8

I can not completely articulate how absolutely full of joy my heart is that a Federal Judge in California overturned Proposition 8 yesterday. Here is the full decision. It is worth reading.

Proposition 8 was the one glum moment of election night 2008. Well, that and Michelle Bachmann getting re-elected.

I was not in Castro or Chelsea or West Hollywood where I understand some raucous celebrating to have occurred, but I have to say that I was pretty moved by the sort of virtual rally and celebration that occurred on Facebook. I seem to have over 300 Facebook friends, which, of course, is no reflection on how many actual friends I have, BUT it was very cool to see so many statuses of people from many walks of life and all over the country celebrating the same victory. And it reaffirmed that I know some of the best people in the world, even if I only stay in touch with some of them via status updates.

Finally, I think it's pretty clear that the next step in this Proposition 8 battle is the 9th Circuit and then the SCOTUS. If SCOTUS upholds the decision from yesterday, it will be a landmark civil rights case and likely recognizable by name similar to Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Gideon v. Wainwright, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah...

Oh. Wait. You haven't heard of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah? That was the case where SCOTUS overturned a Hialeah ordinance banning animal sacrifice as it infringed upon the religious freedom of practitioners of Santeria. You know, that pesky 1st Amendment and all. I wrote a paper on it in college and another in law school.

I have digressed into SCOTUS rambling. It happens too easily. I haven't even had any wine today. Sometimes I really miss law school.

My point, though, was that the name of the case that overturns Proposition 8 is Perry et al v. Schwarzenegger. This name will go all the way up to SCOTUS and if the esteemed Justices follow the U.S. Constitution, the landmark case legalizing gay marriage throughout the country will be named after Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This is totally awesome.