But it was Ken Starr, best known for prosecuting President Bill Clinton, who stole the show on Thursday after leveling an argument that a simple majority vote is enough to remove any right from a minority group.Once again, I'll post my argument against Prop 8 that I made in December when it became clear that this legal nonsense was the real thrust of the Prop 8 effort.
The people "have the raw power to define rights," he told the court while arguing in favor of invalidating over 18,000 marriages.
"The right of the people is inalienable to change their constitution through the amendment process," said Starr. "The people are sovereign and they can do very unwise things, and things that tug at the equality principle."
Chief Justice Ronald George posed a hypothetical: what if the majority demanded the right to free speech be revoked?
"After much banter back and forth, Starr says they do," reported Advocate.com. The Los Angeles Times reported similarly on Starr's alarming response.
"So, what Starr is saying is that if the people had stripped all civil rights from gays and lesbians, he would argue to uphold that," opined the blog GayWired.
The really disturbing precedent here is that civil rights can be taken from a minority under the guise of "the will of the people." Under that logic, why not institute a new era of Jim Crow laws aimed at African-Americans or Latinos under a proposition vote? Why not put the practice of Islam in the US to a vote, and close down all mosques should the measure pass?And this is exactly what Ken Starr is arguing. Good or bad, he believes a simple majority vote is enough to strip any rights away from any group or groups. Denying civil rights to the minority because the majority wants to do so is of course the complete reversal of the notion of civli rights for all in the first place.If you believe that you can take basic human rights like marriage away from a group based solely on sexual preference, you should be able to take rights based on religion, race, age, gender, or any other discriminatory criteria.
The danger that this effort represents is tantamount. The supporters of this effort will not stop there. Once you codify into law the ability of the many to take away the rights of the few, it will be used against any and every group. Once you've established a threshhold that one group cannot cross because of their minority status, all that remains is to steadily lower the bar until that group has no civil rights at all. Why not revoke the rights of gays and lesbians period? Why not apply the same standard to Muslims or Jews? Doesn't the Islamic or Jewish idea of marriage differ with the Christian one? Isn't that the argument used to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry?
Why stop there, Prop 8 supporters? Go for the whole ball of wax. Let's deny civil rights to everyone who is different.
And now, the danger is breathtakingly inherent. If California's Supreme Court buys this argument, then civil rights in the state of California are done and dead. Can you imagine this argument coming up before SCOTUS and possibly being accepted? That protecting a minority is inferior to protecting the will of the majority?
And yet California's Supreme Court seems to be doing exactly that, buying the argument that the majority can take from the minority with a simple majority vote.
Remember, you're a minority compared to the rest of the country on at least one view you have. Once you accept the basic legal argument that the majority can invalidate the rights of the minority, then there's no reason to stop at gay marriage. Why not deny gays all civil rights? Why not do the same for Hispanics or Blacks? Why not do the same for women?
The journey to fascism is so much easier when the people themselves are pulling the cart.
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1 comment:
Ugh. No. Just... fucking no.
I know that the shitwits like saying it, but it is true: just because a majority agrees doesn't make it right.
Again, Tyranny of the Majority. Especially a majority easily and eagerly manipulated.
Fuck no. Ken Starr needs to be smacked for just speaking that.
Human rights are not subject to the democratic process. Protection of the minority, of those who do not have the power of wealth, of media, or of office, is TANTAMOUNT to the preservation of democracy, human rights, hell... any decent fucking society.
As soon as that is voted away, those in power OWN everyone else. We might as well have a dictatorship based on slavery.
Or we might as well have a revolution.
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