I had a bad evening and night – nasty, nasty dreams about killing and animals and then woke about 04:30 feeling disgruntled and fragile. A cool shower and a walk later, I still can’t shake the miseries so I went online seeking comfort and found that U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker has said

Plaintiffs challenge Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Each challenge is independently meritorious, as Proposition 8 both unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation. (page 109, lines 12-17)

I am not giddy, but I definitely feel quite a bit more cheerful about the day. That was especially true when I read page 10, lines 5-22. This is a summary of the (Prop 8 ) proponents’ argument:

Proponents’ procreation argument, distilled to its essence, is as follows: the state has an interest in encouraging sexual activity between people of the opposite sex to occur in stable marriages because such sexual activity may lead to pregnancy and children, and the state has an interest in encouraging parents to raise children in stable households. Tr 3050:17-3051:10. The state therefore, the argument goes, has an interest in encouraging all opposite-sex sexual activity, whether responsible or irresponsible, procreative or otherwise, to occur within a stable marriage, as this encourages the development of a social norm that opposite-sex sexual activity should occur within marriage. Tr 3053:10-24. Entrenchment of this norm increases the probability that procreation will occur within a marital union. Because same sex couples’ sexual activity does not lead to procreation, according to proponents the state has no interest in encouraging their sexual activity to occur within a stable marriage. Thus, according to proponents, the state’s only interest is in opposite sex sexual activity.

Jeez. If the “state” is really interested in stable households for the purposes of (presumably) mentally and socially stable future citizens and taxpayers, then marriage between the opposite sex probably isn’t the way to go since marriages between persons of the opposite sex are somewhat unstable. In fact the CDC has a faststat that says that in 2009 the marriage rate was 7.1 per 1000 total population and the divorce rate was 3.5 based on the same population number. Proponents of Prop 8 might want to turn their energies to finding a better alternative than marriage if their interest is actually in life stability for future citizens. While they’re at it they might want to look into alternatives to religiously based bigotry.

The ruling is here.