> The system you are advocating is called "tyranny of the majority." It is widely held to have certain drawbacks.

It is also widely believed to be better than any of the terrible alternatives, a judicial oligarchy being one of them.

One person. One vote. Majority rule. It's a horribly flawed system. But it's the best humankind will ever do on our own. I needn't remind you of Mr. Churchill's ubiquitous quote.

> the average judge is smarter than the average voter

'Smart' has nothing to do with it. Morality and intelligence have a zero point zero correlation.

A judge's intelligence may grant him/her the ability to accurately predict 0.01% of the ramifications of a landmark court decision. For the average dumb voter, the value is around 0.003%. (Scientifically proven. ;)

Personally, I'm willing to forego the 0.007% 'predictive capacity bonus' to keep decision-making in the hands of the masses.

> Also, the "oligarchy" is not absolute; California voters confirm and end judges' appointments both through their elected representatives and directly.

And so your argument is that an oligarchy will be fine because the people that are 'too stupid to rule themselves' are on the selection/oversight committee?

> If they don't, no minority's rights will be safe.

If they do, nobody's rights will be safe, minority or otherwise.

> No one is going to force anyone to "celebrate the gay lifestyle"; only to respect the rights of their gay and lesbian fellow-citizens.

It will be a mandated celebration of the gay lifestyle.

Don't believe me? Come to my current home in Toronto, Canada, at the bottom of the slippery slope that doesn't exist.

You'll find such attractions as lobbyist pressures for 'minimum LGBT content' laws, kangaroo-court trials for 'hate crimes' stemming from actions such as condemning homosexuality in church, 'alternative lifestyle education' for children as young as 6/7 (grades 1 and 2), and more in-your-face gay bars, gay parades, gay protests, gay appreciation days, gay this, gay that than you can shake a stick at.

I kid you not when I say that (if the Canadian equivalent of the lobbyist engines you revere succeed in their goal), by this time next year I will be eligible for hate crime prosecution by posting this message to Mr. Fiore's site. Not a word of a lie. It's that bad here.

And so I say again: it will be a mandated celebration of the gay lifestyle.

> I would gain nothing from the defeat or overturn of Proposition 8 but the satisfaction of living in a more just society.

One that won't be around for much longer.

Regards,

COTO

Between the double-negatives, the sarcasm, and the twist ending, I think you're trying to say that the courts saved America from desegregation.

Only they didn't. The vast majority of African Americans, according to your own census department, are still concentrated in a handful of 'black-only' urban ghettos in cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The fruits of legal desegregation such as the racism-of-low-expectations 'affirmative action' have been instrumental in perpetuating racist beliefs and stoking the fires of racial tension.

Furthermore, you'll note that the courts have also sanctioned various 'resegregation' movements at the behest of African American lobbyist engines that insist "black kids" should be taught "black history" in school. Legal engines such as the NAACP have long been recognized breeding grounds for malcontent ideologues that leverage hatred into political power. Find me one sane person that thinks Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are positive examples of social change brought about by lobbyists, and I'll concede the argument.

Discrimination ends when the hearts and the minds of the people are moved not to discriminate, and not because the courts mandate it. And for religious conservatives, there is a tremendous difference between the issue of race and the issue of homosexuality. The Bible condemns homosexuality as it condemns racism. C.M. Siff was right to call open acceptance of homosexuality 'the harbinger of society's end'.

As for desegregation: I'm an engineer. If I designed and built a desegregation machine that functioned as poorly as the one engineered by the U.S. courts, I'd never be hired again. I'd probably be sued. By any objective standard, the machine is an abject failure. It was the hearts and minds of the U.S. democratic majority that elected Mr. Obama into the office of the President; the courts had nothing to do with it.

- COTO