As expected, there will be legal reviews of the whole process surrounding Proposition 8. Gay rights activists as well as local governments have asked the courts to review the process, and the state Supreme Court has agreed to do so starting early next year. The key point is whether it is allowable for the state constitution to be amended, specifically to take a group's rights away.
The courts will also determine the legality of the gay couples who were already legally married in the short timeframe between the legalization in June and the passage of Prop 8 in November.
California, between its white supremacists and its reactionary immigrants, is a very fucked-up state, but its judiciary - despite its Reagan-era conservatism - is still fair-minded. After all, it was the Supreme Court itself that said Prop 22 was unconstitutional, in the first place. I will certainly be interested in what the results turn out to be. After all, if interracial marriages were put to the same popularity/religious test as gay marriages, they would have remained illegal for a long time, and may most likely still be illegal today.
For now, existing legal gay couples remain legal, while no new gay couples may get hitched. I do hope for a good decision out of this mess. In the meantime, I look forward to my eventual return to California, and making my political statements once there, including, as mentioned countless times already, retiring my BMW in the "you are what you drive" Los Angeles car culture.
BBC
