File this under "no one could have anticipated. "The sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to nullify the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters approved the ballot initiative that outlawed gay unions.
The Yes on 8 campaign filed a brief arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions.
"Proposition 8's brevity is matched by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions," reads the brief co-written by Pepperdine University law school dean Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.
Attorney General Jerry Brown has already stated that these marriages are unaffected by Proposition 8's passage. I wonder if this request (demand?) that the marriages be nullified will be seen by the Supreme Court as a bridge too far?
Along with revealing for the first time that they object to carving an exception for already-married couples - a position that puts the future of thousands of unions in jeopardy - it erts that the Supreme Court lacks the authority or historical precedent to throw out Proposition 8.
"For this court to rule otherwise would be to tear asunder a lavish body of jurisprudence," the court papers state. "That body of decisional law commands judges - as servants of the people - to bow to the will of those whom they serve - even if the substantive result of what people have wrought in constitution-amending is deemed unenlightened."
At first read, this strikes me as an attempt to make the judicial branch subservient to the will of the people and raises, albeit obliquely, the possibility of a recall of Supreme Court judges who do not so bow.
If only there had been an advertisement during the Prop 8 campaign that actually showed marriage licenses being taken away from same-sex couples.... Oh, wait, there was, and it was denounced by everyone in favor of Prop 8, who said that was not the point and that it would never happen.
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