prop 8 upheld

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i was near the 18th & Castro street corner earlier today. NBC11 filmed a man who had an interesting viewpoint on the court decision that came down today. KRON4 arrived after NBC11, then took off. the action is at the san francisco civic center/city hall, so i think that's where all the cameras and copters are. i've gotta run right now. more later...

i posted a comment on my fellow blogger Angie's face book profile. check out her latest posts at: nomoreemptyfortunecookies.com!

here's a copy of my comment to Angie:
"the legal team that crafted prop 8 knew what they were doing. they knew how to word and submit prop 8 to make it stand up in ca state court. now, it's time for us to act instead of react. i'll be writing an opinion about prop 8 as it stands vs. the U.S. Constitution at http://fluxlife.blogspot.com/. there's 2 clear loopholes in prop 8 when you put it up against the Supreme Law of the Land (U.S. Constituion). i'm also kinda curious as to how the writers of prop 8 were able to subvert the typical process of ca state amendment ratification. that is, an amendment must be put before ca state congress in order to ratify an amendment that affects the core functioning of the ca state constitution (and by extension affects the core function of the U.S. constitution). the writers and agents/actors for prop 8 ratification definitely caught me sleeping on the job. time to wake up and act creatively to address this challenge! join us to act skillfully to restore equality for all! :D"
--end facebook comment--


okay, so here's the opinion i hold on the 2 legal loopholes that prop 8 will have to withstand in order to not be struck down in The Supreme Court of The United States:
1. Separation of Church and State - Since marriage itself is a sacred bond between individuals, it is carried out in/under the auspices and authority of a church or similar spiritual belief system. For the state to intervene in a sacred rite such as marriage, is a violation of the separation of church and state.
2. All (people) are created equal - This legal proposition should never have arisen in this case to begin with, because separation of church and state should have been stipulated and upheld before any marriages in the United States had ever taken place (all the way back to the day the U.S. Constitution was ratified). That said, I must proceed to consider the current legally illogical outcomes which are now in play:

While I am glad that 18,000 couples' marriages were maintained, how are they more equal than others who are currently seeking the same? i don't buy the grandfathering/protected argument put up by the court. these protections do not erase the legal absurdity of some groups within the population being more equal than others. when a legal absurdity such as this comes up in a court of American law, the judge(s) typically dismiss the case prima facie (on it's face), because absurdities do not work in the case law system (system of legal precedent). So, the fact that some people cannot legally be more equal than others demonstrates that the current ruling fails the legal absurdity test. This means that this part of the ruling causes the reasoning behind the primary case ruling to be legally suspect. This means that it's time for a crack legal team led by an experienced civil rights/corporate law litigation expert to begin to chew this ruling to shreds on appeal.


Hint to crack legal team seeking appeal: If you stipulate to property rights under the 14th Amendment of The U.S. Constitution (and other statutes, and etc.), this points to what the actual back bone of why the U.S. Constitution came into being: to protect our property vis-a-vis our wealth from the king, and by extension any one else. The U.S. Constitution is not a civil rights protection so much as it is a property protection. That's why you need someone not only versed in civil rights law, but also corporate law to win this appeal. On a side note, this is why corporate law has been able to subvert rights of individuals, because corporate law largely functions on the true back bone of the U.S. Constitution: property. The Bill of Rights (1st 10 Amendments), were actually written to sooth the classes just below the elite classes to accept the document as something that had humanitarian qualities to it. Well, they fooled a lot of us, and the corporations have largely been laughing all the way to the bank ever since. That being said, it is stipulating to property rights that wins civil rights cases in The U.S. Supreme Court.

"Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The 4th Amendment also points to the back bone of The U.S. Constitution:

"Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Although this Amendment is primarily to ensure that warrants are correctly formed, submitted, properly approved and signed by a judge, and finally properly served to the suspect/probable defendant; it primarily came into being because our forefathers were concerned about retaining property, i.e. wealth against the king or other potential adversary. It again points to the true back bone of The U.S. Constitution: retention of wealth through property rights.

So, there's my long winded hint to the crack legal team for a win in The U.S. Supreme Court in this case. Mix it up with the 4th and 14th Amendments, other pertinent case law, statutes, points, and authorities all pointing to a violation of property rights, like a gay married couple wasn't issued credit and/or a loan for a house and/or a car, for example, and you've got a win. To try to attack the current ruling based on the merits would be absurd because the ruling itself is actually a legal absurdity. The only reason it currently stands is because any judge can rule however they want in their court (and they usually make up some quasi-legal story as to why they ruled the way they did, which could be total B.S.), and they have the final say until a higher judge says different.

Another aside: Unfortunately, the aforegoing is why homeless people's rights are in a back log right now. No property, no rights. And at around 10% of the population being gay, a similar conundrum results for the gay population, by extension. 90% of property/wealth holders are holding sway over legal rights in this society. While not all of the 90% has to assert it's power, a simple majority will do. One of the failings of our "democratic" process. The richest 10% holding 85% of the wealth in this world definitely aren't mobilizing to secure equal rights for all, that seems apparent. As Mayer Anselm Rothschild (of the very powerful Rothschilds banking family) said: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes it's laws."

One of the realities I've looked at is that we're still based out of a caste or class system when it comes to rights in this country. It's not just a part of law and economy, it's in the current predominant psyche of the western world. I'll admit it for myself. For example, at the psychological level, when a homeless person approaches me for money, a wall goes up inside of me. I'm thinking: "I'm different from you, I have a job and/or a business. You don't." Even without extending this example further, and even if I give to that homeless person in money and/or my time and attention, I've already differentiated us both instead of seeing us as one and the same. Some days are different, and I don't put up that wall. I do truly see that we are all God, that we are all equal. Honestly though, I want to see the: "we are all God" reaction happen inside of myself every time, not just some of the time. The point is, the current state of The Supreme Law of The Land (U.S. Constitution), isn't helping. It actually still locks us into a class system whereby some people are more equal than others.

We can win and overturn prop 8, but there are some glaring faults for human rights built into the current legal system stemming from failings within the back bone of The U.S. Constitution. Elitists had a lot to say in it's creation.

Finally, in the big legal picture, it's high time we, the American people move towards creating the 28th Amendment to begin to transform The U.S. Constitution to give it the truly humane back bone of true equal rights for all, regardless of how much or how little property we own. Further, that a new Constitution be written to address the new challenges that have arisen in the past 230+ years to help the American people shift the current paradigm into something more workable and positive for these modern times.

In tandem with transforming our law in this way, we'll have to move away from our current debtor banking system to a value banking system. Currently, we generate the greater portion of our money within the closed banking system by signings for debt (loans and credit). The banks merely write down the amount of the loan into the borrower's account without putting actual money into the account (this happens via a bank charter in connection with The Federal Reserve). Then, the U.S. banks actually get to write down on their books about 10 times the amount of every loan/credit card taken by a citizen (again, by charter with The Federal Reserve, a private central bank that is loosely associated with The Federal Government). So, banks get credit as they sign up more people for debt. We need to set things up so that when a borrowing activity of a citizen or group of citizens is doing something that provides value to society like building a school, hospital, bridge, non-profit, etc. that the bank then gets to write down the "bonus" on their books. As a result, the citizen adding value to society is not charged interest on the capital, because what they are creating is adding value to society. No taxes should be collected off of the citizen's (s') value adding activity either. However, if someone takes out a loan to buy an SUV for example, the bank doesn't get the "bonus", and the citizen buying the SUV has to pay interest on the loan because their SUV is contributing to unreasonable environmental and roads damage. Also, carbon credits will have to be bought to offset the air pollution of the SUV, so part of their interest payments go towards that. No surprise, if you follow my reasoning, the SUV owner gets taxed as well. The basic idea is: "Tax and charge interest on things that are damaging to our society and our Earth, don't charge interest and don't tax that which improves our society and helps to regenerate The Earth."

This video taught me a lot about the predominant way money is added or created within our economy (the first 15 sec. of the video after you click on the play button is black screen with no sound. sometimes there is a delay for it to load before that. i had to move the progress bar pointer after i clicked the play button to get the video to start. this video is worth these small hassles, so check it out ):


My apologies for going on a tangent by talking about economics, but it is property/wealth related, and that has to do with the back bone functioning of our U.S. Constitution.

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4 comments:

dw.bg said...

Steve - brilliant post.

I'd been tossing around ideas in my head for a couple days on what to write about Prop 8. So thanks for the inspiration!

http://bgagpub.blogspot.com/2009/05/bgish-prop-h8-sex-and-american-way.html

Steve Morozumi said...

wasssup dw.bg?

thanks! glad i could inspire you!

lookin' forward to checkin' out your post today or tomorrow!

gotta get to work at the moment!

laters! :D

Fortune Cookies said...

Steve, you are absolutely one of the most eloquent and articulate bloggers I know of! I love you for your passion. My friend in LA recently commented on my FaceBook page " Your fighting a losing battle, we all are. And you know quite well, that America could care LESS about what other countries are doing. The point is, we can't keep running back to the constitution, and saying "look, but it says right here..." Because it wasn't designed for me or you. It was designed for white slave-owning christian, conservative men. And why is domestic partnerships such a bad thing to gays and lesbians??? It shocks me that we take such offense to the idea....
I will always promise to love and support you and macey. I will always vote AGAINST the banning of same-sex marriage. But we need to be angrier. We need SERIOUS boycotting, SERIOUS and, sorry, much more passionate protesting. Who will stand up and rally the troops?? I need radical passion, WE need radical passion. We have no voice, Angie...... that's why we are failing. We have no Martin Luther King, or Malcom X. We have no Tecumseh, or Patriot to scream loud enough for people, to listen to, not just hear ... They feel as if they have God on their side, but who's on ours??? "

I must say, I do agree with Erin's impassioned plea for a visible, vocal, influential leader of the gay rights movement, but I also believe in what Gandhi said. We must be the change we want to see in the world. If we all stand around waiting for a leader, we'll never get anywhere. We each need to lead this movement. We each need to make our voices heard and we each need to be visible and vocal. Thank you my friend, for being an articulate, intelligent, passionate champion of this movement!

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