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A footnote to the California same-sex marriage decision

Maybe you knew this, but I missed it until Becky pointed it out.

The dissent in the California same-sex marriage case was written by an out-of-the-closet lesbian judge, Carol Corrigan.

The author of the majority opinion, Chief Justice Ronald George, a Reagan appointee.

As Becky observes,

I think its great that the dissenting justice is a lesbian (and the Chief Justice ,who wrote the majority opinion, is a Republican, appointed by the Great Communicator himself).

What is so great about this is it illustrates how erroneous it is to label and pigeon hole people—and this is the way we have been in this divisive country for the past few years.

Not all Republicans are bigoted wingnuts.

And not all lesbians automatically subscribe to the “gay agenda” simply because of their sexual orientation.


Often we know this about people close enough to us locally that we can put faces to names, drink a beer with while watching our team lose a game, or bitch in the same line at the drug store.

Too often, however, we are willing to assume that people's online or on-air personas constitute the totality of their existence.

Comments

A similar "not what we expected moment" occurred when the Oregon Supreme Court overruled Multnomah County's decision to copycat San Francisco and issue marriage licenses. Justice Rives Kistler, who's gay, voted with the majority against the county's position. He has since been re-elected to a full term in a statewide race where his opponent tried to make his being a captive of gay rights interests an issue.

And just to put the last nail in that coffin, the voters have since elected Virginia Linder, a lesbian, the court as well- 2 of seven on the court. Kinda cool.

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