Why care about Prop. 8?

The Reporter
http://www.thereporter.com/opinion/ci_12349574

Why should it matter to you if Proposition. 8 is upheld by the Supreme Court, especially if you aren't gay and you don't care about anyone who is gay? The bottom line: Are you part of any minority -- single mothers, people over 60, Mormons, children of alcoholics, truck drivers? If so, your legal rights could change if the California Supreme Court rules to uphold Proposition. 8.

Right now, Californians are supposed to be treated equally under the law, and there are equal protection laws that allow residents to fight discriminatory treatment when it happens. By upholding Proposition 8, the Supreme Court will make the new law of the land "equal protection by majority rule." If you are part of the majority, you get equal protection. If you aren't, you don't, whenever enough people vote away your right to be treated equally.

Just because this is starting with taking the right to marry away from same-sex couples, it need not end there. The majority could pass a law preventing people over 60 from driving. The majority could pass a law eliminating the recognition of Mormonism as a valid religion. The majority could pass a law that prevents nonwhite, unemployed people from buying alcohol. Whatever the majority of voters (50 percent plus one vote) want, the majority gets, and the rest of us will have no equal protection rights with which to fight the injustice.

How important are your equal protection rights? Are you ready to lose them?

Linda Waite