The point is that they’re coming together in anti-government-by-initiative feeling. Whatever their convictions re: same-sex marriage, economic issues or the 2nd amendment, I’m hearing more and more often that direct democracy isn’t going to solve the problems.

I’m too far removed from California now to have anything specific or useful to offer. But I do know that things change, and sometimes we don’t realize how much they’ve changed until our horizon enlarges. Race relations are a perfect example. I won’t clutter your blog by expanding on that except to say that I grew up not seeing a black person until high school. After a rather naive few years in West Africa, I returned to the States to discover liberation theology and Black power movements had taken root. Shortly after, Steve Biko was killed while in detention, and events picked up steam.

Today, race is still an issue, but it’s astonishing how much change has taken place. I attended a wedding not long ago in deep East Texas – the wedding of a young black man and a lovely white woman. Every member of both families was there, and the friends came, and a bi-racial couple topped the cake. Twenty years ago, who knew?

Marie, I am optimistic — I think it comes from living with children, and watching them grow and change.

Litlove, That’s a wonderful formulation of the basic notion, which is that we should all be able to live in a world where “all choices, when they are loving and kind and community-enhancing will be accepted without second thought.”

Dear Cam, Your post raises such an important point — which is how can it be that California’s citizens have agreed that our constitution can be so easily changed? It takes a simple majority to do so, which is foolish in the extreme. (It’s also important to note that the California constitution cannot take away rights guaranteed by the federal constitution, but that leaves a lot of room for ridiculous laws, which have increasingly made it difficult for the legislature to act in a fiscally responsible way.) The court notes this in its opinion. But it cannot remedy this problem — only the citizens can. And maybe they will. Stranger things have been known to happen in our Great State.

Genie — I agree with you. I almost always vote no on the propositions, a vote that doesn’t feel particularly well-informed. That’s what legislators are for. I don’t want to decide how much money we should spend on our infrastructure — I want them to.

I agree that courts alone can’t bring about social change, but I do think that court rulings do have a significant impact. Yes, social change takes a long time, and it is sometimes through one’s growing into change, that moves people hearts and minds and acceptance of that which they don’t know, understand or find “different”. But sometimes, court rulings, by bringing about changes, can push that change along. I’m not suggesting that the judicial body make the rules — I don’t buy into that crap of the right about labeling any judge one disagrees with as an “activist judge” — but by judging what is fair according to constitutional principles, help us to see that our behavior founded on unfamiliarity, on fear, or some other emotional basis, is wrong and adjusts attitudes over time. It sounds sort of stupid to say that some people won’t find gay marriage right until they find that it is right through they’re own experience, but I think that is the case — by exposure, one learns that which seemed different is not so much. Maybe we haven’t come as far as we should have since Brown v Board of Education, but where would we be without it?

I’ve gone on far too long for a comment, so I won’t even begin to write about my thoughts on whether governments should be sactioning marriage at all. Although married, I really don’t get what concern it is of the government’s. But, as long as the gov gives its official seal of approval, I don’t know how they can decide that it only applies to certain kinds of people.

I take heart in the fact that 18,000 couples were allowed to stay married…and in the fact that that sets up a completely unfair dichotomy that the courts are going to have to address.

And I would fully back a proposition ditching propositions. As a new voter in the state last year, I was utterly baffled by the entire proposition system…I felt like I’d studied so many of the issues and, yet, still needed to bring a cheat-sheet with me to the ballot box. That is ridiculous.