If you’d like to talk about the mechanics of voting, we can do that. The actual “vote” in California wasn’t nearly as clean as you’d like to imagine. First of all you had a religious organization pouring money and engaging in deliberate deceit regarding the proposition. Second, there had already been several rounds of voting on the legislative level (you know, that first layer of defense against mob rule) on the same issue. Then there was a court case. Before that were a number of highly popular local decisions. Further complicating matters is the fact that the proposition had a very regional breakdown of support. Perhaps more importantly, the will of the people shouldn’t matter at all as what we’re discussing is a matter of civil rights. The mob doesn’t get to abuse the minority just because it has superior numbers.

Now I know, the court is supposed to be insulated from popular opinion (Scalia has made his feelings on people petitioning the court abundantly clear) but it takes a certain disconnection from the reality on the ground to really believe that. The courts have never really been insulated. They are staffed by men and women who live in the community, who have bias and prejudice and personal conscience, who watch the news and read newspapers, who sometimes listen to their clerks, who sometimes care about how history will remember them. No one wants to be remembered as the justice who took a principled stand to support a civil rights abuse on the order of Dred Scott. So yeah, the courts are supposed to be insulated, but only a fool would believe thats actually the case.

As for the second half of your post, I’m not really sure what your race baiting is aimed at. What is the connection you’re trying to draw between gay marriage and affirmative action? Why is the success (or failure) of law students at all salient to the discussion? I’m sure theres an insinuation you’re trying to make there, but from where I sit it just looks like you’re trying to defend outright discrimination by whining about your privilege being checked elsewhere.

Finally, some of us know that petitioning the court won’t do shit. Some of us know that the supreme court isn’t going to represent our interests. Some of us know that the whole charade is a waste of time. But we smile and follow along anyway for the sake of due diligence. We fight because we know that even if we lose the case we win the war by garnering sympathy. We build support with every outraged citizen who can’t believe that little girl in the video isn’t allowed to have a normal family. We endure, we hope, we wait for the elderly people who disproportionately supported prop 8 to die, we gain allies, and if push comes to shove we repeat Stonewall.

AndWA-as someone who was on the admission committee of a semi prestigious(non Ivy) professional school,I have some exposure to ‘unfairness”.Society has mandated academic institutions take certain groups with lesser standards(grades,standardized tests,etc )than others.
Do you:1) approve of this?
2)Feel society has the right to do so?
30Care to comment on how long this should continue?
Just so you have a little more info,half-as in one of two for you math challenged- of the African American 3rd years fail boards part I.Thoughts?
And I’m not asking for Quantum Electro Dynamics-simply tell me why one would write a petition in this situation.

Here’s one that doesn’t shriek of moralizing,Isaac Asimov once wrote re’ Harlan Ellison’s ,”I Have No Mouth,but I Must Scream,” that it was ‘all emotion and no thought’.Does that strike anyone on this site as hysterical?

You know, Corwin, I always wonder about someone who criticizes an argument because it was “all emotion and no thought.” That trope works really well when you’re talking about something objective, but its pretty much just a steaming load of horseshit when you’re talking about things that don’t involve numbers or absolute Truth (provided you believe such a thing even exists). Its comforting to believe that we can all sit down as rational beings and have a nice, reasoned discussion about all the issues of the day until we’ve come to an understanding. Its nice to believe that people who have an emotional response to an issue and don’t have the good sense to cover it up are hysterical (read: feminnized/irrational/illogical/unworthy). The problem is that sometimes words aren’t worth the breath.

What we’re talking about is a discussion of emotion. Its a discussion of subjective things. It is a discussion of who society will allow the term “family” to apply to. This isn’t something for careful thought, this isn’t something where impartial parties can hammer out a compromise over a nice cup of tea. On one side of the discussion are people who want that little girl (and hundreds of thousands of other family members like her) to be able to have what anyone else would have if their loved ones hadn’t had the audacity to love someone with the wrong genitals. On the other side are a horde of moralist bigots with a history of oppression, hate, and murder who think two men kissing is either gross or a violation of the laws of their (lets face it, wholly illogical) god. Fuck thought. Give me emotion and a goddamn book of matches.

It let me enter a UK postcode rather than a ZIP Code, so you might be able to.