Kenneth Starr’s New Prop 8 Filings
Proposition 8
Today, as expected, Ken Starr (yeah, that one) filed a new brief in response to California Attorney General’s recent brief against proposition 8.
He relied in major part on one thing I find a bit ironic: trust in the people. Meaning, just because the majority of Californian voters want to treat the gays as less than equal in marriage doesn’t mean that they will want to take away other rights of the gays and lesbians and other minority groups.
Um, hello?
The amicus letters already filed, and especially the separate petition by the Asian conglomeration of organizations, points out just how terrible the majority of Californians have been in the past.
He calls it unwarranted fears. We call it maize.
Although not a fan of Starr, what I found most compelling is this:
The Attorney General does not cite a single California case suggesting that the judiciary has authority to strike down properly-enacted amendments to the Constitution for violating article I, section 1 or undefined notions of inalienable rights or natural justice.
In other words, Brown’s argument is so new that he couldn’t find a single case anywhere in California’s history of major law suits to support the argument.
Leading with that fact, Starr goes on to try to undermine the argument. I find a lot of that kind of hoakey, like the unwarranted fears bit. The fears are so warranted by everyone involved that it’s kind of unbelievable that he would be able to argue that with a straight face (no pun intended).
