🚀 go-pugleaf

Bob Cormack wrote:

> If Amendment 2 is upheld, then only heterosexuals would be protected
> by the law.  As a specific example (used by the city attorney, I believe):
> if a straight bartender was fired from a gay bar because of his
> sexual orientation, he could sue -- but the same relief would be denied
> to a gay bartender fired from a straight bar.  

	This is correct.

> Boulder's law does
> not give special priviledges to gays -- it sets out a universal right.
> When combined with Amendment 2, however, it gives special priviledges
> to straights, in clear violation of the equal rights clauses in the U.S.
> constitution.

	This is incorrect - a previous decision (although I
don't remember the name of the case) specifically said that
homosexuals, as a class, are ***not*** covered under the
14th Amendment.

> The idea that Amendment 2 only prohibits special rights is a smokescreen
> created by the amendment's creators -- it does not survive an actual
> reading of the amendment, which makes gays a special class -- one that
> it is OK to discriminate against.  In my opinion, many people were fooled
> by this line, and would probably vote differently today.

	Sadly, a poll taken about a year after the
vote still showed that CO:2 would pass.  I'm not aware of any
*recent* polls, so if you have that information, I'd be very
interested in the details.

> I find it hard to believe that the Supreme Court (U.S.) will uphold it,
> especially given the hard line of questioning taken by several of the
> judges during the first hearings.

	Yes, but which judges constitute this "several"?

	Look, you KNOW that three judges will automatically
vote to uphold it, and two will vote to not uphold it.
That leaves four wild cards of which THREE must vote against it
for us to win.  So the odds are that we'll lose just from basal
prejudices of the Court itself.

	At the same time, we can look at recent SC rulings involving
the 9th Amendment (like the one from a couple of weeks ago).
Right now there is a VERY STRONG PUSH to move more power to the
states and out of the Federal government.  This is, in essence
what CO:2 is a test of in the eyes of the Court: Does a state have
the "right" to pass laws that might be more restrictive on
civil rights than the Federal government has as policy?  Using
the case from a couple of weeks ago on other policies, they voted
"yes". Since this decision will *also* have a bearing as a precident
for same-sex marriages and challenges to the new state laws which
attempt to work around Full Faith and Credit, whatever they decide
will have huge ramifications down the road.

	If they vote it down, then the issue of passing laws
forbidding laws that great equal rights on the basis of orientation
is dead.  Furthermore, it sets a strong precident that similar
laws forbidding the recognition of same-sex marriages will also
run into problems constitutationally.  

	If they uphold it, they open the doors to the other states
to pass copycat bills, with a Constitutional Seal of Approval.
This will also send a strong message that the rights of states
are more or less stronger than the power of the Federal gov't to
regulate them.   At the same time, they're covering their own
asses against attacks from the far right (remember that there
have already been grumbling noises suggesting that SC judges
be limited to 8-year terms (funny that choice of length) and
in general judges are seen by most people as "too liberal").

	On the face of it, CO:2 is a very bad law.  It creates
special rights for heterosexuals under the auspice of being a
"no special rights" law.  It seeks to control the status quo
of society by targeting the rights of a specific group of people.
It *should* fail constitutionality.  On the other hand, we're not
dealing with people who are 100% free from bias, despite the job
we've entrusted to them, and given the current climate, the history
of the SC on gay-rights issues (they've always decided AGAINST gay
rights), and the political repercussions of dismissing CO:2
(note that they're making their decision in the middle of a
very hot campaign), it's quite possible, even likely, that this
will be a repeat of Bowers v. Hardwick: we lose because they
don't have the guts to do the right thing.  And, like BvH,
someone will later on say "Oh, it didn't occur to me that THIS
would have been the result of that..." in his memoirs...

	I hope they make the correct decision and reject CO:2.
But since they DID choose to hear it (instead of leaving the
previous ruling intact) implied that they MIGHT uphold it from
the outset.  There simply IS no sure thing here.