I'm gonna get married

It was a sad day Tuesday for civil rights in California, as the state Supreme Court offered its schizophrenic decision on last November's Prop. H8:

The California Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to uphold Proposition 8 and existing same-sex marriages left in place all rights for California's gays and lesbians except access to the label "marriage," but it provided little protection from future ballot measures that could cost gays and other minorities more rights, lawyers and scholars said Tuesday.

In a 6-1 ruling, the court said the November ballot measure that restored a ban on same-sex marriage was a limited constitutional amendment, not a wholesale revision that would have required a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to be placed before voters.

One gay friend of mine cynically suggested that the reason the court let the marriages stand was to avoid having to refund the license fees ($70 x 18,000 = $1.26M). I dunno, I'm not sure they're that smart. But grandfathering in actual discrimination seems OK to this court.

Tonight the irony-challenged ProtectMarriage.com folks sent out this awful email:

Second, the Court’s decision to continue recognizing those same-sex couples who obtained marriage licenses prior to the passage of Prop 8 should be kept in perspective. Remember that a large number of the marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples were for out-of-state residents travelling to California --- which will not be recognized anyway in the vast majority of their home states. Moreover, if California goes as Massachusetts did after legalizing gay marriage, a substantial portion of the still-recognized gay marriages will be dissolved by divorce within a few years. In the end, only a tiny number of gay marriages will continue to be recognized. What really matters is that the vast majority of what was at stake in this case --- the right of the voters to amend the state constitution to restore traditional marriage going forward --- ultimately proved to be a complete victory for us!

While raising the "Gay's are more promiscuous and thus marriages are bound to fail" straw man, and ignoring the real divorce rates with hetero marriages, they count on D-I V-O-R-C-E to further their agenda.

That's some family values we can count on.

Bastards.