An amusing point about a not so amusing issue: Prop 8

I did a Google search to see if the California Catholic bishop filed an amicus brief with the court that handled the recent Prop 8 case.

If they didn’t, by the way, it would be nice to know why. But I digress.

When I did the search this is what I found.

Anyone see anything odd about this?  Click for another view!

It looks as if enemies of the Church’s position and message are targeting Catholic sites.

With a friend I went over the transcript of the opening arguments for this Prop 8 thing.

The State of California’s AG didn’t want to defend Prop 8.  (Were the California voters betrayed by their own state government?  It was the law of the state, after all.)

But whoever those groups were who did try to defend it didn’t bring the A-Team that day.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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18 Comments

  1. revs96 says:

    ROFL!

  2. PeterK says:

    you expected Jerry “governor moonbeam” brown to defend Prop 8? just goes to show that the prog/lib AG’s are only out for themselves and the laws they believe in.

  3. JohnMa says:

    Father,

    You can not file an amicus brief in a trial court. The bishops could have intervened in the case and then been able to file a memo supporting their position; however, according to Westlaw they did not do so.

    As an aside, the word Catholic appears 9 times in the judge’s decision.

  4. Jordanes says:

    With the State of California intentionally derelict in their duty, a less-than-impressive defense, and a biased homosexual judge, the ruling couldn’t have been otherwise.

  5. mibethda says:

    According to Google, a user has reported – and Google has determined as a result of several visits of its own – that malware may be downloaded to anyone visiting the California Catholic Conference website. On its information page, Google suggests that a third party may have been responsible. It also appears that another related website – Catholic Lobby Day – also carries this warning. Perhaps those who are at odds with the Conference’s position are attempting to quarantine their message. The question is who.

  6. JohnMa says:

    Disqualifying the judge because of his sexual orientation would lead us down a very slippery slope that I don’t think we want to go down. For example, there was a case where a defendant tried to get the judge disqualified based on his religious beliefs. I really don’t think it is a good idea to go down that path.

    (The case about the judge refusing to disqualify himself based on his religion can be found at http://tinyurl.com/38ber38 )

  7. Robert of Rome says:

    Allow me to pick up on Jordanes’ reference to the “less-than-impressive defense.” It appears to have been worse than that. Anyone reading the transcripts of the trial will be able to see how badly the defendants’ legal counsel bungled this case. Let us hope and pray that, in their appeals of this decision, Proposition 8 supporters will get legal counsel that is much more qualified and prepared.

  8. Jack Hughes says:

    Oh for a country to be ruled by the laws of God again

  9. AnAmericanMother says:

    JohnMa,

    I wouldn’t be inclined to disqualify any judge based merely on his sexual orientation, but two points occur to me.

    1. Sexual orientation is not a religion, even though for some it seems to have become their religion it is not factually so.

    2. If the judge has been active in pro-homosexual campaigns, marches, etc., that would be quite another story.

  10. MarvinDante33 says:

    My understanding is that not only is the judge openly gay, but he has also been publicly active re: pro-gay political issues. Recusal would have been the option I chose, had it been me. That he chose instead to hear the case gives the impression of impropriety and tends to further tarnish the image of the legal system.

  11. AnAmericanMother says:

    Well then.

    The local standard here is “extrajudicial conduct or statements, which demonstrate either bias in favor of any adverse party, or prejudice toward the moving party in particular, or a systematic pattern of prejudicial conduct toward persons similarly situated to the moving party, which would influence the judge and impede or prevent impartiality in that action.”

    Being publicly active in pro-gay political issues would seem to me to demonstrate bias in favor of an adverse party, since normalization of ‘gay marriage’ has been the major issue in most such organizations for some time now.

  12. Sandy says:

    YES, we were betrayed, Father! I worry about the future of this state. I heard some years back, that some bishops had consecrated the state to the Blessed Mother. Something better happen quickly! The devil must work overtime since there are such Catholic roots here – look at the names of so many of the cities, the Missions, etc.

  13. Carolina Geo says:

    Sandy: the devil does not work overtime in California, nor does he work there at all. He has plenty of people doing his work for him there instead.

  14. TJerome says:

    Jerry Brown, was a Jesuit seminarian, and is another fake Catholic, associated with the Party of Death aka the Democratic Party. Surely you don’t think he would do anything in support of Catholic doctrine do you?

  15. robtbrown says:

    Jerry Brown, was a Jesuit seminarian, and is another fake Catholic, associated with the Party of Death aka the Democratic Party. Surely you don’t think he would do anything in support of Catholic doctrine do you?
    Comment by TJerome

    He was in the Jesuit novitiate for a year or so but left. He never began philosophical studies, much less theological.

    BTW, those in religious orders are not called seminarians. They’re either novices or scholastics (who are in studies).

  16. rcesq2 says:

    The CCC was invited to submit an amicus brief, but declined, because it is CCC policy not to file such briefs in trial court. This is perhaps unfortunate, because the trial record is what goes up on appeal and it cannot be augmented with additional or different factual evidence. From what I discerned at the time of trial, the defendants did not put on a compelling case in favor of heterosexual marriage.

    It seemed that everyone was tiptoeing around stating outright that homosexual relationships are indeed “disordered” and not designed by nature to create families. The man-made same-sex “families” that exist, either through adoption or surrogacy or artificial insemination or in-vitro, lack one obvious feature: parents of opposite genders who are both directly related genetically to their offspring.

    The argument that adopted children do not a naturally occurring family make is of course entirely unacceptable socially, politically, and perhaps even morally. For instance, the CCC faced a significant roadblock in arguing against same-sex “families” as an acceptable social construct (were the bishops so inclined to argue) because the CCC has accepted domestic partnership, with all the rights of parenting through adoption that entails, as a legitimate relationship. Pointing out that no truly longtitudinal studies exist of the impact on children of same-sex parents and, thus, that “expert” testimony on that subject is not scientifically sound, is also anathema.

    This is turning more and more into a lost cause. The culture of developed and developing countries is starting to look like the last days of the Roman empire: effete and morally exhausted.

  17. TJerome says:

    robtbrown, you may be right about the time Brown spent in the seminary but I recall seeing a photograph of him in a Roman collar and looking like he was in his mid twenties.

  18. Bornacatholic says:

    But whoever those groups were who did try to defend it didn’t bring the A-Team that day.

    Dear. Fr. Z. California does not have an A Team. It has a Gay Team.

    I wouldn’t be inclined to disqualify any judge based merely on his sexual orientation, but two points occur to me.

    The fact he is a homosexual disqualifies his as a judge.

    Well, in any sane Culture it would.

    In American Culture, being homosexual is now a qualifying virtue, say nothing about a legally protected perversion.

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