I wrote yesterday why the legal theory of those opposing Proposition 8 is wrong. Joe Infranco, my esteemed colleague at ADF, explains why their legal theory does not fit the actual facts in this excellent blog post at ADF’s Church blog. 

    In summary, the liberals argue that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because it “stripped away” the right to marry a same-sex partner that existed for about 4-5 months in California between the time of the ruling by the California Supreme Court finding a right to same-sex “marriage” in the state constitution in June 2008, and when the voters reversed it by passing Prop 8 in November 2008.  This narrative immensely distorts the facts of what actually happened.   Joe Infranco points out that the process to collect signatures to get Prop 8 on the ballot started long before the California Supreme Court ruling, and that state officials approved Prop 8 for the ballot before the state supreme court ruled in the lawsuits challenging state marriage laws. 

      Also, the state supreme court voted 4-3 to deny the motion of Prop 8 supporters to stop its order from going into effect until after the voters had voted on Prop 8 a few months later in November.   In other words, although the California Supreme Court knew the voters were on the verge of possibly amending the state constitution to nullify the court’s decision on marriage, a bare majority of the court notheless voted to allow same-sex couples to legally marry for a short time in clear disregard of the emerging will of the people to retain the definition of marriage as one man and one woman. 

      Also,  Jerry Brown, the current state attorney general and soon-to-be governor, altered the ballot language to describe Prop 8 in negative terms. Many times, the ballot language is the main thing voters read to understand what a proposed ballot measure would do.  Jerry Brown flagrantly tried to undermine Prop 8 with this slanted, negative language.   Prop 8 supporters filed a lawsuit to change this distorted ballot language, and that lawsuit  failed. Then, in the Perry case, those challenging Prop 8 used this ballot language that the supporters fought to change as evidence of “animus” by the supporters of Prop 8 against homosexuals!

   So at every step of the way, state officials worked to undermine Prop 8.  The facts simply don’t fit the liberals’ narrative that the supporters of Prop 8 intended to “strip rights” from homosexuals. They ignore the repeated efforts of those who oppose Prop 8 to subvert it.