Prop 8 And California's Court

Both supporters and opponents have asked for a judicial ruling on whether the initiative can stand. My own view is that it should stand, and the court should decline to reverse it. We lost. They won in a fair fight. No whining. With one caveat. Those civil marriage licenses already issued should not be revoked. I find the retroactive voiding of marriage licenses at once legally suspect and humanly cruel.

If my own marriage license were suddenly deemed void, it would feel like a very nasty attack on my own family. It is one thing to decide that gay couples are barred from civil equality from now on, but to reach back and strip couples who married in good faith under the law is excessive.

My own view is that we can protest and have; we are also within our rights to boycott businesses who bankrolled the initiative, and to confront the Mormon church. But we lost a fair fight because of complacency, and dreadful leadership. Now: start the battle to reverse the initiative through the ballot box. This time: a different model of grassroots organizing, web-based fund-raising, and social networking advocacy. But first: a revolution at HRC and its clones.