Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, so take this as analysis from an educated lay-person with a limited attention span. On Thursday, morning we tuned in to watch the three hour oral arguments at the CA Supreme Court to repeal prop 8. Boy was it fun. Four lawyers stood on our side to argue that prop 8 was a revision as opposed an amendment and thus should have gone through the legislature before reaching the voters. You see (as I put on glasses and a tweed jacket), last year the court ruled that gays and lesbians are part of a suspect class. It sounds bad but it really isn’t. Members of a suspect class are historically discriminated against and subject to minority protections including strict scrutiny when it comes to the Equal Protection Clause (which is in the Constitution). Proposition 8 violates or revises the Constitution to exclude us, a suspect class, from a specific right that should be protected under the Equal Protection Clause. It flies in the face of the Constitution. The first lawyer, Shannon Minter of NCLR got hit hard and early with tough questions from the bench. Minter argued that an amendment has to be, “consistent with the existing purposes and principles of the Constitution.” Obviously prop 8 is not.