Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend because when it’s over the California Supreme Court will issue its ruling on Tuesday, May 26, at 10am pacific time on the constitutionality of Prop 8.
To understand the legal issues at hand and the questions being decided by the court, HRC’s Legal Director and Chief Legislative Counsel Lara Schwartz came up with this fantastic analogy:
Voters can make minor changes to the California constitution through initiatives. Major changes require a longer process.
It helps to think about this in terms of renovating your home. If you want to paint your house, you just go to the store and select a color, then paint. But if you want to add on to, structurally change, or even demolish your house, you need to get a permit, and typically the work gets done by a licensed professional. Why? Because when you’re dealing with the bearing walls and the structure, you need to take care with what you’re doing, or the whole thing can tumble down. And people can get hurt.
It’s the same with a constitution – through the initiative process, you can embellish and clarify, but you can’t move a bearing wall, not without a deliberative process.
The Human Rights Campaign's perspective on the news, issues and events affecting the every day lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people across the country.
![HRC-BACKSTORY [BLOG]](http://174.121.110.138/~hrcorg/hrcbackstory/images/logo/hrc-backstory.jpg){kind=logo}
Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend because when it’s over the California Supreme Court will issue its ruling on Tuesday, May 26, at 10am pacific time on the constitutionality of Prop 8.
