Christine M. Flowers: Democracy's pesky contradictions

PEOPLE power.

You hear about it all the time.

"We the people . . ."

"The people, united, will never be defeated."

"A government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth."

President-elect Barack Obama showed what people can do when they pool their resources and create a wave of positive energy. I don't agree with the people's choice, but I can't ignore the effectiveness of the effort.

But people power is lightning in a bottle. You have to be careful about generating it because it can go rogue on you.

Just look at what happened in California the same week that the first black man was elected to the White House. Citizens of what is arguably the most liberal state in the nation voted to ban gay marriage after the state Supreme Court found in May that there was a fundamental right to same-sex nuptials buried in the state constitution.

Four robed men and women had decided they would speak for the people, and elevate those unions to the same level as traditional marriage. That didn't sit well with some of the 38 million people they purported to speak for.

And, Americans being Americans, they decided to put it to a vote. By 52 to 48 percent, gay marriage lost.

While that wasn't an overwhelming defeat, the symbolic significance of Proposition 8 was huge. It's one thing for Mormon Utah to ban gay marriage, quite another for a state that boasts the uber-tolerant denizens of Berkeley and San Fran and Hollywood to thumb its collective nose at what some consider the newest civil-rights crusade.

Even more interesting are the demographics. White Californians opposed the ban 51 to 49 percent. But nearly seven out of every 10 African-American voters supported it. (The GOP might want to start courting the minority vote that seems to be surprisingly traditional on hot-button social issues.)

So the people spoke, and everyone was happy that the process worked, right?

Not a chance. Within hours of Prop 8's passage, critics started screaming about discrimination and bigotry and all of those terrible things that happen when your side doesn't win.

Thousands of gay activists vowed to overturn the ban by converging on L.A. and San Francisco. At some of these demonstrations, the n-word was used, an obvious reference to the fact that 70 percent of black voters had supported the ban.

Singer Melissa Etheridge, a very out lesbian, decided that she's now a second-class citizen so she doesn't need to pay her state income tax (can't wait to see how that turns out).

And the New York Times, a "people power" champion during the presidential campaign, had an editorial saying "the immediate impact of Tuesday's rights shredding exercise is to underscore the danger of allowing the ballot box to be used to take away people's fundamental rights."

Interesting theory, but not entirely unexpected from a paper that believes judges can find fundamental rights in the Constitution even when they've got to use a crystal ball to do so.

But the Times and other social liberals didn't have a problem with another example of people power on the same ballot. On the same day that Californians approved the ban on gay marriage, they also rejected a measure that would have prohibited an abortion for a minor unless a parent or guardian had been notified. That initiative was rejected by the same percentage that passed Prop 8: 52 to 48. Again, not an overwhelming defeat. But the people spoke all the same.

SO, OF COURSE, there were editorials about how horrible it was that parents' fundamental right to have a say in the medical treatment of their minor children had been trampled at the ballot box, right?

Well, no. Most liberals were pleased by the outcome.

Which points out the contradiction of praising "democracy" only when you get the results you want. Eventually, it's the people who decide what our "fundamental rights" are, not the judges. Since we the people can change any constitution by amendment, we're the ones who get to determine what's "fundamental." Democracy gives us Barack Obama . . . and Prop 8.

Power to the people. *

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.