Proposition 22 affected California state law, not the constitution, and thus it is amenable to judicial review.

If you get a court decision forcing gay marriage down the throats of a country or state that does not want it you may provide the impetus for a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage.

It may take you five or ten years to get gay marriage through the democratic process. I bet it will take 50 or 100 years to get a super-majority in favor of gay marriage that is large enough to repeal a constitutional amendment.

The beauty of our constitutional system is the separation of powers into three branches which have different purview, different responsibilities, and different degrees of accountability to majorities. Courts are often the means by which minorities end up being protected against the “tyranny of the majority”, to use John Stuart Mill’s term. The Framers were fairly explicit about this point in their deliberations in Philadelphia — hence the Senate, for one thing, and an independent judiciary which is appointed during good behavior. This point is especially well elucidated in Federalist #51.

How we balance the majority’s right to “not want” gay marriage against the constitutional rights of the minority that do is a trickier question than it appears, because it goes straight to the heart of how a democracy strikes a careful and dynamic balance.

Less frequently than you might imagine, it’s been the Supreme Court that has had to protect the rights of minorities against the majority. Take the case of Brown v. Board of Education for example. At the time, the majority favored the continuation of school segregation despite overwhelming evidence that “separate but equal” facilities were simply a farce. If we had simply followed the majority in this case, much of the country would have continued denying African-americans equal protection. The Warren Court took the bold move of upholding equal protection despite the majority opinion, which “caught up” about a decade later. Are you saying that the Supreme Court should NOT have ruled in favor of equal protection in Brown, as an example, but instead gone with the majority or simply refused the case?

I’m going to think about this a bit because I think this deserves a post, not just a comment. I disagree with you, but am enjoying the discussion!

luggage stuffed with $20 million in cash for his money-starved government.

defibrillator did not have a significantly lower risk of serious abnormal heart rhythms or death by consuming fish oil supplements, which had been thought

World News Tonight’ Begins Series on Back Pain Treatments

and ended pleased and hope to bring our matters to a better posture in a little time, which God send. So up and to church ,

new outbreak of bird flu is confirmed in poultry in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.

nerves close to the original injury site more than “imprinted” central sensitivity.