“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” – 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution

California joined the ranks of states, including Virginia, that have used their state constitutions to deny homosexuals the privilege of marriage.

Yesterday, Californians voted on and passed Proposition 8, a hotly contested measure on the ballot included due to the reaction of conservatives to the California Supreme Court ruling that law denying homosexuals the right to marry was unconstitutional. The passage of Proposition 8 means that the constitution will not be amendment, subverting the ruling of the court, once again denying homosexuals the right to marry.

It is estimated that 11,000 couples were married after the court ruling, couples who may not be recognized as being married by the state. Interestingly enough, the approved measure does not specify the legal status of gay couples already married, leaving them in legal limbo.

It is precisely that legal limbo that those 22,000 people who were married in California should take advantage of, and the reason why everyone needs to be paying attention to what is happening in California. It is quite possible that the issue of gay marriage may become the national issue that politicians have been avoiding. The time may soon be coming that our national leaders will no longer be able to say that it’s only a state issue. It’s possible that one of the potential thousands of lawsuits that may be filed could make it to the Supreme Court of the United States.

What happens if the U.S. Supreme Court takes on gay marriage in California? While I’m sure a lot can be said about the ideologies of the justices, my prediction is that the precedents of the not too distant past will come into play: Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board of Education. The combination of these cases provide a basis for arguing that public opinion regarding restrictions on marriage have been wrong in the past, and that unions provided by the state to gay couples are not completely equal, violating the 14th amendment. The court declared that marriage was “one of the basic civil rights of man.” It should be noted that it was the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education that allowed President Eisenhower to utilize federal resources to enforce the law of the land as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

I’ll be watching California to see if a push through the courts materializes. Maybe one day it will be argued that the greatest boost for a federal guarantee of gay marriage rights was the passage of Proposition 8.

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