who and who should not be able to decide major social and political issues.

Honestly, I'm agnostic on this issue. If two dudes want to get married, it doesn't affect me even a little bit. As long as the rules are the same and one of the them has to pay up in a divorce, I'm not really concerned. It seems trifling to get worked up about when Obama is spending the nation into oblivion.

But with that said; it was indeed voted on and gay marriage advocates lost fair and square. As with everything liberals lose though, they can't take the fact that very few people actually agree with them and they hate losing so they are going to force it down our throats...er, bad choice of words...make us deal with whether we like it or not.

I'm guessing that Chief Justice Roberts and SCOTUS will take a different view and once again overturn the most rebuked appellate court in the US..