I tell you what, when I heard this I was surprised. I mean it IS California we're talking about here. We're the crazy folks that have the most over turned appeals court in the nation after all! This is the state that's "leading the charge" on this subject and yet our politicians decide to not pass it? Craziness!

Seriously though, I'm glad it didn't go through. Now if we could only get sensable immigration stuff through I'd be happier.

Very suprised when I heard this too. Maybe the nuts in the Cal Assembly have finally decided to listen to the voters.

Gozer,

They may be crazy, but they ain't stupid...what the Donks fear is a dozen seats switching to the GOP in 2006...and they don't want to hand the CA GOP an easy club to smack 'em with...

This article points out the desperate need that the left has for activist judges. Their perverse agenda cannot get a simple majority vote in the most radical state in the nation because the legislators fear retribution from their constituents. So all they have left is fruitcake courts like the 9th Circus to pin their hopes upon. Hence the filibusters of nominees in the Senate. This story is not and should not shock anyone. it is totally consistent with realities associated with the left's attempts to implement their warped vision of the world.

any effort to impose gay marriage will only lead to a swift backlash resulting in a Constitutional amendment banning it, and that would be end-game.

I wouldn't go that far.

We're already seeing that backlash, what with almost a third of the states passing pro-traditional marriage ballot measures last November. Clearly, as you point out, the majority of Americans do not want sodomarriage.

But amending the Constitution is a different question altogether. One, it's just difficult to do, which is why it's only happened twenty-seven times in 216 years. Two, many people who oppose sodomarriage see the FMA as an "extreme" last resort that they'd rather not resort to. Which leads to three: I think most people, like with abortion, just don't want to be confronted with it, and would prefer that the whole controversy just go away one way or the other.

Actually, there is a four, distasteful as it is to have to point out: most Americans have gotten used to judges deciding such matters, up to and including de facto Amendments issued from the bench. Indeed, some may prefer it because that way they don't have to deal with all the nastiness and toe-curling visceralness of hashing such messy issues out themselves.

This, to belabor the filibuster point, is why there's such a premium on judicial appointments. And bear in mind that for your prediction (backquoted above) to be realized, the same Bill Frist who could only keep forty-eight members of his alleged majority caucus together on a matter of core party loyalty (which he didn't invoke in any case) would, to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment, have to not only hold his entire membership in line, but lure over a dozen Democrats as well.

If Fristy were a miracle-worker of that magnitude, he wouldn't be wasting such a gift on political parlor tricks - he'd be going to cemetaries and raising people from the dead.