By Steven T. Jones
The scene at Civic Center Plaza today showed that the culture wars are still raging in the United States, with same-sex marriage arousing strong feelings on both sides of the debate. But it’s a clash that the California Supreme Court could largely end if it sides with San Francisco and finds that same-sex marriage rights aren’t subject to majority will.
That ruling isn’t expected for several months. While there was no clear sign during today’s oral arguments whether the court would uphold Proposition 8, swing vote Justice Joyce Kennard did seem to be leaning toward letting the measure stand, emphasizing that changing the constitution (in this case, to remove same-sex marriage rights) is “a basic right, a fundamental right” and how “this case is different from last year’s case,” when she found the ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.
But San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart engaged with Kennard for a long time, arguing that constitutional protections of minority rights are worthless if they can be simply voted away at the ballot box. As she said outside the courtroom after the three-hour hearing, “We hope the court will not sell our constitution down the river.”