Now for the good news...

On the heels of this Warren debacle, the silver lining is, of course, that the Attorney General of California Jerry Brown has come out against Prop 8 and is taking the proposition to the Supreme Court. He had said he would uphold the proposition in court (even though he personally opposed it), but has unexpectedly changed his tune:

In a surprise move, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to invalidate Proposition 8. He said the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage "deprives people of the right to marry, an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution."

[...]

n his brief to the high court, Brown noted that the California Constitution says that "all people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights," which include a right to "privacy."

The courts have previously said the right of a person to marry is protected as one of those inalienable rights, Brown wrote. The question at the center of the gay marriage cases, he told the justices, "is whether rights secured under the state Constitution's safeguard of liberty as an 'inalienable' right may intentionally be withdrawn from a class of persons by an initiative amendment." That, he concluded, should not be allowed.

Although voters are allowed to amend other parts of the Constitution by majority vote, to use the ballot box to take away an "inalienable" right would establish a "tyranny of the majority," which the Constitution was designed, in part, to prevent, he wrote. "For we are talking, necessarily, about rights of individuals or groups against the larger community, and against the majority -- even an overwhelming majority -- of the society as a whole."

(For a more in-depth analysis of the Brown's brief, including its possible problems, check out Feminist Law Professors.)