Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
That'll be tough to do. I haven't seen the actual opinion, but I did read the wiki article. If accurate, it seemed to indicate that the California Supreme Court said that gays were a suspect class, on the same level as race (the article incorrectly lumped race and gender together as a "suspect" class, which is wrong since gender is a semi-suspect class). What all of that means is that under California law, laws which discriminate against gays will be given strict scrutiny.
What all that means is that any sort of laws passed discriminating against gays will be unconstitutional in California. I'd be interested to know whether the California Supreme Court found that the protection here was in the U.S. Constitution or the California Constitution.
If anyone knows the citation for the case, hook me up.
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I found that interesting as well; the Supreme Court after
Lawrence seems to have kept the question open, on a federal level as to whether the scrutiny afforded to sexuality; I wonder if this decision will get people talking in other courts. I'm not suggesting it will open the door to a change on the federal level, but we'll see.
I didn't read the full 172 pages of the opinion (thanks for the post Mystic), but judging from the brief discussion I read, it seems that the statutory structure in CA made it easier for the court to rule the way it did.
I kind of wish I was still in Constitutional Law, as it would have made for an interesting classroom discussion (my professor talked about this issue quite a bit, and as a former clerk for Brennan, I'm sure he would have had some interesting viewpoints).
Hybrid Mode
