Opinion: In today’s pages: Proposition 8, Sonia Sotomayor and American dictionaries
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Two topics dominate today’s Opinion pages: the California Supreme Court’s validation of Proposition 8, and President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. The editorial board said the debate prompted by the Prop. 8 and the subsequent appeal has helped persuade lawmakers in other states to legalize gay marriage. The challenge for proponents in California, the board said, is to conduct a better campaign for legalization here:
Civil rights groups should be focusing their time and money on reaching out to moderate voters with information that quells misdirected fears. Contrary to what the pro-Proposition 8 ads implied, no religious group ever lost tax-exempt status over refusal to perform same-sex weddings; San Francisco students who attended their lesbian teacher’s wedding had the written endorsements of their parents; gay marriage will not be forced into the California schools curriculum; and faith-based adoption agencies will continue to operate.
Columnist Tim Rutten, meanwhile, focused on the ruling itself, calling the justices’ reasoning ‘intellectually and morally incoherent’:
So, if a majority of Californians voted to ‘carve out a narrow exception’ to California’s right to privacy and applied it only to Jews, would it be constitutionally acceptable? If Native Americans were accorded all the protections of the law by a ballot proposition, except the right to marry a non-Indian, would that be legal? This is social and moral nonsense.
Regarding Obama’s Supreme Court pick, the editorial board likened Sotomayor to 2005 nominee John Roberts (whom the board supported). Her point of view wouldn’t be confused with his, the board said, but she also fits ‘squarely within the tradition’ of nominees with excellent legal credentials and views that ‘fall within the mainstream.’ On the Op-Ed side of the fold, Rutgers University professor David Greenberg speculates that Obama’s choice of Sotomayor was so politically shrewd, it may have ‘checkmated’ conservative opponents. (Backing Greenberg’s thesis, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee all but ruled out a filibuster.)
Rounding out the pages, author David Wolman offers an entertaining history of American spelling rules. And readers weigh in on small cows, shrunken education budgets, reduced spending on military cargo planes and a life cut tragically short in Vernon.