A fairly obvious statement, given my previous entries on the subject of gay marriage. I'm all for it! Marry! Be happy!
But I wanted to point out an interesting and hypocritical twist on the Prop 8 battle here in California.
Conservatives who don't wish to sound overly harsh are often quoted as saying that decisions of this nature should be "left to the states". That is, California decides who can marry in California; Wyoming decides for its own, and so forth. This position has some legal problems that I won't get into--recognition of marriages in other states being necessary under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution--but in California, the hypocrisy of the "leave it to the states" position has been exposed.
How? The entirety of the funding and support for this ballot initiative is coming from outside California. They're specifically not "leaving it" to us; outside conservatives are funding the commercials and overall support of the initiative.
(Also, ballot initiatives of this kind are completely asinine. I do not want amendments to the state constitution coming because of popular vote. It's the least-thought-out method of legislating our democracy allows. Ballot initiatives are crap.)
That's not to say the opposition hasn't received donations from non-California sources. But the disparity, according to news reports, is staggering. Opposition to Prop 8 is largely California-based; proponents are found pretty much everywhere else.
Just so it's official: No on Prop 8, people. I defy any of you to come up with a logical or rational explanation as to why a constitutional amendment banning marriage between gay people is a good idea.
Because "God said" is neither logical or rational.
3 comments:
"Crap"? Ballot initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women's suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (4 states), publicly financed elections (passed by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), medical marijuana ( in 8 of 12 states) and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). See http://Vote.org/initiatives for more examples and references. The media have seized on the problem initiatives. They generally kiss up to politicians.
Voters on ballot initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. The best project for such deliberative process is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://Vote.org. Also http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/ and http://cirwa.org
In Switzerland, petitions are left at government offices and stores for people to read and sign at leisure, so there are less aggressive petitioners more informed signers, and less $ required. The Swiss vote on initiatives 4-6 times a year so there's never too many on one ballot. Because they have real power, the Swiss read more newspapers/capita than anyone else.
Legislators have never tried to improve the ballot initiative process, but often try to make it even harder. They'd rather have absolute power!
In Switzerland, representatives are humbler, after centuries of local and cantonal (state) ballot initiatives, and national initiatives since 1891. They call their system "co-determination." This works well for couples, too!
Ah, but you pointed out exactly why ballot initiatives are "crap" in my mind -- "Voters on ballot initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc."
But they don't get those. Ballot initiatives, far too often, pander to the lowest common denominator. Instead of electing people to deliberate, hold hearings, and evaluate (at least ideally) new laws, we ask some rube coming out of a supermarket whether he thinks a guy should be able to marry a horse. The rube says hell no, the ballot guy gets his signature and the initiative is off and running.
We have, for better or for worse, decided on running the country via representative democracy. Ballot initiatives and the like are in direct contradiction to that process, because there is no oversight. It's populism run amok.
Besides, while you may have named some good initiatives that have passed, I could name far, far more that are a complete waste of time, or are downright malevolent. Like Prop 8.
We have a process. I believe in reforming the process and electing good people. If our representatives did their job, we wouldn't need ballot initiatives. I'm still striving for that.
I just found out yesterday that the mormon church has spent $19 million on promoting Prop 8/forcing people to vote the way the want them to.
If I didn't already have enough reason to dislike them, that great misuse of funds would be a really great reason.
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