June 20, 2008

Civil rights groups seek to block California gay marriage ballot initiative

I’m no lawyer, but this sounds like the way to get hate off the ballot. From today’s San Jose Mercury News:

Civil rights organizations today asked the California Supreme Court to block a November ballot initiative that would restore the state’s ban on gay marriage, arguing that it was not drafted properly.

In court papers filed with the state’s high court, civil rights lawyers insist that backers of the ballot measure did not follow proper procedures for amending the California constitution. The measure would amend the state Constitution to limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

The 55-page petition to the Supreme Court argues that the measure circulated in the spring to potential voters was misleading because it was filed before the justices invalidated existing laws banning gay marriage. The civil rights groups, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, are asking the Supreme Court to take the measure off the fall ballot until the legal challenge can be resolved.

“We filed this lawsuit because the sponsors of the initiative haven’t followed the very Constitution they’re trying to change,” said Stephen Bomse, a lawyer assisting civil rights groups in the case. …

Excellent. thumbs up

Of course, the tighty-righty, hatey-wateys are pulling their usual pouty faces and making up crap about the subversion of democracy; more at the link if you really care to hear that moldy-oldie broken record again.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

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