>Here is the ruling:
>
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF>
>Justice Baxter seems to share my concerns in his "concurring and dissenting opinion" which begins on page 128.
Thanks *very* much for that link. The dissenting argument is indeed compelling. I could be persuaded that the cause of proper division of powers is worth defending in a case where the civil union provisions provides all practical rights that are required for equality - barring the symbolic reframing of the word 'marriage' which would perhaps be more effective it were to evolve - as the judge said - in 'the marketplace of ideas'
Good stuff. And as long as that civil union is completely equal in whatever rights the state offers, it is a very good start.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
