Aaron Worthing at Patterico pulls some of the sillier aspects of the anti-Proposition 8 brief. (That’s the side that wants gay marriage)
Shockingly, much of it is complete nonsense. I mean, a liberal cause relying on emotion not facts – what are the chances?
So do they? Well, here once again they assure us that this has been decided:
Indeed, the California Supreme Court has authoritatively determined that initiative proponents lack standing to represent the State’s interests and are “in a position no different from that of any other member of the public.” In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384, 406 (Cal. 2008).
Oh, they decided it already. Well, then I guess we should just give up then and… oh wait a minute, they didn’t. If you find the quote in In re Marriage Cases, you find that they are not talking about the proponents, but a fund. And if you investigate the lower court case it comes from, the fund they billed itself not a the proponents of the measure but merely voters, stating the fund “represents over 15,000 residents and taxpayers of California who supported and continue to support Proposition 22[.]“ They weren’t the official proponents, they were just voters and supporters. So in fact this decision doesn’t actually bear on the issue at all.
Another example of the silliness of the anti-prop-8 brief comes when Olson and company complain that proponents have “[c]it[ed] a slew of dictionaries and articles … written by authors who never testified at trial[.]” Well, if one turned to Federal Rule of Evidence 803, involving exceptions to the hearsay rule you find both “statements of ancient documents” and “learned treatises” which can be considered exceptions to the rule against hearsay. Further, those specific rules say that the availability of the declarant is immaterial—as in, it doesn’t even matter if the author is ready, willing and able to testify, you are still not required to call the author of such documents in to testify in order to present it as evidence. So they are complaining the proponents doing what the rules allow.
Read the whole thing. Aaron points out that in theory, (and jest) acording to the breif, it’s currently as legal to kill gays in Calfornia as it is to kill the unborn.
Hm, several jokes come to mind, none printable!
Something should go here, maybe later. 