Prop. 8 Mania!

Just a quick comment in a desperate attempt to keep at least some content flowing here...sigh...

When the ruling came down today declaring California's Proposition 8 -- the ban on same-sex marriages in the state -- unconstitutional, there was, as you might expect, great joy on my Twitter timeline. Some flat-out declared Prop 8 to be dead. Well, it's not. It's not dead until the U.S. Supreme Court kills it, and there's no real guarantee of that. The court's ideologically split. People can guess all they want and read the tea leaves and so on, but until the court rules there's no real way to know how it will go. It'll be a 5-4 vote either way.

Or will it? Check out this bit from the linked article:

But the appeals court did not address whether marriage was a fundamental right available to same-sex couples as well as heterosexuals, focusing instead specifically on Prop 8.
Some lawyers predicted that the narrow ruling would lead the Supreme Court to limit itself to deciding on the California measure or to refusing the case altogether.

So, in theory, the court could get rid of California's law but other states would still be free to enact or enforce similar laws, at least for a while? Hmmph.

Thus, I found some of the reaction today to be just a little over the top. Sure, it's good news, but let's not get carried away. After all, there are still lots of people eager to vote for Despicable Dick Santorum. (Speaking of whom, here are more links, just because we shouldn't forget this...)

Three Annoying People

Some comments on three people who are in the news today, at least locally, and for wildly different reasons. This is like that Keith Olbermann "Worst Person in the World" segment, back in the days when he was on television.

Annoying: Phillies pitcher Ryan Madson's wife Sarah doesn't like fans...

“I hate the fans. It is bad enough that they bother us during the season, but they will not leave us alone in December when we go out to eat. We stayed here during the off season last year, but we will be going to California this year. There must be something particularly bad about Phillies fans because all the players leave in the off season.”

I really don't want to unload on her much, especially since the comments came during an event she and her husband cohosted to raise funds for MANNA. And I don't like the idea of fans interrupting famous people at dinner. Wait until before or after, but not while they're eating. But it's her husband's success that helped the Phils ascend to the top, which raised fan interest even more, which led to all of those sold-out games at Citizens Bank Park, which gave the Phillies the revenue to pay Ryan Madson $12 million in a three-year deal that ends this season. (And whether players live here in the offseason means nothing, by the way.)

Annoying-er: Kobe Bryant called a referee a "fucking faggot" during the game last night.

13 Years Too Late, Arlen

So Arlen Specter lost in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate tonight. He switched from the Republican to the Democratic party in order to stay in office, and it didn't work. He lost the Democratic primary. It's a big political story nationwide, in part because he's been in the Senate for 30 years. It's an interesting story because I've always felt he should have switched parties long before he finally did.

On March 31, 1995, Specter announced that he was running for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1996 elections. According to Wikipedia:

He entered the race claiming his party needed a candidate who did not conform to the stereotypical religious conservative image. He was critical of Patrick J. Buchanan, Pat Robertson and Ralph E. Reed, Jr., saying all three were far too conservative. "Neither this nation nor this party can afford a Republican candidate so captive to the demands of the intolerant right that we end up re-electing a President of the incompetent left."

Before even one primary was held in 1996, Specter dropped out of the race. The Republican party, becoming increasingly controlled by the ultra-right, ultra-religious faction that now is more correctly referred to as the American Taliban, was never going to vote for Specter in the primaries, which tend to draw out the more hard-line voter than the general elections.