Prop 8 Decision and Obama

After the not surprising but still INFURIATING decision by the California Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8, I’m getting less okay about Obama and his silence regarding the rights of the taxing-paying voters who fucking put him in office.

I am at one point angry beyond words about Prop 8 and Obama’s cowardice to stand up for equality, and really happy about the appointment of a progressive nominee to the Supreme Court. Santomayor will probably make more of a difference in regards to equality in the long run…

However, this part of a New York Times article struck me in regards to Obama’s possible thinking on the courts and it’s ties to the idea of judicial, liberal “minimalism”:

It’s true that Obama has cited Chief Justice Earl Warren as a judicial ideal, emphasizing that Warren, a former governor of California, had a sensitive understanding of the real-world effects of Supreme Court decisions. But at the same time, Obama has suggested that liberals in the Warren Court mold may have placed too much trust in the courts and not enough in political activism. “I wondered,” he writes in his book “The Audacity of Hope,” alluding to Senate battles over George W. Bush’s court appointments, “if in our reliance on the courts to vindicate not only our rights but also our values, progressives had lost too much faith in democracy.”

Well, unfortunately, I don’t have much faith in democracy since laws like Prop 8 pass and the dozens of other state level anti-gay laws pass all the time.  Things are changing, but most only through court action.  But I guess now we can’t even really rely on the courts to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

from joe.my.god