SACRAMENTO ? The California Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8”s validity to amend the California Constitution so that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.”
In its ruling, the court points out that an amendment to the Constitution may be proposed either by two-thirds of the membership of each house of the Legislature or, in the case of Prop. 8, by an initiative petition signed by voters numbering at least 8 percent of total votes cast for all candidates for governor in the last gubernatorial election.
In either case, once the amendment is proposed, it requires only a simple-majority vote in a statewide election to amend the California Constitution. A majority of voters approved Prop. 8 in the November 2008 election. The split was 52.3 percent in favor and 47.7 percent opposed, according to a final report by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, www.sos.ca.gov.
Opponents of Prop. 8 argued that Prop. 8 should be viewed as a constitutional “revision,” which cannot legally be adopted through the initiative process.
The court”s opinion is that only the term “marriage” is withheld from same-sex couples and that all legal rights and protections traditionally associated with marriage remain intact. Because of Prop. 8”s limited scope, it constitutes an amendment and not a “revision” as petitioners alleged.
To read the complete opinion, available as a pdf, visit www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/. Follow the link for case No. S168047, Strauss v. Horton.
“Proposition 8 represents an unprecedented instance of a majority of voters altering the meaning of the equal protection clause by modifying the California Constitution to require deprivation of a fundamental right on the basis of a suspect classification. The majority”s holding is not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.”
