Another blow to the bigots. Of course the only Mormon on the 9th Circuit Court (Judge N. Randy Smith) was also the only judge who wanted to grant the petition for rehearing en banc.
I guess Brother N. Randy Smith is going to have to answer some tough questions from his penishood leaders tonight.
I have a sacred duty to keep my covenants to obey, sacrifice, and consecrate for the Lord's Kingdom. I may have never been a great Mormon leader like so many of the great Stake Presidents. For example, ever heard of former Boston Massachusetts Stake President Willard M. Romney? I bear you my testimony that people like me and Brother R will put our temple covenants first and foremost in all that we do.
Aging alone would kill it as the those that voted for it die off and younger people who are much more tolerant of gays become voters.
My children have friends with two moms, babysit for families with two moms, cat sit for a gay friend when he's out of town, etc. They couldn't imagine singling them out for lesser rights even though they are TBM (we are in an area that's less than 2% Mormon), since gays are a regular part of their community.
It's dead in the water either right now or in the immediate future.
and are missing the reality of whole new generations that are far more reactionary than their grandparents were. I know, and knew, a lot of older-generation people who were thrilled to see something like marriage equality happen: for them it signaled a continuation and furtherance of the civil rights principles they fought for in the 1950s and 1960s.
Then the NeoCons came along and introduced this ultra-religious right-wing knee-jerk conservatism, just one or two small steps short of McCarthyism in some ways, which we have been battling against since the early 1990s.
Make no mistake: there are an awful lot of young, religious, reactionary social conservatives out there that are fighting this harder than anyone has fought anything since Sheriff Clark fought the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches. And they aren't all Mormons, either.
Thank ZUZU (a French TBMs replacement for "Thank God") we don't have to sit through months/years of evaluation again with an en banc panel.
A couple of possible scenarios now come to mind:
SCOTUS refuses the case - California will again have marriage equality for same sex couples. Hooray for California, but progress throughout the rest of the country will be slow.
SCOTUS hears the case - it'll likely happen in 2013. They might just hear it because it would be a historic decision.
- If the majority admits to themselves that marriage equality is inevitable in the US, they'll declare Prop H8 unconstitutional, setting a precedent for marriage equality for the rest of the country.
- If the majority "don't want" marriage equality for gays, they'll overturn the Ninth Circuit ruling for California, setting us back decades for what is (IMO) inevitable.
I guess the church itself will not lose a whole lot of money over this, eh? Weren't all or most the donations from lowly church members? And how is it that a Holy Prawfit of Gawd did not see this coming and make the proper adjustments?