Brandon's Buzz

A handful of my Facebook friends were up in arms this afternoon over the California Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the controversial Proposition 8, which amended the state’s constitution last November to decree that within the state, only a marriage between a man and a woman would be recognized as legally valid. Several of my online pals whose opinions I otherwise completely respect have taken to calling the Court’s justices terms like idiots, morons, and much harsher affronts, and even as a proud gay man who has grown incredibly weary with this two steps forward, five steps back dance toward mere legal equality, the juvenile name-calling just doesn’t sit right with me.

What began its life as an incredibly simple blog post — wherein I was going to admonish my pals for leaping too quickly without truly comprehending the judgment the Court handed down today — has grown remarkably complex inside my own mind, as I’ve tried to justify for myself, by boning up on the intricate particulars of the California state constitution and its Equal Protection Clause (which this same exact Court employed last year in temporarily making same-sex marriage legal), how six of seven people ended up deciding as they did this afternoon.

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